Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28 Digital Camera

Panasonic's FZ28 is a nice extended zoom model, offering a long-range 18x lens. It's also capable of taking 27mm wide-angle shots, for all inclusive photographs. The FZ28 is a great pick for photographers interested in range and breadth. The camera also has the ability to shoot in RAW mode as well.
The camera is amazing. I was very impressed with the quality of the photographs you can achieve in any situation. The IA mode takes control of all the settings required to attain the perfect picture for you. The zoom is amazing, on its full 10 MP mode you can zoom to its 18xzoom, but if you reduce the megapixels the zoom increases. Take the resolution down to 3 MP and you can zoom all the way to 32x zoom, with no loss of quality. The added bonus to this updated version of the FZ18 is the ability to zoom whilst using the video mode, which is also fantastic. You now have the ability to produce videos in High Definition and the added bonus of being able to use zoom during recording (you will need a high speed SD card - 4gb and above with a fast write speed). There are many different scene modes, to cover any situation that arises, and an excellent macro with picture in picture enlargement when composing. The camera does all tasks with the minimum of fuss and results are always great.
For photographers who like to take control, there are P/A/S/M modes for more advanced settings. Face detection is very good and will pick up to 15 faces in a scene. The Mega O.I.S image stablilzation works very effectively, producing sharp pictures.
I am by no means an expert, but I am very impressed so far with this camera. It is ideal for my family and holiday shots. I highly recommend the Panasonic FZ28

Brilliant camera. I bought this as an upgrade from a fairly basic 6 meg camera and can't fault it at all. Still learning how to use the many functions (only had camera 2 weeks)but it is easy to navigate round the menu and seems to have functions for all my needs. Great for action shots on the sports mode.

Would highly recommend this camera to anyone who wants to learn more about photography before taking the leap to a digital SLR or if you want a great camera that does everything for you set it on intelligent mode. Faultless pictures everytime.

Panasonic Lumix FZ28
Terrific bridge camera that makes some DSLR’s look quite ordinary.
The lens is a “Leica” and you don’t get much better, and with a10meg sensor(a couple more) than the FZ18 that it replaces.
It may be small, but big on quality images.
Very easy to use, for those that just want a point and shoot, and for those that want to do the “pro” setup it has all the features that you want, I have used it in both modes.
The “Intelligent auto” mode is so good it could make you lazy!
The lens goes from 27mm to almost 500mm, so will cope with just about anything,
also for such a wide ranging lens is very sharp from wide to full zoom.
I use a semi pro DSLR for most of my work but for those times I don’t want the weight and all the gear that goes with SLRs, it is perfect.
You may ask “how good a the images?” well I have printed up to A3 and they are very good even at above 400iso.
The image “stabilisation” is as good as any and it also has auto tracking.
My only criticism, is “shutter lag” but it is no worse than any other “bridge” camera, so if you are looking for a small but high quality camera I can recommend this one.

When I turned on the camera, the inital instruction was in Spanish but it didn't cause more than 1 minute of confusion! Camera very easy to use. The Additional bonus items are not official panasonic items but they all do the job just fine. I haven't installed the PC software yet but have enjoyed taking photos of my family and my garden - so easy to get beautiful sharp close-up pictures of flowers!
I can't fault the camera for ease of use - other camera I have had have included unfathomable menus - this one is great. Not a cheap camera but as usual, you get what you pay for.

I started my photography hobby with Panasonic bridge camera . And until today , even though I have a Nikon DSLR for photography job, I still keep this Panasonic Lumix FZ28 as backup camera. I simply love the picture quality. Leica lens is well known brand for lens. It s never fail to give me sharp image that I want. To tell you the truth, I won a photography contest (first place) with a picture captured by using Panasonic lumix. Yes there is certain limitation if compared with DSLR camera, but for the camera in this class (with this price) FZ28 is the best. It s difficult to differentiate picture taken with FZ28 and picture taken with SLR camera (for normal lighting/condition). This is really a good camera for beginner who want to explore more about photography. Explore more about P,A,S,M setting instead of point and shoot!

I needed to replace a 4 year old Olympus camera, wanted flash control (flip up) and rotary dial control for other options, plus good optical zoom (x18) with more digital zoom for informal close ups of our grandchildren. The advanced face recognition works nearly all of the time and I like to leave the camera in intelligent auto mode, so that anyone can pick it up and use it. With a 10M spec and giving a 4M picture with no changes to the factory settings, you can crop and still have enough pixels to print, if you want to, a good image. I would describe this as a high end novice camera and well worth investing in. Considering its light weight it packs a whole load of features that will take me some time to get to grips with. It would be nice if it came with a soft camera case, the extras supplied are ideal for someone with a basic PC and makes sure that you can run from day one, if you use a Vista operating system and have memory slots built in you won't need some of the stuff. I have no problem recommending this camera to any serious amateur who wants their partner to use it too.

