sbroam wrote:threadjack alert - Judy - how are you liking the Panasonic? I looked at that one and saw that a new one was coming out soon. But, I got a good deal on a Pentax W80...
So far I love it. I had a Pentax W10 which I also loved; actually I still have it, but the plastic over the LCD is cracked so it is no longer waterproof.
The Panasonic is heavier than my Pentax. I think it is metal and the Pentax is plastic. The Panasonic has a nice Leica lens. It takes HD video in AVCHD lite format. This has been my one gripe with it - the AVCHD lite format is not easy to edit or output in a reasonable file size. I asked someone on BT who has the same camera what he does with the files and, following his advice, used Sony Vegas 9 (demo version) to edit the footage and Handbrake to convert it to a smaller file size. The result is here:
http://www.vimeo.com/10116741 If I continue with this workflow I'll have to buy Vegas 9 which is $100.
This is really aggravating for me, because I am a video editor, it's my job! - and I still had to jump through some hoops to get that footage edited. Straight out of the camera the files are 60fps, which means if you upload them to a site like vimeo the video is going to play twice as fast as it should. A pity because the raw video files look much better than the finished product I posted.
The camera also takes Mpeg video and I may just use that setting, but I haven't tried it yet so I don't know how good it looks. There are other file conversion programs than Handbrake, that I may try, and I am going to try reversing the order - i.e. convert first then edit either in an older version of Sony Vegas that I own, or some other program.
I have no idea what workflow is required on a Mac.
The shutter speed is what I would call 'typical' and the way I got the Baby Falls shots was simply timing when I hit the capture button. It writes to the card in a 'typical' time as well, but it might be faster with a faster card. I will say that I think it shoots better in low light than the Pentax simply based on the fact that it was such a grey rainy day Sunday at the Tellico, yet the shots have bright colors and good contrast. I'm pleased with it thus far. I got the camera for around $250 at Adorama.