[rajesh1868]

Originally Posted by Zenster

I'll pick it up next month most likely. Will keep you posted if anyone is interested.

im interested . Planning to get one around nov-dec

[comfortablynumb]

Originally Posted by Fillmore

Looking to buy a good digital camera. Have shortlisted the following. Would be going through the reviews, however any advice from anyone who has experience/owns any of the following would be much appreciated.

All the cameras that you've listed are good, but IMO, the Olympus SP-565UZ deal offers the most bang for the buck from your description above. Also, I prefer cameras that have a View Finder in addition to a LCD as it helps a lot while taking outdoor photos. If the camera has only a LCD, chances are, on a sunny day, you will end up seeing your own reflection in it, rather than the subject you are capturing. Only the Olympus model has this feature; the other 3 don't.

Note: I am an amateur user, not an advanced one; so my point of view is a camera layman's POV.

Cheers,
Vikram

[mav2000]

Eyes closed, Cannon.

[given2fly]

@ Fillmore.

Pick up the Olympus or Canon, in that order. You can ignore Sony H20 & stay away from Nikon Coolpix series as Nikon just can't seem to get it right. DPReview's compares the Canon and Oly only with Panasonic TZ7 and TZ comes on top. So if you can get it within your budget, I will vote for TZ7.

Happy Shopping! :-)

PS: some deciding factor for you

'Compact Super Zoom' Camera Group Test (Q2 2009) Review: 16. Conclusions and ratings: Digital Photography Review

Digital Cameras Side-by-Side, 4 cameras: Digital Photography Review

[breezydrive]

Originally Posted by given2fly

...
DPReview's compares the Canon and Oly only with Panasonic TZ7 and TZ comes on top. So if you can get it within your budget, I will vote for TZ7.

Happy Shopping! :-)

PS: some deciding factor for you

'Compact Super Zoom' Camera Group Test (Q2 2009) Review: 16. Conclusions and ratings: Digital Photography Review

Digital Cameras Side-by-Side, 4 cameras: Digital Photography Review

I was looking for a compact camera with good video capabilities, so bought a TZ7 last month.
Overall, an excellent camera!

[hrishig]

Originally Posted by breezydrive

I was looking for a compact camera with good video capabilities, so bought a TZ7 last month.
Overall, an excellent camera!

So from where did you buy and for how much?

Can we put bulk order for TZ7 from some good site as I am also looking for the same

[chevelle]

Originally Posted by given2fly

@ Fillmore.

Pick up the Olympus or Canon, in that order. You can ignore Sony H20 & stay away from Nikon Coolpix series as Nikon just can't seem to get it right. DPReview's compares the Canon and Oly only with Panasonic TZ7 and TZ comes on top. So if you can get it within your budget, I will vote for TZ7.

Happy Shopping! :-)

PS: some deciding factor for you

'Compact Super Zoom' Camera Group Test (Q2 2009) Review: 16. Conclusions and ratings: Digital Photography Review

Digital Cameras Side-by-Side, 4 cameras: Digital Photography Review

@given2fly,

your both the links says H20 from Sony is better than others (user opinions). so why have you wrote to ignore it? any specific reason?

i am planning to pick one myself that's why the question.

Originally Posted by Zenster

Since you mentioned that reseller ratings site is reliable (Panasonic 12.1MP DMC-FZ35K Digital Camera - Black: Compare Prices, View Price History and Read Reviews at NexTag), would buying from someone like '42ndStreetPhoto' or 'BEACHCAMERA' or 'BUYDIGG' ok ? Any info on trusted online dealer with good rates will be helpful.

Hey just wanted to let you know that i have bought two cameras each from beachcamera and buydigg. and both are very reliable.

i bought sony w80 from beachcamera and sony h50 from buydig. and they are very very reliable. trust me on that one. i too was a bit worried about ordering from them, but on base of review i decide to take the plunge. and they didn't disappointed.

if you are getting a good deal, i would say go ahead and order it.

p.s: i order from CA, US. it was shipped the next day after payment and got in 3-4 days.

best of luck picking up your camera.
__________________

[inder_s1]

I have been using Sony since 2001 and never got disappointed w.r.t clarity and detail in the pictures. I suggest sony anyday.

Also, If I were you

1. I would pick a camera with built re-chargeable battery in the camera. These camera's are power hogging, so either you need keep Duracell's ready or Keep battery charged which I think is a unnecessary waste of time.

2. A bigger lens

3. Don't just go for higher mega pixels, I think 5 MP is more than enough for everyday shooting or even professional shots. The more the MP the size of file is bigger as the resolution is more.


NOTE: Am not a professional photographer.Suggestions are merely from my experience as a novice photographer.

[robimahanta]

@filmore: You can choose between the sony or the olympus given the options. I would go for the Sony H20 though as its lighter,has better shutter speed control options, has a hdmi port (as it has 720p 30 fps video rec), slightly bigger LCD, faster continuous drive and above all more service centres across India.