The FZ-28 has all of the latest automatic features using the industries top-rated Venus imaging processor, alongside full manual controls. This camera offers excellent point-and-shoot photography for every-day and begining photographers. It also provides the flexibility and precise control of the camera needed by more experienced users.

The FZ-28 offers a 27-486mm optical zoom f2.8 lens in a compact SLR-style camera. Image stabilisation is done with a lense-shift mechanism, delivering greatly reduced blur in images shot at slower shutter speeds.

The camera's LCD is a beautiful 2.7 inch screen. It also provides an electronic view finder for users wanting to "look through the lens" via the eye-piece.

The FZ-28's main features can be controlled by the simple knobs & buttons on the camera's case, and the full suite of controlls are accesible through the easy-to-use, well organised menu system.

It's been 15 years since I've used a SLR film camera, and I've missed the flexibility and FUN that manual camera controls offer. This is the first affordable camera that I've found that will let me PLAY with photography like my old Canon A1 did.

I've grown tired of the "Instamatic" style digital cameras that offer me a limited range of pre-digested shooting modes. If you're looking for a camera that brings control and experimentation back into your photography, the FZ-28 is one you'll want to consider.

Likes:
* lightness
* image quality
* lens reach (18x zoom and extra if lower the resolution)
* 720p HD movies
* RAW recording

Dislikes:
* EVF needs to be brighter
* battery life low (but much better with third party high capacity batteries)
* matt black finish not terribly resilient - metal cladding like most Panasonic compacts would be an improvement
* DSLR like control wheel would improve handling (but not like the loose thing on Canon's SX10...)
* Mono sound not exciting - needs stereo mics like other compacts (the best feature of the Canon SX10)
* Non-reversible lens hood is a minor irritant - at least the ones on most SLR lenses can be reversed for travel.
No flash hotshoe (minor issue for me, the in-built flash is ok but you can't bounce it. Diffusing with a piece of tissue paper works, though).

Why did I buy?

Dissatisfaction with a Canon SX10 IS superzoom camera. Bigger, much heavier, worse lens, no HD movies or RAW recording. It's a better back up to my Nikon D90 DSLR than the Canon, cheaper and with better image quality. And the more expensive Canon SX1 IS is even more money and has worse IQ!

It's also a better, more flexible camera than the popular Panasonic TZ6/7 compact superzooms. If you're not a camera nut you can always use it in iA mode - fully automatic and very good.

Look on it as a cheaper and still pretty good alternative to the Panasonic GH1.

What a fantastic "bridge" Camera, I have been using a Panasonic FZ20 for quite a while and the improvement is almost beyond belief. The zoom quality is spectacular to say the least, I have been a keen amateur photographer since the 1960's and have had quite a few film SLR cameras; and indeed still have and love a Sigma SD10 DSLR, but there are a lot of times when this camera comes into its own, it's light, simple to use on the auto settings and easy to learn the more advanced features should you wish to, all in all a beautiful camera at a very resonable price.

Having being to a site survey and came back to realised that most of my pictures were unusable, I decided to take photography a bit more seriously. I needed a better compact camera (better than my old Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ8) that has full manual control like a DSLR, light-weight and can fit into my laptop bag, RAW capture capability, able to shoot in low light(high ISO), super-zoom capability, video-recording capability. I found all these and more in the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28 Digital Camera.

The IA (Intelligent Auto) mode is a life saver when I am not sure which setting to use (I am not a Pro yet). It just gets it right most of the time.

Now I know a bit more about photography, I can also appreciate the limitations of this camera: burst-mode is not possible while shooting in RAW and so on. However, a big plus is that you can shoot at up to 12fps(i.e. 12 pictures per second) if you shoot in JPEG and reduce you image size to about 2-5Mbytes.

Overall, this is a very good buy for me.

i got this camera for my mum for her xmas and birthday prescent and when she saw it she loved it! its a very sexi lookin camera with easy functio buttons, takes some great photos and very easy to use. i mit even be tempted in gettin myself one! great over all camera and recommended to every1. i give it a 10/10

I loved absolutely everything about the sale of this camera and receiving it. It arrived in a mere 5days, and that was over the weekend. This camera is exactly as in the picutres, it has amazing features and its is so very very easy to use, my last camera was a standard 35mm film taking camera and since that broke i've been using disposables so i was a little aprehensive about gettin and using this, i thought it'd be out of my league, but this is certainly a fool-proof camera with amazing pictures as the result. I would Highly Recommend this seller as his products are Supberb and his customer relations skills are right up the with it. If you've any doubts, there unnecessary.

The camera is amazing , the lens by Leica is so crisp and clear, the functions are mind numbing in their complexity.


