List Price: $179.99
Sale Price: $159.99
Today's Bonus: 11% Off
I bought this for a family member who knows nothing about cameras or photography and who has no interest in learning more than just push the button. :) So, when shopping for a camera for her, my criteria was how good will it do on full auto. It needed to focus quickly and accurately and I wanted it to have reasonably nice image quality. I bought this and tested it out for a few days.
The focus is fast and accurate just as I was expecting on a Panasonic they usually have very good focus (accurate) on full auto in the point and shoot camera category. On the widest angle setting, outdoors, the picture quality is very nice. Once you start to zoom, picture quality is not the greatest but still OK. Macros are very good on this too. It's very easy to operate if you are a novice. You can set it on iA (intelligent auto) and the only buttons you have to operate are the shutter button (press half way down to focus; press the rest of the way down to take the picture) and the zoom toggle on the top of the camera.
I wasn't super happy that there was no dedicated movie button (it's in the menu) but I knew she would not likely use the movie function. I also knew that most of the photos she might take would be of her son and grandson, so mostly wide angle (better photo quality) would be fine for her and a little zoom on this still gets you a decent image in terms of quality. I liked the size and weight of this slim and light weight. I liked the size and shape of it so much that I almost bought one for myself but I prefer different features and better image quality when fully zoomed out.
Bottom line is she loves it and actually uses it! Before this, any camera was too complicated for her to even give it a try. This one is not intimidating. This camera has plenty of settings to try out too and I encourage you to try those (sports, portrait, landscape, etc) as you can often get even better results with those.
It was between this and Canon PowerShot ELPH 300 HS 12.1 MP CMOS Digital Camera with Full 1080p HD Video (Silver). I thought the Elph might actually be too small for her to be comfortable with AND you have to be willing to work the settings more to get the best photo. I find the full auto on the Elph does not consistently lock in on the right subject when focusing so I knew any camera she had to "fiddle with" would not be the best choice for her. The image quality on the Elph is a bit better but ONLY if you work with the different settings and modes (it also didn't have 8x zoom).
If you want a budget camera that you can put on full auto and get the right subjects in focus, this is the one I would recommend. 16MP is too many for this small sensor. 9 or 10 would be much better in my opinion in terms of image quality BUT, in terms of what I was looking for and the budget P&S camera category, it is a 4.5 star rating. In terms of all point and shoot cameras in the world, I would say 3-ish so I gave this 3 stars. I wish camera manufacturers would stop playing the mega-pixel race game and concentrate on image quality.
I've uploaded several sample photos taken on iA too, so check those and others out for more of a feel of what you can expect from this camera.
I try to make my reviews as helpful as possible so please feel free to ask a questions in comments. I am happy to answer if I can. :)
