Following the success of the award winning DMC-FZ28, Panasonic announces its new digital camera dubbed as the Lumix DMC-FZ38. This camera incorporates a host of features for digital camera buffs like Hybrid Superzoom, Power OIS and Face Detection, and Ultra High-Speed AF. It is ideal for beginners and those moving on to serious amateur photography.
The Lumix DMC-FZ38 incorporates a 27mm wide angle Leica DC Vario-Elmarit lens with F2.8 brightness. It has a powerful 18x optical zoom 1 combined with a 12.1 MP CCD. This camera allows users to record photos as well as movies. The lens unit constitutes 11 elements in 8 groups including 3 aspherical lenses and 2 ED lenses. This set of lenses reduces the chromatic aberration that is likely to occur in telephoto images and secure high picture quality to pass Leica’s stringent standards.
The 18x zoom lens makes it very easy to capture objects from far away and take dramatic close ups. The zoom power can also be enhanced to 35.2x with the Extra Optical Zoom function. The 27mm wide-angle feature is ideal for landscapes as well as indoor shots. The 12.1 mega pixel resolution allows photos to be greatly enlarged while still preserving outstanding detail. This camera can record high-definition motion picture in AVCHD Lite. It doubles the recording time in HD quality compared with the conventional Motion JPEG format. It also features a Dolby Digital Stereo Creator to record high quality audio.
Taking great pictures is easy with the DMC-FZ38 Power O.I.S and Face Recognition feature. This camera incorporates the Intelligent Auto mode in which the camera does all the work, leaving the user free to compose shots and capture moments. This mode also helps reduce mis-shots. The Power O.I.S feature helps prevent handshake and allows users to capture pictures clearly in the ultra-telephoto range without the use of a tripod. This feature is effective when shooting at night and beautiful pictures can be taken in situations that previously resulted in blurring.
The iA mode also includes Face Recognition an advanced feature that remembers faces and makes archiving incredibly easy. When a particular face is captured several times, the camera will alert the user to register the face. Once that is done if that same face appears again the camera will display the name of the person and prioritize focus and exposure making the face bright and in sharp focus. Up to six faces can be registered in the camera and up to three faces can be simultaneously recognized. The age of the registered subject can also be specified. For babies under 3years of age, the camera will automatically switch to Baby mode if the baby appears in the frame.
The user can choose to display only photos that contain a particular registered face and view slide shows of only a selected person with the Category Playback function. Unwanted red-eye during recording can also be digitally corrected with the advanced face detection system. The FZ38 can lock any subject and keep it in focus even if it moves with the AF Tracking feature. The iA mode inherits necessary functions users need in a good digital still camera like Intelligent ISO Control that reduces motion blur by adjusting the ISO sensitivity. Intelligent Exposure optimizes the exposure for each part of an image preventing blocked shadows. Intelligent Scene Selector incorporates 5 shooting modes namely Portrait, Night Portrait, Scenery, Night Scenery and Macro. The DMC-FZ38 claims to be twice as fast as its predecessor DMC-FZ28. This camera provides outstanding performance courtesy ultra high-speed AF. The Quick AF system helps focus on the subject even before the shutter button is pressed halfway.
The camera incorporates a high-speed, high-performance Venus Engine HD that is re-developed to support the recording of high-definition motion images in AVCHD Lite. The Venus Engine HD boasts around 2.4x processing capability improving the speed of camera operations. It also has twin CPUs. Luminance noise and chromatic noise are reduced before and after signal processing with image processing. Low frequency noise is reduced and unwanted sounds can be minimized to produce beautiful motion images. This high-performance engine is also energy efficient and extends the battery life up to 470 shots.
This multi-task image-processing engine has an extremely quick response time. The shutter release time lag is as short as 0.007 seconds. Capturing candid images can be done with ease. This camera can click approximately 2.3 shots per second in burst shooting mode and approximately 10 shots per second in High-Speed Burst shooting mode. The Flash Burst mode enables the user to take consecutive shots with continuous emissions of the flash.
Motion image recording can be started by pressing a one-touch button on the back panel. There is also a Wind Cut function available which blocks out the noise from background wind. It also provides a Custom Color mode and carries over 18 different scene modes in movie recording. The user can select from three levels of motion image quality SH, H and L with AVCHD Lite.
The DMC FZ38 goes beyond just recording HD movies. It features a Creative Movie mode which enables the user to set the shutter speed and aperture manually to make better movies. Changing the shutter speed enables the user to capture fast moving objects.
My Color mode allows users to adjust the brightness and saturation parameters. The High Dynamic mode is a newly added feature to the existing screen modes. It helps to capture a scene with moderate exposure. There are three options from which a user can select from depending on the desired effect like Standard, Art or B/W.
This camera supports the SDHC/SD memory card. The card can be inserted into the Viera Image Viewer on any compatible Panasonic Viera HDTV or DIGA Blu-ray Disc Player thus enabling users to view not only still images but also HD movies. PHOTOfunSTUDIO 4/0 HD Edition is the additional software provided which makes it easy to view and edit the recorded content. Users can also upload videos to YouTube or burn to a DVD disc.
The Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ38 will be available from September, 2009.
