Choosing camera

Bongedone

Hi,

I have £300 of jessops vouchers to spend. I have rounded myself down to two camera's.

Panasonic Lumix TZ30
Samsung WB850f

I can find reviews for the Panasonic and they are all good but I cannnot find any reviews for the Samsung yet.

I like the idea that the Samsung has All Share as I have a brand new Samsung television. The Samsung also has a better LCD, zoom and mega pixels. I know mega pixels do not mean everything.

So I'm stuck. A camera with good reviews or a camera not reviewed.

Has anybody used the Samsung who can help?

mr_fishbulb

Here's a review for the WB150F which I think came out at the same time as the 850 - http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/content/Samsung-WB150F-Digital-Camera-Review.htm

Here's the conclusion:

There are plenty of better options out there than the Samsung WB150F. And many of them were released sufficiently long ago that street prices will equal Samsung’s aggressive MSRP. For almost every feature, every one of our lab tests, and indeed every reason to purchase this camera, someone else has already done it better.

Although we were moderately impressed by the camera’s color accuracy score, all photos shot with the WB150F were far too unsharp for our taste. Thus with image quality out the window, it fell to this camera’s feature set to provide any potentially redeeming qualities. The full range of manual controls were nice, but the limited Program Auto mode made indoor shooting a real pain. Continuous shooting is almost as slow as single shot with other cameras, and while the Motion Capture mode is faster, at that resolution you’re better off just shooting video.

Wi-Fi, a highly advertised feature of this camera, never worked the way we wanted it to, and wasn’t really a selling point for us to begin with. And while the 18x lens is impressive, without decent image quality there’s no point. They even put the flash emitter on the hand grip. Seriously, is there a worse spot for a flash bulb? Maybe behind the camera?

Samsung has designed some fantastic examples of tech, but this isn’t one of them. We don’t recommend the WB150F.

Personally if it's down to those 2, I'd go with the Panasonic. They have a good rep for cameras. Let Samsung stick with the smart phones.

Here's a review for the Panasonic by dpreview (who are a well known digital camera site) - http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonic-lumix-dmc-zs20-tz30-review/

Conclusion:

The Lumix DMC-ZS20 is arguably the most full-featured travel zoom on the market. Its Intelligent Auto mode and decent set of manual controls combined with an elaborate GPS setup and 1080/60p movie mode make it a traveller's delight. Unfortunately its image quality is not as good as the rest of the package, and enthusiasts may miss things like RAW and manual focus.

mr_fishbulb

Couple of threads about the WB850F:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1001&thread=41455178&page=1

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1001&message=41432860&changemode=1

Lifeforms

ZS20 is not the model they were looking at TZ30 is it.

Over the two, panasonic. But the TZ30 isn't massively improved on the TZ20. It's in most cases marginally better. The TZ20 is a fair bit cheaper. If you have to use the whole voucher on one camera, then I'd do the TZ30, if not, I'd prolly buy a lower priced one (TZ18/20) (unless the extras between the 20 and 30 are mega important, and useful to you) and spend some of the voucher on some accessories, 16gb card for example, class 6 and above, or a case, or even a tripod, portable etc)

The GPS is a novelty, and on all reviews I've seen has said it compromised battery life, and generally didn't work properly. The 30 says it comes with maps you then download to your sd card, which it then finds your location from, how quaint! Could just photograph a map Most turned it off in the end. The same as 3D pictures are a novelty, and needed a specific TV to view. By the time 3D is properly available with access to everyone easily, camera will be out of date/taking pictures will be far better

Bongedone

Glad you mentioned the memory card. Was going to use my existing one but it would not have been fast enough.

Got a class 10 from play.com

[Deleted User]

If I had £300 to spend in Jessops, i'd be buying this - http://www.jessops.com/online.store/products/77963/show.html

Big zoom is highly over-rated and under-used feature for most people. A big sensor and good glass is far more important

mr_fishbulb

Lifeforms wrote: »

ZS20 is not the model they were looking at TZ30 is it.

It's the same camera. They just have different model names depending on where they are sold in the world. ZS20 is the US name.

Oli2k

I'd look at getting a Panasonic 3/4s camera if you can. Will be a far better picture than a point and shoot with a tiny sensor like the TZ30

InsideInsurance

Bongedone wrote: »

The Samsung also has a better LCD, zoom and mega pixels. I know mega pixels do not mean everything.

Zoom also doesnt mean much because it is simply the ratio of the maximum to the minimum length.

I have a dSLR and one very large lens for wildlife and people keep asking me what zoom it is.... because it is a fixed length it is a 1x zoom. My much shorter walk about lens is a 5x zoom even though what would fill the whole frame on my prime lens would only be one small corner of my walkabout.

LCD, very much a nice to have. If you get more into into photography then actually you start looking at the histogram more than the picture itself and the LCD makes minimal impact