+ 1 likes

Pansonic DMC-FZ28K 10.1MP Digital Camera (Refurbished)-Pansonic DMC-FZ28K 10.1 Megapixel Digital Camera

...

so I will only say it's a ten star camera, five stars does not do it justice. Not everything is perfect for me. I wish I could "assign" video to the function button like I can with my Canon SD1000 and start shooting video instantly. It is somewhat inconvenient to turn the dial to video but not a big deal. The sound is OK on the video's but could be a little better. The joy stick controller is very easy to use and makes changing settings fast and easy. Everything works well on this camera and its all I could ever want, and as a photography hobbyist for over fifty years I like this camera better than anything I've ever owned. This camera has a multitude of useful features and it gets my highest recommendation.

+ 1 likes

Pansonic DMC-FZ28K 10.1MP Digital Camera (Refurbished)-Pansonic DMC-FZ28K 10.1 Megapixel Digital Camera

...

to lug around. The zoom, and the wide angle zoom, are both great! At the highest zoom there can be some fringing but it's minor. We have 5 dogs, a couple of which are camera shy. I needed a higher zoom to sneak pictures of them, and of course that has worked. I have been able to get pics of them on the boat as it's coming in without them noticing, out in the yard, etc. Picture quality for me, both inside and outside, has been great. 3 of my dogs, and my indoor cat, are black - yet you can see individual hair detail in the pictures. I will post some at some point.

There are several choices of scene selections. The menus and these selections took a little getting used to, but that's almost any camera when you change manufacturers. The iAuto setting is perfect as a point and shoot, and my (non-technical) husband has no problem picking it up and taking pics on the fly.

Battery life is great - because it's sporadic and I tend to leave the camera on I haven't checked how many pictures I can take on a battery. I did however order an extra but not the Panasonic brand. I tried the Lenmar and it has worked just fine with the camera.
Lenmar DLP006 Lithium-ion Digital Camera/Camcorder Battery Equivelent to the Panasonic CGR-S006A Battery

I am looking now at recommending another Panasonic, either this one or the TZ5, for a friend who needs a wider zoom to take house pictures of his work, needs something easy to use as he's new to digital, but doesn't have a ton of money to spend. I am impressed with Panasonic, and they have a new convert in me!

+ 1 likes

Pansonic DMC-FZ28K 10.1MP Digital Camera (Refurbished)-Pansonic DMC-FZ28K 10.1 Megapixel Digital Camera

...

SX10. I like both cameras but find myself grabbing the FZ28 most of the time. It's just handier.

+ 1 likes

Pansonic DMC-FZ28K 10.1MP Digital Camera (Refurbished)-Pansonic DMC-FZ28K 10.1 Megapixel Digital Camera

...

(For example, the next shot delay on my Nikon 8700 is at least twice as long, enough to make me miss a lot of shots.)

* If you are shooting JPEGs, you are at the mercy of your camera's built-in software, Most will smear details badly, especially when reducing noise at higher ISO settings, and some create a lot of color fringing in the process of over-sharpening. The new Panasonics and Canons start with better lenses than most and mis-process the JPEGs less than any others I have seen. I used to shoot RAW exclusively, but now I switch to JPEGs when I need to shoot quick sequences. Having both RAW and excellent JPEG options in the FZ28 is the best of both worlds.

* For ease of use the FZ28 is tops in its field. I tried all the contenders, and even though I was much more familiar with Nikon, Canon, and Olympus, the Panasonic had the simplest, most logical layout, menus, and controls and proved to be the easiest to learn and use. It's also one of the lightest (maybe THE lightest) in its class, making it very easy to carry everywhere.

* Part of ease of use is that when you are in a hurry to get a shot, you can pick a scene type or go full auto (IA) and just wing it and you will normally get results every bit as good as you can get by fiddling with the settings. I used all-manual 35mm and medium format cameras for 25 years, so admitting this is kind of hard, but damn, this camera is smart! One reason it is so good is that scene and face detection really work well. This means, for example, that when you are shooting in auto mode, the FZ28 focuses on the faces even if they are off-center. No more taking pictures of two people and finding that the AF or AE locked on a bush between and 30 feet behind them!

* It's one of the few cameras in its class that can take HD video. The video quality is excellent and AF and stabilization are effective in video mode. On the other hand, the sound quality drops off quickly with distance and file size is large, as you would expect for 1280x720@30fps.

* Good Mac-compatible image processing software is included free. The RAW converter is at least as good as Adobe's.

* Reliability: CU rates Panasonics best on frequency of repairs.

CONS:

* No PC connector or hot shoe for off-camera flash. (This is only a minor drawback, since you can get slave strobe units that can be triggered by the built-in flash.)

* No swing out LCD screen. This was almost a deal-breaker for me, and I still miss it. I find that I use the viewfinder all the time for shooting now, which means a bit more stretching and bending for high and low camera angles. Fortunately, the FZ28's viewfinder is bright and easy to use, even for us old trifocal wearers. Some P&S cameras have such awful viewfinders that you almost have to use the LCD, a big problem in bright light.


CONCLUSION

At the moment, the nearest competitor to the FZ28 is probably the Canon SX10 IS. The Canon has some advantages, notably a hot shoe, a great viewfinder, a swing-out LCD, and slightly sharper jpegs. On the down side, the Canon is MUCH bigger and heavier, almost the size of an SLR, its images have quite a bit of color fringing, the video is limited, the lens gets fairly dim (f/5.7, a full stop darker than the FZ28) at full telephoto, and it can't shoot RAW. (RAW requires post processing but generally produces better quality images.) If you don't care about those negatives, the Canon is a good choice. They are important to me, so the Panasonic was the hands-down winner for me, but you can make great pictures with either one. (If you need RAW, but can live with a very short 5x zoom, the Canon G10 is another decent alternative.)

