Does Panasonic’s budget point and shoot match up with Canon and Nikon?
Panasonic has made some decent inrows in the compact camera market, offering some quality items for a decent price. It seems that they’ve got quite the deal with the Lumic DMC-LZ10, which is a steal for its price of $200. Here’s what Digital Camera Review had to say:
CONCLUSION
As we’ve seen across the entire range of Panasonic cameras, each generation of cameras in the Lumix lineup seems to provide clear improvements in resolution, screen quality, lens range, and image processing, all while keeping these upgrades within the same MSRP as the previous generation. At a street price of $200 or less, the LZ10 provides the performance and capability of a much more expensive camera. With its nice 30mm wide angle lens, 10 megapixel resolution and range of controls, the LZ10 really does come close to being a budget version of the popular Lumix DMC-LX2. However, edge softness in the photos, slower-than-expected autofocus, and sub-par flash images made this camera fall short of my expectations.
The final word in my mind is that while the LZ10 outperforms many other cameras in the same price range, it isn’t perfect. Most consumers are likely to find the cheaper Canon PowerShot A590 IS or the slightly more expensive Nikon Coolpix P5100 to be more appealing choices. Still, the LZ10 is a solid little camera with a great deal of photographic potential.
Pros:
- Wide-angle range more than most
- Full range of manual controls
- Good color, minimal processing
- Excellent ISO performance (in its class)
- Customizable noise reduction settings
- Lens suffers from varying degrees of edge softness
- Focus speed a little slower than expected
- Questionable flash pictures
- Strange color temperature changes with ISO increase
- Plastic grip pad isn’t comfortable
Depending on how much you want to spend and what kind of images you want, this might be a good purchase for you. If you need further details, head on over to Digital Camera Review.