As for the Olympus, sure you get a better zoom and an electronic viewfinder but at 20X zoom, picture quality is poor and the electronic view finder is a farce..I've used a 570UZ (feels like a wannabe DSLR..though its nothing like a dslr)

[chevelle]

Originally Posted by robimahanta

@filmore: You can choose between the sony or the olympus given the options. I would go for the Sony H20 though as its lighter,has better shutter speed control options, has a hdmi port (as it has 720p 30 fps video rec), slightly bigger LCD, faster continuous drive and above all more service centres across India.

As for the Olympus, sure you get a better zoom and an electronic viewfinder but at 20X zoom, picture quality is poor and the electronic view finder is a farce..I've used a 570UZ (feels like a wannabe DSLR..though its nothing like a dslr)

+1 to that,

i felt sony h20 is much faster(shutter speed) than its opponents. and having used sony cameras, i feel the quality of picture in compact and ultrazoom camera is much better than nikon, olympus and canon. can't say about panasonic as haven't used one. also the indoor pics and night pic of sony somehow comes out better compared to canon sx120is.

note: i spend around 1:10 hours at bestbuy comparing many similar cameras.

that's why given2fly's opinion had me worried. so i would like to hear from him

[Fillmore]

Originally Posted by given2fly

PS: some deciding factor for you

'Compact Super Zoom' Camera Group Test (Q2 2009) Review: 16. Conclusions and ratings: Digital Photography Review

Digital Cameras Side-by-Side, 4 cameras: Digital Photography Review

Hi given2fly,
The side by side comparison was very useful ..

thanks everyone for your inputs .. yet to finalize ..
Initially Sony was not on my radar .. but looking at the ratings and reviews I'm beginning to change my mind ...

-Fillmore

[given2fly]

Originally Posted by Fillmore

Hi given2fly,
The side by side comparison was very useful ..

thanks everyone for your inputs .. yet to finalize ..
Initially Sony was not on my radar .. but looking at the ratings and reviews I'm beginning to change my mind ...

-Fillmore

The first and most imp criteria (if all others are equal, hypothetically) is range of the lens.

Sony H20 - 38-380
Panasonic - 25-300

From my own personal use, you will not use the far range as much as the near range, and each time you will click with H20 and feel wish I could have gone a bit wider (Bigger coverage area), you will feel that I should have gotten the Panny. 25 vs 38 starting range is A LOT. For that reason alone, you could just go ahead and discount Sony.

Beside that, Panasonic ZS3 is the new model name of TZ3. Even though Sony H20 is showing about 4.5 compared to 4.2 something of TZ7, the previous shootout, which I'm unable to find on DPreview, shows that TZ7 picture quality was better than Canon SX10 and H20 & 550Z/560z/565z (one of them, not all). Nikon was the last in that shootout with their 9 MP or whatever they had & it is a consistent quality with Nikon Coolpix throughout the range.

On a different plane, talking about picture quality, Sony tends to sharpen or saturate colors excessively. It is a trait common in all cybershot serious and something that I've seen not consistently found in Oly, Pana & Canon. Panasonic gets you the most neutral picture of all, with Oly and Canon following closely. Also as you go about using higher ISO, things quickly start getting worse with Sony and Nikon.

As for video, TZ7 records HD video with Stereo sound and I'm not sure if H20 does that.

Beside that, TZ7 and others will take in both SD and MMC memory while Sony is MMC only, which is more expensive. Add that to cost.

And last, something out of the review,

Video Recording


Panasonic DMC-ZS3

The DMC-ZS3 offers movie capture up to HD resolution (1280 x 720 pixels, 16:9 format) at 30 frames per second or 60fps in AVCDH Lite format (for playback on HD television sets). Like on the ZS1 you can use the optical zoom but you'll have the same zoom and AF speed issues. The ZS3 uses QuickTime MJPEG (.mov) format too and burns approximately 3.7 MB/sec. at the highest quality settings. The maximum movie file size is 2GB.


Panasonic officially markets the ZS3 as a Hybrid camera and so it's not a surprise that the ZS3 offers the best specced video mode in this group test. It is the first digital stills camera to offer AVCHD Lite video recording, a video format that is better known in the world of camcorders and is ideal for direct output onto HD TV sets via the built-in HDMI interface (or for importing and editing with video software, note: In the specification Panasonic lists the ZS3's maximum AVCDH frame rate as 60fps which is slightly misleading in so far that the camera records 30fps and then doubles each frame in order to achieve 60fps at output).


For playback on a PC there is the usual 720p HD mode and it does a very good job on the ZS3. The image is clear and only very few artifacts are visible. The camera has a built-in stereo microphone which results in a noticeably clearer and more 'dynamic' sound recording. Background noise can be reduced with the wind-cutter function.


