Photography: New Digital Camera!

After casually wanting one for the better part of five years I finally broke down and purchased a new digital camera off of eBay this week.  It arrived on Friday, and so far I am very impressed. 

Here is a picture of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ30 next to my Sunpak Auto 522 Thyristor strobe.  It is an 8-megapixel “Bridge” camera (a camera that incorporates most of the features of an SLR but with a permanently attached lens and no complex mirror system).  It includes a lot of high-end features such as a physical zoom ring, a manual focus ring, full P-A-S-M exposure control, Optical Image Stabilization, a hot shoe (for mounting an external flash), a tilting display, an Electronic Viewfinder and a plethora of other features that I don’t care to mention here.  

Here is a view of the back of both the Lumix and the Sunpak.  Though the screen is smaller than I would like it is very sharp (the EVF is also extremely sharp, albeit slightly laggy but from what I’ve read most are).  Yes I took these pictures with my old Kodak (and obviously without the help of the Sunpak strobe).  So how does it perform?  Well how about a picture of the Kodak using the Lumix!

Here is a picture of both my Kodak Easyshare C633 6.1 megapixel pocket camera (which all of my pictures to-date have been taken with) next to a Nikon N5005 SLR that I picked up at Goodwill for $2!  This picture was taken using my new Lumix and the Sunpak strobe at about 1/15 power, aimed at the ceiling as a bounce flash.  I have yet to test the Nikon (since it uses film I want to be 100% sure it’s clean before I load it even for a test roll)

My old Kodak is not being retired, it is now my “grab and go” camera.  For anything even remotely more serious I now have a better option.  After all, my main reasons for wanting a new digital camera are the Kodak’s lack of features (I guess it’s called an Easyshare for a reason…) and it’s poor low-light performance (even with the Sunpak I have to use a flashlight as an autofocus-assist lamp!).  So far my new camera meets and/or exceeds all of my expectations.

 

Of course I decided to take a picture of both cameras next to each other, using my parents’ Lumix.  That’s all I have for now…