Panasonic Lumix F27 Digital Camera Review

Weighing 310g (without the rather large battery) and measuring 112.5 x 72.2 x 87.8mm – the FZ7 is humongous in comparison to others on the digicam market. However, it made up for it as it is really easy to hold - good job really as that’s all you’ll be doing as it definitely isn’t pocketable. The controls are situated on the back in the bottom right-hand corner – you’ll find the d-pad is quite small which was okay for my small fingers but for larger handed people you’ll get fed up with mis-pressing the buttons as you use the d-pad to control almost everything. The 2.5in LCD is offers good viewing in almost all conditions. However, in bright sunlight it was slightly impaired.

Features

The FZ7 boasts 6-megapixels and an impressive maximum resolution of 2816 x 2112. It homes a 12x optical zoom and can offer shutter speeds of 60-1/2000 seconds. The Leica lens is impressive. It copes well at 6-megapixels even with the impressive 12x zoom at full reach. You can use both manual and automatics modes with are both impressive and there are also four flash modes. It takes a rechargeable Li-ion battery which is quite heavy but fits neatly into the opening at the bottom of the camera. The plus side of having a large battery is that it lasts on those snappy happy occasions. The FZ7 has no internal memory and only comes with a 16MB SD card which will hold a measly four images at maximum resolution so you’ll need to invest in a larger one. The standard DC, AV out and USB connections are well protected under a small flap on the side of the camera.

Performance

I would say the FZ7 performance was pretty average compared to a few other digicams I have recently reviewed. Power-on-to-shoot time was about 3 secs which isn’t anything to worry about and all other commands were responded in average time. The zoom is quiet which is refreshing.

Image Quality

Here is the downside. The image quality lacked colour saturation and detail. This is just not acceptable for a camera at this end of the digicam market.

Overall Impressions

With a list of features as long as my arm the FZ7 appeared promising. When it offered average performance and below average photos I was completely put off.

Reviewed by Lisa Malyon

Avaliable In Balck And Silver

Stylish Easy To Use Design

2.5 Inch LCD Screen

12x Optical Zoom