mitch's meanderings

At the end of May, I’ll be rafting down the Rogue River in southern Oregon. I am looking forward to what should be a wonderful adventure with good friends, and to seeing more of Oregon’s beautiful landscape. The trip deserves to be well documented, so I stocked up on Moleskine Cahiers journals and purchased a new Fisher Stowaway pen.

I got to thinking about photos. I’ve been using an old 2.1-megapixel camera for the last few years, and while it’s sufficient for shooting pictures at the kid’s sporting events, it is not the best camera for capturing truly beautiful photos. It was time to update. I set out to find point-and-shoot in the 7+ megapixel range that is easy to handle, has a big zoom range, good image quality, and of course, works with Linux.

The first 2 cameras I looked at were the Canon SD-750, and Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T100. Both are capable cameras, but each had drawbacks. The SD-750 is a bit small for my liking, and has a fairly low 3x optical zoom. The DSC-T100 fairs slightly better with a 5x optical zoom, but since I prefer to stick with SD memory card compatible cameras, Sony’s offerings drop right off the list.

I stumbled across a Ubuntu forum post that mentioned the Panasonic Lumix, and after reading several reviews, I became interested in the DSC-FZ8 with 12x optical zoom. While this camera is smaller than it’s traditional SLR counterparts, it is much larger than other cameras I had considered. Big drawback. Then I discovered the DSC-TZ3.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3 is only slightly larger than the Canon and Sony cameras I tried, but actually feels much more comfortable in my hand. The DMC-TZ3 features 7.2-megapixel resolution, image stabilization, and a Leica DC lens with 10x optical zoom (15x Extended Optical Zoom). It uses SD memory and is accessible via USB as a mass storage device or PTP interface (good for Linux). The camera offers a host of other features too numerous to mention. I picked one up at Amazon for $329 (including a free 1GB High-speed SD memory card).

Impressions so far: Very nice camera. Easy to use; takes vivid, colorful photos; awesome zoom, with incredibly effective image stabilization; very fast burst mode (3fps) for action shots.

Drawbacks: Linux support (libgphoto as Panasonic DMC-FZ20) is so-so; access is best via PTP. Picasa (my preferred photo management application) does not capture EXIF information, but fortunately, Digikam does. So for now I will use Digikam to unload into my Picasa photo folders… small price to pay I guess.

I’ll post samples soon.