Again you can zoom, with the lens motor running more slowly in an attempt to avoid adding sound effects to your movies. The slowed-down zoom also gives the focus more time to adjust as the focal length changes. It's not perfect but it's a nice feature to have.

Sony Cyber-shot H20

The Sony H20 is one of four cameras in this comparison that offer 720p HD video (1280 x 720 pixels, 16:9 format). The optical zoom works during movie recording but again is slower than in still image mode. Having said that zoom and AF in movie mode appear to working very slightly quicker than on the competition in this test. The H20 uses the MP4 video format and writes approximately 1.0MB per recorded second on the memory card. The maximum recording time is 29 minutes.
The Sony offers very detailed and clean output at its highest quality video setting but we had some minor focus hunting issues, even when not using the optical zoom. Sound quality is decent too but cannot match the ZS3's stereo output.

Final Words

Looking at the rankings above the Panasonic twins ZS1 and ZS3 emerge as the obvious choice for general use, offering an extremely versatile 12x zoom range from proper wide-angle to 300mm equivalent and good all-around performance and image quality.



The Sony H20 is more or less on par from an image quality point of view but offers, due to its non-existent wide-angle lens, much less versatility than the other cameras in this test and its user-interface is really designed for point-and-shoot operation only. If you're mainly working at the long end of the lens and don't usually tend to set parameters manually it should be very high up on your short list though.

Winners

The image quality of both cameras is up there with the very best in almost any shooting situations, be it bright daylight or low light conditions. As we've written throughout this review the gap between the best and worst is in terms of image quality is fairly narrow but the Panasonics have the slight edge over the competition at low ISOs producing images that are consistently sharp and detailed across the frame. At higher sensitivities none of the cameras in this comparison can cut the mustard but the ZS1 and 3 are simply not quite as bad as some of the competitors.

If I quote the real world comparison sections, I'll offend most Sony H20 owners. So it is not here. But you should go through those pages to see why they write Panasonic is just a bit above the rest. It may look like a Panasonic Advertorial but the fact is there.

PS : Sorry for the long post.

[chevelle]

Originally Posted by given2fly

The first and most imp criteria (if all others are equal, hypothetically) is range of the lens.

Sony H20 - 38-380
Panasonic - 25-300

From my own personal use, you will not use the far range as much as the near range, and each time you will click with H20 and feel wish I could have gone a bit wider (Bigger coverage area), you will feel that I should have gotten the Panny. 25 vs 38 starting range is A LOT. For that reason alone, you could just go ahead and discount Sony.

For me, wide angle doesn't really matter. but i would have liked Sony to offer from 30mm or 33mm. wonder why they went the whole hog for 38mm. but this ain't a deal breaker for me.

i guess, being a wide angled camera for your personal use(your opinion, completely honor it), is it going to be used indoor more? if yes, i think flash range plays an important role in this and thats where panny loses. as per dpreview, at auto ISO its 5.3 m and less during manual ISO while Sony has good flash range 7.1 m. how useful that is needs to be considered for same scenario.

also continuous mode in panny supports only 5 images with a 2.3fps which is very slow imho. this is another aspect where sony trumps panny with support for 100 images at 1.8fps.

also the performance of h20 is faster compared to panny. startup times, shutter speed, flash recycle times.

and i like the image quality of sony's more than panny's. we have different eyes, i find image from zs3 not too appealing.

also, the price difference is more between the two. h20 is going for about $220 while zs3 is going for around $310. which is like 100 bucks.

as regards to memory pro duo, they have now come to almost same price level as sd card. i got a sandisk 4gb memory pro duo card for $13 bucks, while sd goes for around $11.

i will be making another trip to store here for a brief comparo, hopefully will decide which one to opt for.

p.s: given2fly, just like you compared image quality, video and wide angle lens, i compared other useful factors which i will be needing and that's why this post. no hard feelings mate

[Zenster]

Hey Fellas, here is an update on the much anticipated Panny FZ35/38. Panasonic India site says its available in India. It was not there on the site till last week when i checked.

LUMIX DMC-FZ35 | Digital Camera | Digital AV | Products & Solutions | Panasonic Malaysia

Please keep us posted if anyone gets an idea on the pricing. I'll get back if i find anything.

[Gurudatta Nayak]

Originally Posted by Zenster

Hey Fellas, here is an update on the much anticipated Panny FZ35/38. Panasonic India site says its available in India. It was not there on the site till last week when i checked.

LUMIX DMC-FZ35 | Digital Camera | Digital AV | Products & Solutions | Panasonic Malaysia

Please keep us posted if anyone gets an idea on the pricing. I'll get back if i find anything.

It's a really good news!
I have finally zeroed down to Panasonic FZ35...I was tracing this product from quite a long time...

Zenster, Can you please confirm the exact Price for FZ35 in India?
Some dealer quoted me 22K Grey market with 1 year dealer warranty. When i asked them about the official price they told me its around 34990!