Customer Reviews:
 A deal, and A-MAZING! December 27, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
When I first started looking for a digital camera, i was looking for only a few things. Resolution over 5 mp, charging dock, SD and SDHC compatible, and not a sony. After doing a little reasoning, I found that charging docks aren't all that practical. If I'm out hiking, or trail riding, and i want to take a picture, I want to be able to pop in batteries if I ever happen to find anything especially amazing. I started out looking at a few fuji's, while, they did have better options and higher resolution, the cameras themselves, for the most part, were bigger and oddly shaped, and in my opinion, a little over priced. I started using the little Lumix in a local store, and found it had a lot of the options that made the higher end models easier to use. After the purchase, and taking it home and doing some more tinkering around with it, I was finding out just how amazing this little gem really was. It was taking pictures and showing things I'd never noticed before. I came to find out my pores needed cleansing, which is kind of gross, but the quality of the pictures were outstanding! I've never been more impressed with a digital camera, even after all of my searching. If you can scoop up one of these little gems for under 120 dollars, I'd definately say DO IT!
 Great little camera December 22, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Received in a timely manner. Camera works well, has decent battery life with AA rechargables. Pictures came out alittle dark, but need to play with the settings. This is our 3rd lumix, so we know their capabilities, but this particular model has a plastic body & feel i/o the usual metal body. The positive in that is much lighter weight. Easy to use, but not as intuitive as the TZ models which is more than twice the price and weight. For the price ($99), it is very good, especially for preteens & up.
Excellent camera better than expected. December 19, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I purchased the LZ8 after casually looking for a p&s for almost a year. After reading review after review of other brands I concluded most cameras were sufficient but I wanted a little more and especially wanted a manual mode.
I used to do professional work with film cameras so understand what makes a good camera. I am really pleased with the electronics in this little beauty. Those that complain about its performance in low light situations should perhaps get a better tripod. I have had no difficulty with low light and in fact, love the portrait feature at the night mode. It works perfectly every time.
I've had the camera 2 months now and use it almost every day. I very seldom print out photos so the 8 mp is more than adquate for posting photos on the internet. Often I use it with the 3 mp option with excellent results. The Leica lens is as good as I expected it to be and outshines my Fuji that cost almost 3X as much. The 5 X optical zoom is clean and bright even at the edges. Have used the camera taking aerial photos with some degree of success but one really needs a larger lens to get detail in aerial photos. Never the less, it does a more than adquate job if you don't need high detail photos. Keep in mind this is a low cost camera. It has facial recognition, stabliaztion plus the needed manual mode for apature and shutter speed over rides..
I think that most buyers of this camera would be very pleased with the results they will get with the automatic functions they will use most of the time. They work perfectly and you can take it out of the box and start shooting if you want. There is no learning curve. However if you want to study the instruction book you will get results like a pro just by learning a few of the techniques available on this camera. Most users will never take the time to learn about the advanced features and will just use the automatic function which will suit them just fine.
The only drawback was the lack of an optical viewfinder. While I would have liked to have seen an optical viewfinder, I did find that the LCD screen was bright even in the Arizona sun. Only on the rare occasion did I find the need to shade the viewfinder to frame my photo.
I should mention that after making the decison to purchase this camera I found it on sale at Big Lots for $88. So I bought 2 cameras and keep one in the car and have one at work a luxury for me since it provides me with a backup camera when I am traveling.
I have no doubt it will be outdated in a couple of years but even then, I will have a good camera that will suit my needs for many years to come.
Deegan Peter
 Very disappointed, returning it! December 14, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I bought this camera to take pictures at my sisters wedding. My sister-in-law has a Panasonic and has taken some really nice photos with it, so I thought I would buy one and try it. Was I ever disappointed. The time between taking the picture and when the screen comes back up is like 8 seconds. Not good when you are trying to take photos at a wedding. Also there were these little white spots on some of the pictures that I have since found out are dust spots. Also it takes forever to focus in a low light situation. The only good thing I can say about this camera is that it takes really good photos outside in good light. Detail is awesome. However that doesn't make up for what it doesn't do. I'm returning mine!!
Very pleased with camera - Warning on the special... December 11, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I think the camera is great, On full auto mode it takes great shots but it also allows manual control of aperture and shutter (most compacts in this price range don't do this). I turned off the flash and took some low light shots with long exposure that look great.
It does have a "fast focus" setting which I set the first time I set up the camera and it does not seem slow to me in normal mode, the flash mode does take 3 or 4 seconds to recharge.
Even the movie mode is surprisingly good, it outputs to MOV format which is Apples Quicktime (works on PCs too). I found a free converter called MediaCoder, that converts to AVI, WMA, MPEG and other formats. I used this to make the movie compatible with a digital picture frame, works nicely.
I highly recommend the camera, and other gear I bought below but notice my warning about the shipping charge from EEK.
I ordered two of everything below, one set each for me and my daughter.
LZ8 cameras, I took the special deal (the camera with a 4GB & 8GB card).
The 4 and 8 GB cards come from EEK Technology.
Four packs of eneloops AAs with charger (nice charger)
Transcend 16GB SDHC CARD (SD 2.0 SPD CLASS 6) with Compact Card Reader, comes from Cameta Camera
I ordered all with standard ground shipping.
The cameras and the batteries (largest items) shipped from Amazon for $8.53, I got em in 3 days.
The 16gb cards and card readers shipped from Cameta Camera for 12.48, took four or five days.
The 4 and 8 GB cards that come from EEK Technology cost 18.96 (remember this is two 4s and two 8s so a great price on the special)
But they make up for it on the shipping, for this 18.96 order it cost me $23.90 for shipping and handing. Order was placed 11/30 still have not seen them.
For anyone not familiar with eneloop batteries, they are rechargeable NI-MH but have the advantage of a very slow discharge rate - They claim if you charge them and they sit for a year they should retain 85% of their charge. - What it means to me...if they sit for a month or two after charging they should still be good as opposed to regular NI-MHs which I would want to re-charge.
As a 54 year old man that has kept up on computers and other tech related items I must confess I am amazed at what $100 will buy these days when it comes to these new little cameras..amazing stuff.
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