My camera

In one comment left to a previous post, I have been asked about my new camera. It is a Panasonic Lumix FZ7. This model was released a couple of years ago, and discontinued this spring when Panasonic upgraded the model. As a result, these cameras can be still be found around, at cheaper prices. I got mine in a clearance sale at Wolf Camera, actually with an additional discount because the camera was a display unit. It turned out that the display unit did not work properly (a problem in the battery), and the store offered to exchange it with a new one. So I got mine with a double discount, for about half of the original price! Aside for having to visit the store thrice, it was a great deal. If not for the affordable price, I would have never look into a camera in this category, and I would have probably settled for a cheaper one in my price range.



As a background about my choice. I was looking for a camera with a good macro functions, in order to take good pics of my miniatures. But I also wanted something that may work well with people and scenery, since this is going to be my only camera and I would like to use it while traveling with my wife. This is also my first digital camera, but I still have some skepticism about some of the technical features now associated with digital cameras. So I zoomed into this Panasonic because it comes with Leica lens, and 12x optical zoom. It also allows to set aperture and shutter speed manually, which eventually may lead to more sophisticated uses (I am not quite there, yet.)

Thus far, I am very satisfied with the results; I will test it on the road during a trip over July 4th weekend, and I am really looking forward to see how it will perform. Until now, the only weakness I noticed was the slow reaction of the shutter when taking pictures of my jumping cats in the evening, with very poor light conditions. Admittedly, a tough test in far from ideal conditions, so I do not make much of it.