Panasonic serves up a high end 12 megapixel shooter

There’s been a huge swarm of cameras let loose upon us of late, and there seems to be a clear-cut pattern – they’re all a bit samey and don’t really encourage ooohs and ahhhs from camera connoisseurs. Could the 12 megapixel, 5x optical zoom Panasonic DMC-FS15 change the camera monotony we seem to facing? Well, the release says it’s “feature packed, yet slim and sleek”, so let’s see exactly how much of that is BS and how much precision is actually in that statement shall we?

First of all, it’s packing a 29mm wide angle Leica DC lens for panoramic shots. I think it’s important you know, Leica lens’ are known for their expressive colours, remarkable depth and superb performance, which when coupled with the inclusion of Intelligent Auto mode (for ease of use and the reduction of misshots), AF tracking, intelligent exposure, optical image stabilisation, intelligent ISO control and intelligent scene selector, the camera comes across as a complex yet easy to handle piece of quality pic producing equipment. There are also the standard features we’ve come to expect, such as digital red eye reduction and face detection.

All your intelligently taken pics can be viewed on its 2.7-inch 230,000-dot high resolution LCD display that manages its own brightness levels according to surrounding conditions and offers a “high angle” mode so the screen can be viewed when the camera is held high, for example, when you’re at the back of a concert, surrounded by abnormally large heads and you want some pics of the stage. And if you’re into slideshows with accompanying music, you’re in luck, as it does that too.

It’s video capabilities means it can record in WVGA format at 30fps. It’s even got macro shots covered with its 3cm minimum shooting distance.

So, the verdict’s in – this camera does a little more than your average. It’ll be available in February in silver, black or blue hues. No word on pricing though.

Panasonic

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