Great camera

I spent ages trying to find a simple"point and shoot" camera and I have found it!
This camera is great its small and light weight for carrying in your handbag, it has really simple controls (not loads of buttons) and its very easy to use with your computer.
If your looking for a camera to take out on nights out this is the one.

Great little camera for the money

Bought this specifically to take in the sea on holiday, took some great pictures, works great in or out of the water, however if you use the flash, it reflects somewhat on the waterproof case, if it is fitted. In the bright Greek sunshine though, the flash wasn't needed, and the underwater pics came out very well. Haven't used the video mode, but I only really bought it for underwater still pics. Highly recommended, I bought it from ecom cameras for a little over £50 including express delivery, and I think it is excellent value for money.

What a little marvel and good looking!

I bought this camera 3 weeks ago and have taken about 500 images in all light conditions with very good results. I have owned a Fuji Finepix 410 for 4 years which still takes super quality pics, but when I saw this little beauty I just had to have it for the size alone! Smart, slim, easy to use and very elegant to look at, it's perfect for that night out with friends at a ball or dinner party. Software included is excellent and easy to set up complete with printing instructions. Images are v. good on the high quality settings and with a 512 MB picture card you get 250 plus images at 8M pixels. The usual great value too from Amazon.

Amazing Camera

As a Freelance Photographer who's messed around, played with, and generally found faults in a whole host of digital cameras (point-and-shoots, bridge cameras and digital SLR's), I have to say the Lumix FZ18 impressed me so much that I actually bought one with my own money... a rare event indeed! I was going to say,"for the money it's brilliant", but regardless of the low price, it's far better than some DSLR's I've tested costing more than twice - even three times as much.

The beauty of the FZ18 is that you can just set it to"Intelligent Auto" mode, and rattle off perfect pictures time after time after time... if you want to. Or, if you want to get arty, you can over-ride just about any aspect of picture taking that you want, and still let the camera take care of everything else. You might want to just set the shutter speed slower to get a blurred background as a rally car zooms past. You can. You might want to over-ride the white balance because you're taking photo's in snow. You can. Or change the aperture or the type of metering. You can do everything manually, some things manuallu, or just let the camera do what it KNOWS is best. You can rattle off 3 frames per second, go into the mode feature for anything from photographing firework displays to portraits (colour or B&W), high speed events such as motorsports, or even ask the camera to allow for the fact that you're inside a dimly lit building or under strip lighting. It's an amazing camera all-in-all. Don't let the lack of weight put you off either. It's a misconception that a heavy camera is a good camera. In fact it's probably quite the opposite that applies in digital cameras.Unbelievably the Lumix FZ18 is about the same weight as my Canon Ixus.

It's no use having an 8, 10 or even 14 megapixel camera if you only have a 3x optical zoom. Any professional photographer will tell you that your camera is only as good as it's lens. And that's where the FZ18 really shines. It has an 18x OPTICAL zoom. Terrific! Believe me, an 8mp camera with a good quality 18x optical lens (and the lens on the FZ18 is made by Leica - probably the world's best lens maker) will take far far better pictures than a 12mp camera with a less-than-brilliant 3x or even 10x optical zoom.

I never thought the day would come when a manufacturer would market a high quality digital camera that I personally would consider to be all things to all people. But I believe Panasonic might have done it with this one. You can even choose to take pictures in RAW format rather than JPG. RAW format being thee absolute best because unlike JPG and Bitmap images, it's not compressed. It's the"all singing all dancing" pro format used in studios and for magazine covers, professional calendars and so on.

You can also buy a 1.7x optical tele-conversion lens for the FZ18, taking it's already incredible 18x optical lense upto about 30x optical. Yep, the time has arrived where you all need to trim your nasal hair for that next family photo, because with the FZ18 really could pick it up!!!

Top quality, excellent camera

I received this item within three days of having ordered it from Amazon and I am hugely impressed with it. It's easy to use and the menus are easy to operate. There are 21 scene modes which are simple to access and select.
The iA (intelligent auto) mode is brilliant as it automatically selects the correct mode, exposure, shutter speed etc taking the thought out of the entire process, taking quality pictures every time. The three inch screen is crystal clear and will automatically adjust it's brightness depending on the brightness of your environment.
On the whole, this looks and feels like a top quality well made product and I would recommend it to anyone.

Very good camera, very good price...

Hi, firstly, this camera is very good quality for the price its up for, its got fantastic picture quality and lots of different modes to choose from for the more experienced photographer. however, if your not that 'tech-savvy', this camera is also great for you because its got and auto-mode which automatically selects the best settings for the conditions you are in. it has face recognition and best off all the automatic red-eye eraser; as soon as take a photo it gets rid of the red-eye all by itself in about 2-3 seconds flat, no messing around on the computer afterwards needed, however if you like you can turn this off. the only reason this isnt 5 STARS is because when taking a photo, you have to look at the screen to see what you are capturing, whereas i would prefer to look through the lense myself on occassions, nothing really big then. overall, a great camera for a great price for all levels of photographer.

Excellent little family camera

Bought this camera to share with my 5 year old and 3 year old. It is ideal as I don't have to worry about a bit of rough handling. Also ideal for coping with the British weather. We had great fun with it at Legoland on the water rides in the pouring rain. My husband's phone filled up with water and died but the camera soldiered on... I didn't expect the photos to be as good as our old and rather delicate Minolta Dimage but they are excellent, I can't really tell the difference. Overall an excellent fun family camera.

brilliant camera for the price

I wanted to upgrade from a 4 year old 3MP Panasonic Lumix to something with a bit more umph.

This camera is one of the top 3 Which? Best Buy's - and by far the cheapest of those 3. It's packed with features, easy to use and produces really really good photographs. I particularly like taking close ups of plants and flowers, and the macro function allows me to get within a couple of centimetres of the subject and still be in sharp focus. It's bulkier than some of the really slim-line cameras, but no-where near as big as these new breed of high-zoom non-SLR's which are just enormous. I didn't even have to buy a new camera case, just popped it straight into my old one with no problems. It fits into a coat pocket too.

The only downsides (and they're not major) are that the screen's so big that it's easy to get finger prints on (oh boo-hoo, get some wipes!) and it does use a lot of power - I've been using normal Duracell's - (so I'll buy some more powerful rechargeables)

All-in-all a fantastic buy. Thoroughly recommended.

Delivery and ordering

I found the delivery estimates a little misleading. Before paying for my stuff( a camera, case and memory card) I was told it would be 3-5 working days, now that I have paid for everything it is telling me, 2 weeks. Fingers crossed I receive my order. I have been contacted regarding the order for the case, it is being sent from Germany so it should arrive early next week, but the camera and memory card remain a mistery as to when they will arrive??!!

Excellent and it looks Cool

Got one of these for my mum for Christmas and she's barely put it down.
She's not a great photographer but this seems to do all the hard work....such an improvement. The whole family is happy with the results of the obligatory"family portraits" whenever we are all together.
Don't know what the guy giving it a 1* is all about!!
Would definitely recommend this to everyone...such a great LCD size..having seen it in action wish I'd got one for myself!