[Bendug] Digital camera

[Tim Howe]

After looking at a huge number of cameras of various types, I finally got a Panasonic LZ3.  I got it for $200.  It has 14M of built-in memory, but I also purchased a 512M SD memory chip for it.  The downside, and probably a price reducer, was the lack of a built-in rechargable battery.  However, I got a recharger and set of 4 AA rechargable batteries to go with it.  It has a 6x optical zoom which blew me away when I looked at some of the pics I took with it.  The multi-mode anti-shake thing kicks butt, I even took some action shots that came out very sharp.  It works as an external USB drive to every *nix box I tried it on (probably would need a driver to be installed on Windows).  I also took about 100 shots over the course of 8 hours the other day and the batteries are still good to go.

	It's got a million friggin modes I haven't even begun to explore, and supposedly takes short movies, but I haven't tried that yet.  The big thing that has impressed me is the picture quality: extremely sharp.  I would recommend one of these puppies to anyone.

	When looking, I didn't see a Kodak that seemed worth the money, though I am sure they are out there.  The powershots I looked at also seemed over-priced compared to the feature set on the Panasonic.  I avoided Sony like the plague, since I have had too many problems with that brand.  Panasonic has a good reputation with me, so I was a bit biased by that.  I have several Panasonic devices, including a movie camera and my laptop, that have been worry-free for years.  (I should note that I'm not easily pleased when it comes to electronics.)

	Having used this camera a bit now, that bias has been reinforced.  Seriously look at the Panasonic LZ line if you are in the market for a consumer-grade digital camera.

--TimH