Panasonic FZ3 awesome 12x leica lens

lellie

heh.. he's probably right about the win98/slow computer thing.. I'd advise an upgrade/new pc.

George_Bray

gromituk wrote:

Upgrade to Linux - that'll cost you nothing, but will be an awful lot of fun!

Now that's a thought. Which version of Linux do you recommend, assuming there is a choice, does it cost anything, is it easy to learn and can you run all the same applications like MS Office?

Regards
George

George_Bray

RufusA wrote:

I suspect it may be time to upgrade your machine. If you are using an old OS, and a MoBo that doesn't have USB2 (I presume it will also not have massive amounts of HDD space, memory, fast 2D graphics card etc.) you will probably find it a very frustrating experience doing any kind of photo manipulation on the PC.

Rufus

You make some very good points but I still blame Panasonic for not providing a reliable driver for hooking up the FZ3 to Win98SE and PhotoImpression. My Polaroid digital camera works without fail on the same USB 1 port, also with Photo Impression, as do 2 or 3 scanners. I must check the Panasonic website to see if there are any alternative drivers.

My PC may be several years old but it (otherwise) does everything I need, with a huge amount of HDD space, 750Mb RAM, DVD writer, etc, etc. Just no USB 2 unless I buy an adaptor. But that just adds £30 to the price of the Panasonic camera. The USB 1 port is not so slow that it concerns me. The rest of the PC is very fast, although I don't play computer games, which tend to be more demanding. I run video processing, PhotoShop, everything!

One other comment about the Panasonic, is that it makes me realise how good the Polaroid camera was for anything other than the most demanding shots, like a 5 second exposure at 12x zoom. There's no noticeable difference between 6"x4" prints from the Panasonic or the Polaroid (2.1 MP) on the vast majority of shots.

Regards
George

Update 10 July 2005: I don't what I was doing wrong before, but my Panasonic FZ3 now works fine with USB and Win98SE, every time, without fail. I'm also increasingly impressed with the 12x optical zoom lens on the camera, working in tandem with the image stabilizer. In summary, I'm very pleased I bought the camera. Check out the FZ5 (latest model) if the FZ3 is not still available.

Former_MSE_Abuse_Controller

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