Just bought a Panasonic Lumix FS30 - very disapointed with it.

H

hellodarren1

Messages
6
Edit My Images
No
Hi everyone. About 4-5 years a go I got into a bit of amateur photography at college and bought a Canon Powershot A80 and was really pleased with it. I've recently gotten back into the hobby and bought a new up to date camera (Lumix FS30) thinking that after such a long time the newer cameras are bound to be better. I know megapixels isn't the be all, but my canon has 4 megapixels and the Lumix has a whopping 14 megapixels so I was thinking the more up to date Lumix would be a hell of a lot better.

I just got the Lumix today and after taking some quick snaps around the house and outside I'm very disappointed with the results, in fact I would say they are worse than my 5 year old Canon. The noise in particular is atrocious and even with a lot of light streaming through a window the darkness, sharpness and noise is so disappointing.

Before buying it I looked around on various sites which gave it glowing reviews which I cannot understand at all. Was I expecting too much from the Lumix? It was after all only £100. But still to find out that my old Canon seems to be better is quite galling. I can't remember how much my old Canon was, maybe £160? But why isn't the Lumix any better?

Has anybody else got any experience with the Lumix and are you happy with it?
 
Are you comparing at the same size as the canon? You have to bare in mind that at 14mp, 100% viewing is bound to be worse than the 4mp canon.

To be honest, on these tiny compact sensors you might actually be better off with the lower mp count anyway.
 
Yeah I'm comparing them scaled down in Photoshop so they are same size. I'm just really surprised that my 5 year old camera is just as good, if not better, than the modern Lumix. I'm really thinking of sending it back and opt to spend a bit more money on something better.
 
While the number of pixels has got bigger (a marketing ploy IMO) the sensors in the cameras have stayed the same size therefore pixel density makes noise a big problem. I used to have a Sony DSC-P200, great IQ from it, which was 7.2MP was released id say 7 odd years ago and dropped it :(, very sad. I replaced it with a Canon Ixus 880 with 10.1MP and Id say the Sony was a good bit ahead of the Canon in terms of IQ, espeically noise. However the Canon has better/faster focusing, zoom, handling ect. I think for my next P&S I will lower the MPs.
 
Last edited:
I have an old 4mp A85 lurking somewhere, and I'm always pleasantly surprised with it's quality.

It's a stupid move to pack too many pixels into cheaper compact cameras. But the mp is what sells the cameras (the salesman has to have some easy to understand number to tell the customers about). For most cheaper cameras, the higher MP is just wasted, the lens isn't anywhere near good enough to resolve more details on the tiny sensors, so all you get is more noise and larger file sizes.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the help guys, so I really need to move beyond a compact I take it? I really like how my old A80 nicely fits in my pocket so I don't want anything too big (and tasty for muggers!), so would something like these be better?

FUJI FINEPIX S1800 - £116
NIKON COOLPIX L110 - £130
Fuji FinePix S2800 - £145
CANON PowerShot SX130 - £159
PANASONIC LUMIX DMC-FZ35 - £182

Those are some of cameras from the same guy I bought the Lumix from (I'd feel bad about sending it back without getting another from him). Ideally I don't want to spend much more than maybe £160, is it possible to get a decent camera for an amateur photographer for that price?
 
Last edited:
Buying by x number of megapixels is not the way forward.

It was describedto me once as

"Consider the megapixles on a sensor to be light collecting buckets.
A small sensor with a high number of said buckets must be using a smaller bucket and collecting less light, than an equivalent size sensor with a lower density.

The buckets are therefore not able to hold so much detail and quality of larger prints suffers.
 
Having just bought a to me disappointing but highly praised high mp count camera (in my case an LX5) I can understand your disappointment but until camera manufacturers marketing departments have less say in things and until the general public loses it's love of high mp counts and finds some other criteria to judge cameras by high mp counts is what we are stuck with.

We can do some things to try and ensure that our brand new shiny cameras give us nice pictures though. For instance we can try and shoot at the lowest possible ISO setting and (sadly) use the flash.
 
I just took two quick shots in Intel Mode, the first is in a room that isn't especially bright, the second is in a hallway right next to a window so is very well lit. I uploaded the original images so you can see all of the specs (I'm not familiar with ISO and that kind of stuff). Is this normal for this type of camera? If you look in the second photo for example it just seems quite out of focus to me. Taking photos in-doors just doesn't seem to be possible while I just read a review raving about how he took a shot in a closet and was amazing quality.

box.net/shared/m3nvdi1gn4
box.net/shared/i50sulqakq
 
I was doing some more playing around with the camera and setting the ISO to the lowest (80) gets some good results when outside in the daylight (Intel Mode was setting it to ISO 320 which didn't give particularly good results). I don't know how the hell people are getting good results with this camera when inside or doing macro work without need of a flash.

I guess the Lumix will do for now since I want to take mostly landscape style shots, but I'll have to get a proper camera for anything more.
 
Hello Hello,

Just looked at your pics.

I actually have a 5 year old Lumix FZ3 (3.1 Mp with a Leica lens) and it performs better than that, even at ISO 200

You can pick these up for £25 now.:)

Your Cam might be faulty but son't forget - all things being equal - more megapixels equals more noise.


Read HERE for some answers that might tell you whether or not you made the right choice.
 
Last edited:
Return that obsolete camera, and invest your money to an old 20D or even 400D / D40 with a decent lens from ebay. It may be 6-7 year old (and cheap), but light years ahead of any compact ever to be made.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top