For more info, see:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/Q109superzoomgroup/
http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Panasonic_Lumix_DMC_FZ28/
http://www.cameralabs.com/buyers_guide/superzooms_and_premium_compacts/best_high_end_compact_camera.shtml

You can also go to Flickr and search on camera names to find groups and check out images taken with different cameras. E.g.:
http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/?q=FZ28&m=text
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=FZ28&m=text
http://www.flickr.com/groups/793920@N24/


IF IT'S THAT GOOD, IS IT BETTER THAN A DSLR?

The key is, better for what? _IF_ you don't need to shoot in very low light, or shoot very rapidly for extended periods, or make 20"x30" prints, then yes, for the first time, we can say that the new top-end point&shoot cameras are better than a lower-end dSLR. There's a lot of snobbery about dSLRs, and there's no question that pros need to have them for several reasons, but if none of those special requirements apply to you, I would unhesitatingly go with the FZ28.

Of course, even a cheap dSLR, equipped with decent image stabilizing lenses to cover the same range of focal lengths, is going to cost at least 4 to 6 times as much as an FZ28. That's a lot to spend for status if you don'tt have to. And then there's another advantage of a high-end P&S over an SLR. Any camera with interchangeable lenses has a major weakness: dust on the imaging sensor. It can mess up an entire shoot without your knowing it. Non-SLRs like the FZ28 are sealed and don't have that problem.

Finally, remember this: THE CAMERA YOU HAVE WITH YOU WILL TAKE INFINITELY BETTER PICTURES THAN THE CAMERA YOU LEFT AT HOME! A dSLR with 2 or 3 big lenses and associated gear is just too heavy and too bulky to carry around with you everywhere. It's also too conspicuous and too expensive to risk in many places. For both of those reasons, the top end Canon and Panasonic superzooms are becoming the favorite everyday, walkaround cameras for a lot of pros as well as serious amateurs.

+ 1 likes

Pansonic DMC-FZ28K 10.1MP Digital Camera (Refurbished)-Pansonic DMC-FZ28K 10.1 Megapixel Digital Camera

...

job.
-The LCD is something I consider to be ancillary and wasn't a factor in choosing this camera, but, for those who are interested, it is big, bright and seems to perform well outdoors.
-I was afraid the joystick was going to be problematic for manual focus (as opposed to a focus ring, which this camera lacks), and that it would be difficult to use for fine adjustments, but that is not the case. It's very easy to use and the manual focus assist (enlarges a portion or all of the image to see detail) helps greatly.
-Battery life is good. It's rated for 400 pictures, and I know I took about that many the first time I used it on one charge, with no shortage of playing with the LCD for reviewing images and checking out menu features.

Cons:
-I find that the autofocus doesn't want to focus on things within a couple inches of the lens, even when spot AF is enabled on the item. The same is true of telephoto macro shots where the camera is near its minimum focal distance for that zoom. For these shots, I use the manual focus. Personally this isn't a bother, but I list it under cons as it may be for some. Interestingly, my old Nikon 4100 did a better much job of autofocusing for macro shots.
-As others have said, yes, the manual focus can be engaged accidentally, but personally I keep the display on and check my settings before taking a picture. I've done it and caught myself before it was a problem a couple times now.
-The camera body does feel as though a fumble to the floor would do it no favors. But, it's light, and ergonomic.
-The battery/card compartment is inaccessible when the camera is mounted on a tripod/tripod shoe.
-The raw image format is RW2, which if I remember correctly is a proprietary format designed for Panasonic's supplied software. I haven't shot any raw yet, so I'm not sure if my version of Adobe Camera Raw will support RW2, but I know that earlier versions won't. I'd suggest researching to see what, if any, versions of Camera Raw support RW2 before buying if that's a deal breaker for you. I also have not installed Panasonic's supplied software (If I can't use Camera Raw, I'm not interested in the feature).

Other things to note:
-It actually took me a few days to figure out the quick menu. I'd been using the joystick for navigation, but I knew was also supposed to serve as a quick menu and I was confused because nothing happened when I pressed it. Well, for some reason it took me that long to try holding the button down. It takes about a second holding to activate the quick menu, probably to prevent accidental button presses when using the joystick.
-So far I've found no use for the burst mode. My experience has been that if you want to catch a still of something happening quickly, the best way to do it is to record a video and then use the camera's review mode to snap a still from it. I have some shots of a 9mm casing ejecting from a semi-auto rifle that were done this way. The quality will never be great, but certainly it's enough to know what's going on.
-The shutter lag and repeat between shots are things people have reviewed both positively and negatively, but I find them both to be as expected in sufficient light. I wouldn't categorize them as either pros or cons.
-I never use the "intelligent auto" mode. Even for snapping pictures of family and friends. I prefer to use aperture priority mode with face detection if I want to snap a few casual images. I'm sure the IA mode has a use for some users, but my thinking is that for anyone vaguely camera-literate, its purpose is limited.

Having written this it seems like I spent more time talking about what could be wrong with the camera than with what's right with it, but that's because I wanted to address the things that might concern people. Plus, it's easier to list the things that are wrong with the camera than the things that are right with it - that list would be too long. It's a safe bet that if I've omitted something in this review it's because it landed in the pro side and I felt it would be a given.

To summarize, this is a great compact camera that gives the user significant control over his images. That being said, if you want the absolute best shots you can get in low light situations, a DSLR is the only way to go. Likewise, if you're a casual photographer and don't plan to use the manual settings, I would say there are other cameras that would be cheaper, more conveniently sized, perhaps easier to use and may even work better for what you want than this camera. But for people like me who want a significant amount of control over their images, and want to be able to photograph just about anything without carrying around a bag full of lenses and a bulky DSLR body, this is the camera for you.