subject: Panasonic Lumix FZ38 Review [print this page] The Panasonic Lumix FZ38 offers something a little different to other point and shoot cameras. The basic features are a 12.1 megapixel sensor and a 18x optical zoom lens, but this do not really tell you the whole story.
Starting off with the lens, it has one of the widest angles available on a camera of this size. The wide angle focal length is equivalent to 27-486mm in 35mm equivalent format. It might not mean a lot to you, but it is important to know that the lens will pack more width into a photo than most cameras will ever manage. This comes in handy for sweeping Landscapes.
As is becoming more commonplace, additional zoom becomes available when shooting at lower resolutions. 12.1 megapixels is certainly an overkill if all you want to do is create still photos, so you do not lose very much by shooting at fewer megapixels. If you reduce the amount of pixels to 8 megapixels the amount of zoom available increases to 22.1x. Decrease the megapixels to 5 megapixels which should still be enough for snapshot sized prints and you have 28.1x zoom at your fingertips. Decreasing even further to under 3 megapixels and you have a whopping 35.2x zoom. This is Super Zoom at its best.
The LCD screen is a 2.7 inch, TFT screen with 230 000 dots. I also found the screen easy to see in bright conditions. Some of the features such as the shooting mode are selected by touching the screen. In my view Panasonic give you the best of both worlds. Although you use touch to select modes such as movie mode or scene mode other selections are made through a more traditional menu interface. I find this speeds the process up.
The Lumix FZ38 have the following modes: Still Image Scene Mode, Advanced Scene Mode, Movie Scene Mode, Continuous Shooting Mode, Flash Burst Continuous Shooting Mode and Motion Picture Recording Mode.
The menus run to five screens and there are a similar number in the setup menu too. This gives you an idea of the number of controls available to you in the Lumix FZ38. Panasonic have set up some of the most important features on a separate menu. This is accessible through a button on the back of the Lumix FZ38 . This helps with ease of use and also speed, but as you can imagine it will take a while to get used to all the features and take full advantage of what the Lumix FZ38 has to offer.
The Motion Picture Recording mode enables you to shoot HD movie clips.
If you like the idea of taking a bit more control over the way your photos will look, there is a manual exposure mode available to you. This lets you control the shutter speed and aperture. I like the fact that the shutter speed and aperture size are touch controlled through the LCD screen.
Other features on the Lumix FZ38 includes: image stabilization, the ability to select auto focus and exposure points through touch, aspect ratios ideal for 6 x 4 inch prints, wide screen TV playback and 6 x 4 inch prints, five auto focus modes, face recognition and a burst mode to fire off consecutive shots quickly. You can also adjust settings for contrast, sharpness, saturation and noise reduction. As you can see Panasonic has covered just about all the basis with the Lumix FZ38 .
When it comes to photo quality, the Lumix FZ38 will not let you down either. It can record and save files in four different modes: MOTION JPEG with picture quality set to [HD] : Approx. 80 min, AVCHD Lite with picture quality set to [SH] : Approx. 80 min, MOTION JPEG with picture quality set to [HD] : Approx. 150 min, AVCHD Lite with picture quality set to [SH] : Approx. 150 min.
The Panasonic Lumix FZ38 is a digital camera that goes the extra mile compared with just about every other compact digital camera on the market. It is well worth taking a close look at the Lumix FZ38 before you decide what camera to buy.