All in all, an amazing camera for the price, buy it before they all go.

i did a lot of research before buying this camera and it was worth it.it lives up to all expectations i'm not a pro photographer but you could easily become one with this.even with the auto settings it's a great bit of kit that is easy to use as soon as you switch it on out of the box.i cannot recommend this highly enough go get one if your looking for great pictures with not alot of knowledge.

Ordered the camera on tuesday-evening, got here the next tuesday (was shipped from the UK to the Netherlands, so pretty fast).
The extra battery was not in de package, but was sent seperate a day later with a note saying that there had been a mistake with the delivery, and they didn't want to delay the shipment of the camera. Very nice!
The SDHC card seems to be ok, the lens cleaning set isn't very high quality, as is the tripod and camerabag. But the camera seems very fine.
Also got a second camerabag, which isn't big enough for the camera, probably a mistake.

Very satisfied with my purchase for now, no problems.

Saw this online and read all the reviews, so impressed i decided to buy one. What a great bit of kit, Only had it for a couple of hours and the quality not only of the pictures but also the video (HD) is fantastic. I know it feels a little cheap and plastic, the quality makes up for that, and your not going to throw a £200+ camera about, are you.
If your looking to buy a new digi, then go and check out the reviews and go to a camera shop like i did,and see for yourself what it can do, you won't be dissapointed in this and well worth the money. It's not to bulky and can easily be carried under your coat or jacket without being to obstructive.

I bought my son a pocket size Lumix to photograph the apartments in his Italian villa www.villasanraffaello.com. the wide angle lens was so good for the interiors. I liked the camera so much but suffer from macular degeneration and wanted good viewing options, the answer was the Lumix DMC-FZ28. Same wide angle lens,great zoom and a light very manageable camera with many extras. Highly recommended.

I love all the gear this company has given Fabulous. I want for nothing. They have excelled with the Panasonic DMC-FZ28-K I could not be happier. I bought it because it was a bargain. It certainly has not disappointed in any way. They Get My Full Praise For Excellence in every respect.

When I wanted a light weight camera for travelling, there was one choice namely the Panasonic FZ28, because it packs a mighty punch, covering 99.9% of all my needs.
It has a 28mm wide angle ideal for architecture and views together with a powerful long reach zoom for sport, wildlife and nature photography.In other words one has all the lenses required in a small lightweight package,unobtrusive enough not to bother anyone but able to do a really good job in covering any situations presented.
If you don't want to carry an SLR with interchangeable lenses, this will do the job within limitations.It will not let you down, I have used it with confidance covering motorsports, safari, nature walks...ok, not to SLR levels of quality but good enough for me,having 30 years experience as a professional phiotgrapher.
True others might be better in some situations but nothing can beat it for value vs performance.
I have made 30x40 cms enlargements with ease,when needed but mostly I just use it to have an album of my holidays, I do tend to do a some post production editing to get the best of the Lumix, but that's my choice.
If one is upgrading from a compact, then the difference in picture taking, image quality and versatility will be highly evident.
If one buys it as his first digital camera..they will be blown away
If one has some previous experience, like me and wants a low priced camera with some high end performance to replace heavy, bulky SLR, then it is worth considering.
I had previously owned several Fuji Finepix SLR type cameras (9600s, 7000s, 6500s)another Panasonic FZ 20 similar to the FZ28, an Olympus 5080, they all have their pro's and con's, it's boils down to personal choice,mine was to buy this DMC FZ28 and I haven't regretted my choice.

This camera is great. It is lightweight and small footprint. The quality of the photographs is remarkable. The menus offer various options of making original shots. The auto focus on moving subjects is to be truly effective, such as face recognition in portrait mode. I am delighted by this purchase.

Fantastic camera , everything fine with payment and delivery and the quality of course is just like I`ve expected.Strongly recomended ebayer.

HAVE USED THIS CAMERA FOR THE FIRST TIME TODAY IN THE SNOW. A FEW OF THE PICTURES WERE BLURRED BUT I THINK THAT WAS ME NOT USED TO IT. IT IS EASY TO USE AND THE INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE BASIC USE ARE GOOD. I HAVE UPGRADED FROM A COMPACT DIGITAL CAMERA AND FIND THAT THIS DOES THE JOB I WANT IT TO DO. THE ZOOM LENS IS EXCELLENT AND IT WOULD BE HARD TO FIND THE SAME TYPE FOR THAT MONEY. WOULD RECOMMEND BUYING IT IF YOU DO NOT WANT A SLR CAMERA ( I WOULD CALL IT THE BABY SLR!)

Great camera, fantastic price. After much research on the web, I decided to purchase the LUMIX DMC-FZ28. No regrets. Handy and easy to use. Good features, wide angle, and great zooming also during video mode