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My Panasonic FZ20 is on the way.

post #1 of 33
9/2/04 at 12:10pm
Thread Starter 
Finally pulled the trigger and ordered this camera. Lots of good things mentioned about it. I can't wait to get it and post a few samples next week.
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post #2 of 33
9/8/04 at 9:53am
Mine is too! I didn't have a chance to order a Panasonic SD card before the $50 rebate expired, though. Stupid hurricane Frances!!!

What kind of card are you using?
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post #3 of 33
9/8/04 at 1:36pm
Thread Starter 
I got my camera yesterday! Right now I am using the default card. I have on order from Newegg.com a 512MB Kingmax card that is supposed to be a 60X card or 9-10MB write/read speeds. It was $56 bucks which seems like a good price and it should get here Friday, just in time for my trip to Dallas this weekend.
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post #4 of 33
9/8/04 at 1:38pm
Cool. Let us know how the card works out -- I need to get something before the HTF meet in LA the week after next!
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post #5 of 33
9/8/04 at 6:34pm
I would stay away from no-name brands w/ prices that are too good to be true.

_Man_
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post #6 of 33
9/8/04 at 11:58pm
I'm using a Kingmax 256, and I can say at least that the speed is up to par with the best brands. Can't say much about longterm reliability, but hopefully it will be good. They've got quite a bit of literature on their website regarding their cards, which are actually pretty unique compared to all other SD cards. About half the thickness with no Write protect tab, supposedly more durable and weatherproof. When IDed in a phone, they also come up as Kingmax, rather than another brand. Fwiw, my 256 PNY brand comes up as Toshiba. I know that Toshiba, Pansonic, and Sandisk are probably the largest 3 SD manufacturers, and 90+% of the cards on the market are probably rebranded from one of these 3. At least that's how it used to be, things may have changed recently, but probably not.
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post #7 of 33
9/9/04 at 12:20pm
I guess it all depends on how much you actually care about the potential losses of pics vs the savings. I wouldn't be surprised that Kingmax does exactly what you're guessing. But personally, I'd rather play it safer w/ my photos than to save that little bit on the memory card. I do try to find good deals and save some $$$, but one does have to draw the line somewhere. And I'm not suggesting that people should only buy from the big brands like SanDisk, but there are many other brands out there that have proven themselves far more than this no-name Kingmax.

And there is also at least one well-known brand that seems to be notorious for bad CF cards, ie. Viking, at least in the last couple years -- just check Amazon's user reviews to see. I actually had an old 64MB Viking CF card that worked perfectly fine for ~2 years until I misplaced it, so it's not like I've never used them either, but I wouldn't want to run out to buy another one until their "known" reliability improves -- could've easily been just a short term manufacturing problem.

_Man_
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post #8 of 33
9/10/04 at 8:09am
Well, I've seen a ton of complaints on various Sandisk cards, and I have a 32MB card made by Sandisk that is also slow as molasses, so personally I plan on avoiding that brand like the plague. It could very well be that because they have a large market share that more people are bound to have issues with them, but that's just the feel I have for their products. Plus they have a billion different sub brands that I can't keep them straight.

Regarding Kingmax, after doing a little digging it looks like they're actually a fairly large and well known memory company, at least for computer memory. An article at Anandtech talking about their BGA memory mentions they have the same stature as Micron, but mainly in Asia.

Here's a page with some general speed tests:
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/...d-test-p2.html

The main issue with buying other so called brands is you have no idea who makes them. Take Lexar for example, which probably to most people would be considered a 'namebrand'. I've seen it widely mentioned that they've used rebranded Panasonic, Sandisk, and Toshiba cards. So how do you know what you are getting? Well, you don't, unless you know who they are actually getting their memory from, and if like most companies they use multiple sources, then it's pretty much just hope for the best. In this sense I'd consider it more dangerous to buy from a brand that doesn't make their own memory. When I bought my PNY 256MB card, I had seen reports that they used Toshiba and Panasonic. Well, the Panasonic cards are significantly faster than the Toshiba, so I figured I'd give it a shot since it was also cheaper by a significant amount, but unfortunately I got the Toshiba one.

