pacapao

Added 11/20/09:

On impulse, I bought the zs3. I was swayed by the many 5-star reviews. As I said before, I want RAW, but I figured I would live with the jpeg until the manufacturers get their trip together.

But then something happened I find disturbing.

Amazon shipped it without any packing, and the unpadded camera box was just thrown into the Amazon ship box. The camera rattled around inside the bigger shipping box.

I see a number of reviews of defective cameras on this site, and I wonder what the packing was like – or wasn’t.

Now, this has become all too common a practice in careless sweat shop operations. I once bought a $800 Nikon lens from Adorama that was shipped like this – toss and forget.

I am sure these items are too fragile to be treated like this. If I bought this camera at a Radio Shack, and the sales person just tossed it on the floor rather than handing it to me, I would blow my stack. After all, I just paid for this item, it is now my property, and you are treating it in a destructive and careless manner. And this is exactly what Amazon is doing with my purchase.

Jeff Bezos built a great company, Amazon, and unfortunately obviously incompetent managers are busily undermining it. sad. Score one for the Lilliputs.

Added 11/23:

HaHa I have to laugh at the snarling Besenjis of mediocrity! Just kidding. Everyone has potential, so have hope. About the camera:

The lcd is good, and the depth of field for close shots is excellent, if you want that. One commenter, a rare observer not suffering from a tightie, said that a Nikon is gonna be like hauling a big load around. I agree totally.

But then I noticed something disturbing about the pictures of the zs3.

When I zoomed a pic all the way, the edges were not “tack sharp.”

So I shot the same thing (a fern plant) with a $3000 Nikon. Same result.

Why? The explanation I come to is that the lcd screen can’t track the higher magnifications. The check on this will be to print out the pic even at 8.5×11 size and see how sharp it looks. That’s critical, because people notice subconsciously whether a photo is not sharp, and photographers have a bag of tricks to get sharpness. First, pics in low light suffer most from this, since the shutter is open longest, and hand-shake introduces blur. Ways to get sharp photos: hold your elbows tightly to your body, exhale and hold your breath, easily, squeeeze slowly the button like a sniper, if possible, brace the camera against anything solid (not your dog), use flash can help.

I offer these tips in case a reader has not heard them. I mean, while any reader is whining and spending time thinking how to censor my reviews, they may learn something, besides amusing me. Any substantive thoughts? (Look that one up)

The ZS3 records HD motion images at a smooth 60 frames per second with 1280×720-pixel resolution. It uses the AVCHD (MPEG-4/H.264) format via AVCHD Lite, which stores less data than other formats and thus lets you shoot more minutes of HD motion images before running out of memory.The ZS3 is equipped with an HDMI output terminal for direct transmission of digital picture and sound signals. Just connect the camera to an HDTV using a single HDMI mini cable (purchased separately), and it’s easy to view beautiful HD photos and motion images. If you have a VIERA HDTV, you can control the camera’s playback functions with VIERA’s remote control unit.The ZS3 packs a LEICA DC VARIO-ELMAR lens with 12x optical zoom into a compact body. This versatile photographic tool lets you shoot everything from sweeping vistas at the 25mm wide-angle setting to dynamic 300mm telephoto shots. And the lens system’s exquisite rendering ability lets you capture even the subtle nuances of the sights and scenes in your travels.. read more.