A good deal on a digital point-and-shoot camera
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ8 camera. Available through the magic of the internet, for $111 shipped.
If price wasn’t a consideration, and I needed to buy a tiny point-and-shoot camera this instant, I’d probably buy a “Canon PowerShot SD870IS ($249 at Amazon.com). I like the features, image quality, and size of this camera, and its zoom lens covers a useful range, equivalent to 28-105mm on a 35mm camera. Optical image stabilization is also a plus.
But price is a consideration, and there’s a decent Panasonic digital camera, the LZ-8, available right now for $111 including shipping. That seems like an outstanding deal for a pretty nice, well reviewed little point-and-shoot camera. Its lens covers the 32-160mm range (35mm equivalent numbers). 32mm is not as nice and wide as 28mm, but it’s actually pretty good for a digital point-and-shoot, most of which start out at 37mm equivalent or worse. For less than half the price of the Canon I’d suffer having to take one additional step backward to fit my entire family in the frame at the next birthday party.
This deal takes advantage of the fact that Microsoft is attempting to lure users away from Google’s search engine with a 12% cash back promotion on products found using Microsoft’s Live Search. So in order to get that discount, you’ll need to first search for the “DMC-LZ8″ using Microsoft’s Live Search “cashback” page. This link might skip a few hoops and jump you to the desired result. If not, just try to click your way through to the listing for that camera at JR.com. It’ll come out to $119.99 - $14.40 cashback, + $6.95 for UPS ground shipping.
- Only a few point-and-shoots go as wide as I’d like. The zoom ratio of such cameras is usually promoted in ad copy, which is an impressive-sounding but useless metric. To me, a 3x zoom that starts at a wide angle is of much greater utility than a 6x zoom that can zoom in so close that a nice dark shot of a squirrel on a tree down the street can be taken (less light makes it through these lenses the further they are zoomed) but doesn’t go wide enough to easily shoot a snapshot of a group of people in a small room. i.e. 28-105mm equivalent is a more useful lens than a 45-260mm equivalent in a tiny point-and-shoot. [↩]
- images aquired on all digital point-and-shoot cameras that are not the Sigma DP1 will be completely outclassed by any recent digital SLR -lens and sensor size do matter [↩]
August 24th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
This is very informative, Zach. I am considering buying Canon PowerShot SD870IS - sample photos posted on Amazon looks pretty nice (good enough for derm-related photos). Do you know if the price will come down more? I can wait a few months if you think it might.
August 24th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
It seems high end compared to this deal, but I’m crazy about the Canon G9 point-and-shoot. Compact, minimal shutter lag, shoots video and records audio. Not nearly wide enough but you can’t have everything. I’ve shot more than one assignment for the paper with it (and more than one audio slide show).
August 24th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
The G9 is definitely high-end by comparison, but that’s a $400 camera and isn’t very compact. It must be a good backup camera for a photojournalist like yourself.
I notice on your web page that you also use the Canon HV20 cameras for professional work. I have one of those too, the image quality is amazing for the price. It makes learning the workarounds required to set manual exposure on that consumer camera worthwhile.
August 24th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Mih Hyun, it looks like you can use that same Microsoft Live Search thing to find the Canon SD870 IS for $211.19:
http://search.live.com/cashback/products/offerings/18003/8752623
I’d expect the Canon SD870 IS to be better than the Panasonic LZ-8, but that’s just my guess. You could probably walk into a Circuit City or some shop that carries the two cameras and try them out before making a decision. The reason I posted about the LZ-8 is not that it’s the absolute best tiny camera out there, but that it seems amazing to be able to get a camera of its quality for $111.
August 24th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Good post Zach. Also worth checking out some of the other cameras in the Lumix line: the FX-35 and others go all the way to the 35mm equivalent of a 24mm-25mm ultrawide. Pretty awesome. As you know well, a lens so wide translates to an ability to compose pictures with visual relationships big-to-small that aren’t possible with longer lenses.
I am waiting for a scalding hot deal on an ultrawide ultracompact w/ warranty that I can carry on my runs.
August 24th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
I’d agree that Panasonic makes some decent tiny cameras that go wider, the FX-35 being one, but all of the other ones I’d consider including the FX-35 are more than twice this one’s price.
If you’re looking in that price range, do check out samples of FX-35 photos on the net and compare them to photos from Canon’s similar wide-angle and tiny point-and-shoots. They’re similar cameras, but last time I checked the image quality from the Canon’s seemed to edge past the Panasonics. Possibly due to a better implementation of jpeg compression.
August 30th, 2008 at 1:54 am
[…] at full resolution. Nice. Click the photo to visit a gallery of my DMC-LZ8 test photos. I received my Panasonic DMC-LZ8, and shot a few test photos today. In summary, I’d give the camera an A- for optics, an A for […]