Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS25

Opinion: I bought this camera for use with my family. I typically use an DSLR but it recently broke. I went hunting for a good budget camera that would suit my families needs of portability and ease of use but wouldn't be as big of a hit in the wallet as a DSLR would be. After much searching I stumbled upon this camera. Although this camera is not as flashy as some of the competitors in this class it preformed quite well with out all the added fluff that you can expect from Canon or Nikon cameras.

Initially I was not overly impressed with the button layout of this camera but after a half-hour of steady use the button and menu layouts were not an issue. The 29mm wide angle is probably the biggest advantage of this camera. Often we are capturing pictures of small children and this added feature is quickly noted. The scene modes are decent, nothing really new but there are a number of them.

On the down side the image quality in low light is average. There is a feature that you can set the max iso limits at 400 800 or 1600 depending on the subject. I keep the iso maxed at 400 and the pictures turn out decent for low light. Many budget cameras have this issue so I wasn't expecting amazing results in this area. The only other area of complaint is that there is no HD video. Some of the competitors, for only $20 (CAN) more were offering 780p HD videos (Although the Noise in those cameras were horrible). I wish this was included but I bought my camera for the stills not the video.

In conclusion this is a great family camera that will not hurt your wallet too much. Decent features good image quality wide angle lens. This camera will not turn heads but it will provide good images considering the price that you pay.