Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I've only had mine a few days so my testing is admittedly limited. Please do not give up on this camera unless you have made some very careful tripod shots. Yes, this camera is hard to hold steady as is any 300+ mm lens. The stabilizer is good but cannot overcome everything. Hand holding 1200mm is a tough job and requires excellent technique and a degree of luck! I used a heavy Bogen tripod on solid cement and made very careful shots at about 50yds and 75yds (auto focus) throughout the available f range at max zoom. I was quite surprised at the resolving power of the lens using ISO 100. My Nikon D5000 and Nikkor 70 - 300 EDIF zoom in RAW mode, on the same subject, is barely sharper. Laugh if you will, but I used the SilkyPix software to examine the RAW and jpeg images. I did not find a difference even worth mentioning in raw and jpeg modes. I did not use the default picture settings in the camera. SilkyPix works just fine if you take a bit of time to learn to use it. I also own PhotoShop and have used it for over 20 years, so it's not like I didn't have a choice. All images benefited from a bit of post processing just as all my D5000 and P7700 images do. I can see how some users might easily rush to judgement on this camera. But it shouldn't be about lens sharpness. Hold it steady and it will deliver very good results. Many of the review sites have not done a real good job of testing the camera yet. Buy it and make your own carefully controlled tests, then decide. Hand held tests at very high magnifications are totally INVALID for lens critiquing purposes. Few people can hold that long lens steady enough. High ISOs will certainly help keep shutter speeds high, but it's the high ISO NOISE then that will ruin the image sharpness .. not the lens. Use a SOLID tripod to test the long zoom for yourself. Do it at ISO 100 first. At my work, photographing motorcycles indoors, hand held, under less than optimal lighting, I have used the camera at ISO 1200. Plenty of noise but these images are used at 1024 x 768 (72 dpi) on the internet. The noise at that size and resolution is invisible and the available light shots are quite usable.. The weakness I see and have not found a solution for is highlight clipping. In my tests, light subjects were hard to hold detail in. Perhaps further experimentation with the picture controls may help. Noise seems to creep in early too. We can't have it all. Twenty to 1200mm is an amazing accomplishment for Panasonic. Remember this is a consumer level camera. At this price point it seems to represent a very good value and a very versatile photographic tool. Perfect? No. None of them are. My previous Panasonic was an FZ35 which, once I learned to use it properly, was an truly excellent camera. This one probably has a steep learning curve too. Giving a star rating was hard. With so little testing I hated to rate it yet. Too low ... too high?? My advice is forget the "stars" and test the camera on YOUR own favorite subjects, then decide if it's any good. But, be fair to the camera and be sure any problems you encounter aren't YOUR personal technique problems. September 30,2013 In the end I just could not love this camera. I wanted to, but I couldn't. I bought it mostly for the long end of the zoom but what I think is a decent lens is hampered by some other factors. Maybe the sensor, maybe the camera software, I don't know. I shot a lot of long zoom photos in bright light and high shutter speeds and for me it just wasn't quite there. High ISOs significantly mar the images after 250. If you do a lot of tripod work maybe this will work out for you. If the lens were "faster" ( like the FZ200), it might be much better, but it is what it is. The combination of sensor noise and slow lens at zoom combine to make less than optimal images when hand holding. Don't get me wrong, I did get some very nice images from the camera but I had to shoot a lot of frames and be very selective of the images. I'm not saying this is a BAD camera. It just didn't totally please me. I did like the 20mm aspect of the lens and used in shorter focal lengths I thought it did very well. I'm sure many will find this camera very useful and perfectly satisfactory. I personally will wait a wee bit more for the next round of improvements and try again. Compared with the really excellent images from my P7700, I just couldn't justify keeping it. DARN! Bottom line is I'd rather have a somewhat shorter zoom with a faster lens and a less noisy sensor that makes better images. I'm gonna miss that 20mm though .....