If you hit the Panasonic forums on Dpreview, this question comes up fairly often, and in general Panasonic is held in very high regard, but they are usually more expensive. I believe SimpleTech also uses them. If you have a Palm Pilot, you can usually ID the SD cards and it will tell you who the manufacturer is. That's how I was able to ID my rebranded PNY and HP SD cards. Anyways, moral of the story is, don't care so much about the branded name of the memory, try to figure out who actually makes it.
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post #9 of 33
9/10/04 at 10:02am
Thread Starter 
I just got my Kingmax card and it works great. Its thinner than a standard SD card but fits in the camera just the same. Plus it has a 5 year warranty, AND is sturdy as hell....we are talking no flexibility at all. I think this will work just fine.
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post #10 of 33
9/10/04 at 4:03pm
Stupid UPS didn't deliver my camera yesterday as scheduled due to "Adverse Weather Conditions," whatever that means -- the hurricane went through over the weekend, but yesterday the weather was just fine. Then today, they didn't show up before Lucy had to go to work at 4 pm, so now I'll have to wait until Monday at least. (You'd think they would try to deliver the late packages first.)

Bastids! Shoulda had them deliver it to my office.
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post #11 of 33
9/10/04 at 5:17pm
Thread Starter 
Heh..if it was earlier I would suggest you call their distribution center and ask them if you could come by and pick it up directly. Fedex has let me do that a time or 2 if it was after the original scheduled delivery.
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post #12 of 33
9/13/04 at 10:39am
It turns out that the truck never even left the loading dock on Friday! The package tracing department said that it was loaded on the truck on Friday morning and that the truck is on the road and should deliver it today. It had better show up!!!
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post #13 of 33
9/13/04 at 11:27am
Reports from the ol' homestead are that the package has arrived! Hopefully I can get out of work a little early today. . .

(FedEx should deliver my KingMax 512MB card tomorrow.)
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post #14 of 33
9/19/04 at 6:23am
? ..so hows the camera doing ??
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post #15 of 33
9/19/04 at 8:10pm
Can I ask where you ordered the camera from. I am looking to order it also but it always seems to be listed as not in stock!

Wes
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post #16 of 33
9/20/04 at 7:00pm
Thread Starter 
It's doing great.

Lasts a good 2 hours on a full charge, and is fast. It loves my Kingmax 512MB Card.

I got mine from Circuit City on sale for $539 on their website. The camera still seems be be in limited stock.
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post #17 of 33
9/20/04 at 10:36pm
Only 2 hours? Was that only on the first battery cycle? That sounds too little for a normal cycle unless you were shooting video the entire time and didn't allow it much down time. If it's only the first cycle, then it'll probably improve after a couple cycles.

_Man_
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post #18 of 33
9/21/04 at 1:40pm
Thread Starter 
Heh..if only 2 hours is bad for you I must be in heaven. Every other digital camera of my friends that I would borrow would crap out after taking 15 to 20 pictures. Of course they were running on 2 double A's though.

I plan on getting an additional backup batter for around $30 bucks pretty soon.
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post #19 of 33
9/21/04 at 2:14pm
If the battery life is good, it should last you a full day's shooting unless you tend to keep the IS on or use flash every shot or have the LCD on all day. If you do that, then you'll probably cut the battery life in 1/2 or maybe less.

With most digicams, it's usually the LCD that kills the battery life. Flash uses loads of power too, but it doesn't stay on constantly. The IS probably uses significant power also, but you shouldn't leave that on when you have good daylight to work with.

Of course, all this assumes good battery life to begin with. My Canon G3 could last a full day if I don't keep the LCD on all day, ie. only turn it on when I shoot and for occasional shot reviewing. Meanwhile, I can easily last 2 weeks on one charge w/ my D70 since it doesn't use the LCD for shooting at all, but only for image review.

