Panasonic Lumix FZ8

Today, I finally got hold of the Panasonic Lumix FZ8 I ordered online when my cousin arrived from the US. Prior to this, my 6-year old Kodak digicam and a brandless one I bought in Singapore 3 years ago (I got duped) had already been destroyed. Hence, the closest thing to a digital camera I had was my Sony Ericsson K800i. Though this phone packed a 3.2 megapixel Cybershot camera, it was insufficient for a frustrated photographer like me.

I bought the FZ8 online from Amazon.com for around $229 (exclusive of shipping fees), which was a bargain compared to the prices in the Philippines. (I was in Manila last week and the cheapest price of the same model was around P23,000 [$548]).

Prior to the purchase, I did some research on the Internet. I wanted a digicam that was kinda between a point-and-shoot and a DSLR. I still plan to own a DSLR, but right now that's just too expensive for me. In the end, I was choosing between a Sony H7, a Canon S5 IS, and the Panasonic Lumix FZ8. The former two are considerably more expensive than the latter. The H7 costs $292 while the S5 IS costs $314. Interestingly, while Sony and Canon are considered "branded", the FZ8 had better online reviews and actually rated higher than the 2 others. To cite an example, dpreview.com gives it an rating of "highly recommended" and an overall value of 9/10, while the S5 IS was merely "recommended" with a value of 8/10 and the H7 was "above average" with a value of 8.5/10.

Add the fact that the FZ8 was quite cheaper, it was a no-brainer decision on my part. Though the S5 IS had more features (including the hot shoe adapter which I really liked) and the H7 had a better zoom (15x), the FZ8 features were not bad either. Among the features of this cam are the following:

- 12x optical zoom (with an 18x extended optical zoom) plus 4x digital zoom (total of 72x)
- 7.2 megapixels
- intelligent image stabilizer
- 2.5" LCD with full 207,000-pixel resolution
- electronic viewfinder

I also liked the fact that this camera uses an SD or SDHC (unlike the Sony H7) as external storage and had the option of using RAW format.

I'm simply amazed at this camera (though I really don't have a basis for comparison). The images were crisp and the zoom was incredible. After the first few hours of testing the camera, I already had taken more than a hundred photos. (At first I had to settle with its 27mb internal memory, though later I used the 256mb SD card from my old cam). I have yet to fully read the manual and I'm still in the process of experimenting. Here's one of my first-ever photos with this camera (which I took from Bethel's Filomena Restaurant):

looks familiar?

I was reading the newspaper last week when an article on the Philippine Daily Inquirer caught my attention. It wasn't the headline in the Business section that stood out, but instead, it was the picture on that page, which showed an image of the historic Silliman Hall. Although the Silliman Hall is popular and there are a lot of published photos of this, this one amused me because it looked really familiar.

As it turned out, this picture was taken by me! It was during summer 2003 when my team and I were working on the Silliman University Online Tour as senior BSIT On-the-Job Training (OJT) students then.




Im sure of this because I used that exact photograph as the image in the Silliman University Online Tour homepage. I distinctly remember applying an embossed effect on that image just to make it less bare.

Anyway, I remember taking that picture early one morning (according to the picture details, it was April 21, 2003). I was too embarrassed to take a photo of the building in the presence of other people, so what I did was to take it inside a car, the Diahatsu Feroza I was then driving during that time. I strategically parked the Feroza just between the "tempurahan" and the start of the long strip at the Rizal boulevard. In fact, I hurriedly took the shot to avoid passers-by from wondering what I was doing. Because of the rush, I accidently included the Feroza's side mirror.


I then cropped the image to discard the part where the side mirror was included. A few enhancements using Adobe Photoshop, and the picture was ready.

I had always been a frustrated photographer and dream of succeeding as one. Seeing it on a national publication like the Inquirer, it made me feel kinda proud in a small little way. But then again, should they have had asked permission from me? Considering it was used in the Online Tour web page belonging to Silliman University, then I guess they should ask permission from SU. Perhaps they did. But it doesn't matter. The bottom line is, the picture I took was published nationally!