Hello. I am pondering my next digicam purchase, and whereas I was aiming toward the Panasonic model noted, I took a look at that Olympus model with it's offerings. Aside from the price and basic megapixels, which would be best? Panasonic has OPTICAL stabilization whereas the Olympus has mere digital stabilization. Which after looking at would you recommend? As for optical zoom the Panasonic has 6x as opposed to 10x on the other model. Also, has anyone had good useage of their digital camera to take video? Thanks in advance. I have no experience with either of these cameras, so if anyone comes along who knows what they are talking about, take their advice over mine. I'm just looking at specs and a review. The Panasonic is so new, I do not see a review yet.
The Olympus appears to have it over the Panasonic in pretty much everything. First of all, as you point out, it has a 10x optical zoom. The glass is bigger than that found on the Panasonic and the aperture loss does not suffer as much as you zoom out. If what I am reading is correct, even at 380mm, the Olympus is about a full stop faster than the Panasonic is at 222mm.
The Olympus also offers these things which the Panasonic does not:
- Actual viewfinder - this is a HUGE advantage, even though the jerkiness of an electronic viewfinder can kind of bug you after a while
- Manual focus
- Closer macro range by 2 cm
- 1 additional white balance pre-set
- 3 meter patterns (including spot) vs. only one averaging meter pattern
- User control over aperture or shutter speed
- 3 quality levels instead of 2 (might matter...)
- 4 "AA" batteries for longer battery life and faster flash recycling
Advantage for the Panasonic goes for:
- Slightly stronger flash
- Wider range of shutter speeds, although you can not control them
- Uses more commonly available SD memory cards instead of slower xD cards
I do not know anything about the digital stabilization. I see it listed on the sticker of the Olympus and Steve mentions it once, but then says nothing about it other than "it works."
I put a link to a review of the LZ5, which must be the predecessor of the LZ7. Happy, happy, joy, joy! Enjoy your new camera. :-) Report It
|
