Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

So I read all the reviews here as well as all the professional reviews I could find and purchased this camera from a third party to get it sooner. I've had it now a couple days and am impressed with the camera itself - I would give it 5 stars if I were just rating the camera. The build quality is excellent and it feels solid. The image quality is excellent given the small sensor and 18 megapixels (though I agree with many that it might have been even better if there were only 16 or fewer megapixels). Yes there is noise at higher ISOs (above 400), but I expected that and it seems very good to excellent for this class of camera. FYI, [...] has sample shots and nice review of the Canon sx700 with a comparison to Panasonic zs40. His verdict is that the image quality and noise reduction are similar overall - one edges the other in some situations, the other edges ahead in other situations (it will be interesting to see the [...] review of the Panasonic when it comes out in the near future). The 30x lens is lovely! Nice and wide to great distance. The image stabilizing works well. Focusing is fast, except at long zoom and very low light (which is typical of this class of cameras). I've seen some reviews complain about the low resolution of the electronic viewfinder (EVF), so I was surprised to find it is much better than I expected - once I used the diopter control to adjust it for my glasses. Best, at least it has an EVF for those bright, sunny days when that pretty much wipe out your ability to see the LCD!! Nothing else in this class has that. As for the LCD, it is large and sharp. The various display options show a lot of information, and there is an optional histogram (though small). There is a dedicated function button that you can program as you choose, and a programable wheel around the lens that I am impressed with, though I am just learning how useful it is. Again, I'm not aware of other travel zooms with these features. I saw one review that complained about the shadows from the lens barrel when it is at full zoom, so I tested this and I have not seen a shadow with the flash. I also saw someone complain that the flash was too bright for portraits and needed to be adjustable. Again, I haven't seen any travel zooms with adjustable flashes, but the other option is to decrease the exposure so the sensor captures less light - which this camera allows. In fact, the camera has exposure bracketing so that you can automatically capture 3 photos at different exposures then pick the best one (though I don't think this will work with the flash engaged). Again, something I can't recall seeing on most travel zooms. Finally, when you do take a picture, you have the option of saving it in raw format (capturing all information), or one of two jpeg formats, or both. Again, I can't recall a travel zoom that has allowed this in the past, though many people have asked for it. A few advanced features that I've only just begun to try out. It has WiFi and I tried this out with my iPad using the free Panasonic Imaging App. It works ok, but the app really needs some documentation/help screens, because these are not provided in the little WiFi guide that comes with the camera. There is an airplane mode for when you fly, and I can see maybe setting the function button to that if you fly a lot. The GPS function seems easy to use and I like the landmarks feature that is included, but be aware the GPS stays on even when you turn off the camera, unless you put the camera in airplane mode. This means the GPS will be a constant drain on the batteries. So I've turned it off when I am at home - just hope I remember to turn it on when I travel. It is worth noting that other travel zooms may have WiFi and others have GPS, but only a few have both. Another feature I like is that you can turn on a display that shows both the horizontal and vertical axes of the camera vs. the earth in order to level the camera - very nice feature that I've never seen on a travel zoom before. So overall, I really like this camera. It is well designed and lets you do so many things and produces great pictures. It is a great travel zoom. So why don't I give this camera 5 stars? Because I'm rating what's in the box, as well as what isn't. What's in the box is a USB charger and cable, but the connection on the camera is to an unusual micro USB connection that is essentially proprietary to Panasonic. So if you lose that cable, you can't use just any old cable to charge the camera, you have to get a new one from Panasonic. Worse, digital cameras eat batteries, so you should always carry a spare and a charger so you can charge the spare while you are using the camera. The problem here is that Panasonic doesn't include a separate charger in the box - you only have the option of charging batteries in the camera. So what if you want to use the camera and have a spare battery that needs charging? TOUGH LUCK, SUCKER!! True, you can buy a third party charger (and get a good deal on a pair of extra batteries at the same time), but for a $450 camera, that is outrageous. So I knocked a star off of what's in the box due to the proprietary connector/cable and the lack of a separate charger. Neither of these are deal breakers since you can buy a third party charger, but they sure piss me (and others) off.