Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I was really skeptical of getting this camera for my sister. She had a cheap Nikon Coolpix point and shoot and she took some fantastic pictures with it that really impressed me, especially when using the zoom. It broke the other day after like three or four years and I figured it was time for her to upgrade. Since she did not want a DSLR because she wanted to keep it simple, I researched many bridge cameras, but their picture quality left a lot to be desired. She loved the zoom on the Nikon Coolpix P900 but I detested the image quality of that camera, especially for $500. Not this one. While OBVIOUSLY not having the image quality of a DSLR, it is fantastic for coming from such a small sensor. Not only that, but the colors of this sensor are faithful and have a lot of pop, which remind me of my Canon EOS-7D. Honestly, my Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH3 does not have these lovely colors at default settings. What else to say about the FZ70? Its sensor has surprisingly good dynamic range. Oh, the shutter release lag is minimal. There is none of that cheapy point and shoot lag. No waiting for a photo to be captured. After locking the focus by half-pressing the button, the picture is taken as soon as you press it fully. As soon as I took the first picture, I smiled so wide, because I was not expecting such DSLR-like behavior. Click. Sharp picture. Click. Another sharp picture. And that was in low light. SO SATISFYING. I'm telling you, it's a FUN camera and I NEVER felt the desire or even thought, "I wish I had my DSLR with me." I would be content having just this camera for a day without anything else. The zoom is not super fast in terms of speed, but come on...for less than $300, that would be too much to ask. The lens is SUPER WIDE, and it is respectably sharp even when zoomed fully, and I did not see chromatic aberrations when shooting a sunset. Ah, funny thing: even in VGA mode, the video quality is impressive. The camera has like 200 MB internal memory, so it can only record VGA. But it looks so good in camera, my sister and me started laughing. This is coming from me, a guy used to fast DSLRs and who would not be caught dead with a point and shoot. But not anymore, because this FZ70 is AWESOME. It even records RAW files if you happen to be allergic to JPEGs. How cool is that? Enclosed are snapshots testing the colors...and handheld moonshots...one at max zoom and one at less zoom. All are on Sunset scene setting. Thanks for reading. God bless you greatly!