_Man_
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post #20 of 33
9/21/04 at 2:51pm
Thread Starter 
I use the EVF mostly, flash about half and have IS set to Mode2 where it only engages the instant you take the picture, not like Mode1 where IS is constant.
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post #21 of 33
9/21/04 at 7:11pm
Just called and found a local Circuit City has it in stock, How often have they been running them for $549.? They are giving a $50. gift card with this camera if you buy on the web site and you can still do a store pickup. But the price right now is $599. Should I pull the trigger and hope the put it on sale within a month?

Wes
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post #22 of 33
9/21/04 at 10:41pm
If I were you, I wouldn't wait for a better deal. Just find the best deal you can get right now and go for it. If you wait too long, you'll miss all the great autumn colors and have a nice new camera w/ not nearly as much to shoot for the winter season.

FWIW, digicam prices always come down until they are discontinued the next year. The key as usual w/ these things is to get what you can when you actually "need" it -- well, actually, you should give yourself at least a couple weeks to warm up to a new camera before any big vacation, honeymoon, event, etc. and longer if possible.

_Man_
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post #23 of 33
9/28/04 at 10:23am
Are there any reviews of this thing yet? I can't seem to find any!

--
H
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post #24 of 33
9/28/04 at 1:29pm
Looks like you'll have to wait until October to get reviews from the 3 main digital camera review sites.
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post #25 of 33
9/28/04 at 1:52pm
DPreview has a "preview" that is fairly detailed. (Sorry, I can't post links yet...)

It seems as though the problem is that Panasonic is not loaning out very many review samples.


Bruce
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post #26 of 33
10/1/04 at 2:24pm
Aaron's capsule FZ20 review:

Took it on the HTF trip.
Loved loved loved using it. It feels very solid, operates fast, and the menus and functions are easy to get used to.
I didn't measure battery life, but only had to recharge once during the week (I took about 200 pics total).
Initial review of the pictures (taken mostly in 3 MP mode, some in 5 MP mode) on my PC and 55" TV at home shows excellent results.

There you have it!

I'll post some samples at some point soon.
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post #27 of 33
10/4/04 at 1:06pm
Thread Starter 
One thing I was pleasantly surprised on this weekend was the burst mode.

I set it to H and was out in full sunlight shooting a few birds, at one press of the shutter I heard SNAP SNAP SNAP SNAP and in less than 1 second I had 4 pictures written to the card and ready for viewing.

VERY NICE.
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post #28 of 33
10/6/04 at 12:04pm
In Canada the FZ20 is at Henrys for $899.99. Looks like it directly replaced the FZ10 without a price hike. Thats something worthwhile noting.
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post #29 of 33
10/6/04 at 2:13pm
The MSRP of the FZ20 (US$600) was a VERY pleasant surprise when it was released! Many places still sell the FZ10 for more than I paid for the FZ20 the 2nd week it was available!
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post #30 of 33
10/6/04 at 6:22pm
The FZ20 apparantly has a tad more noise than the FZ10? Is this true? I understand the 5 MP CCD's are a tad noisy. Not sure exactly how much worse it was. It would be nice to find an FZ10 discounted due to the FZ20 out there. I think they've cleared them out. I still wish the FZ10 and 20 had video recording of 640 x 480 @ 30 fps. The Konica Minolta has that. They did ditch their 800 x 600 mode though. I'm not 100% on the quality of the Z3, but it is the only 4 MP digital camera with a stabilizer technology, 10-12x zoom lens and 640x480@30fps video.

Anyways.....

Hope the FZ20 fairs well for you. It does look cool. I imagine a 5 MP 12x photo is noticabley easier to blow up than a 4 MP 10x photo. What I'm getting at is you can get closer with the FZ20 not just because of the extra 40 mm of zoom, but the additional mega pixels. If you zoom into the 5MP FZ20 picture to match the resolution of the FZ10, you're closer both because of the zoom and the extra MP.
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