Camera Panasonic LUMIX DMC-ZS19 Deals & Reviews

J. Bennett "theskilletbabe" (California): I had a very similar experience as B. Baniszewski"Beth". My cameras lens quit expanding after just 7 months of use. I sent my camera in for a warranty repair and like Beth I got a call after a week saying my camera had a dent in the corner of the camera and and the warranty could not be honored. I had never dropped the camera and when I sent it in it was undamaged and wrapped in two layers of bubble wrap and placed it in a box 3 times larger than the camera. Coincidentally I sent my camera in close to the date she wrote her review. Wonder who's camera really had a dent. I was fuming talking to the repair rep that was requesting payment for repair. I asked them to send me pictures of the damage.

RIK (Bay Area, CA): My main criteria for purchasing a point & shoot camera was its performance and quality in "auto" mode. While I like having the ability to manually tweak settings, I need a camera that I can pick up and capture one of my son's adorable baby moments. Or better yet, if I hand the camera to someone else who doesn't know much about photography or the details of my camera I need to be confident that the photos taken on "auto" will come out fine. After all, you only get one chance to capture some moments and so I want a camera that can handle that duty.

Brent V (San Francisco, CA United States): Unfortunately, the ZS19 falls short of decent pictures in auto mode in the condition I care most about -- indoors under warm lighting (a room illuminated by a few lamps). The ZS19's "auto" settings made my baby son look like Casper the Friendly Ghost because the flash just wiped out any of the color in the picture. And if I turned off the flash, the camera wouldn't always choose a good ISO, aperture, white balance, exposure, etc. If I tweaked those settings manually and took a few test shots I would eventually get the photo I want. And it looked great. But as lighting conditions change, I would need to continually tweak the settings since I couldn't trust the auto mode to do the right thing.

SpeedingCheetah (St. Louis Park, MN): Noticeably better than the Sony DSC-W650 in my tests as far as picture quality and much easier of a camera to hold for me. The "rubber" grip is actually a rubberized plastic...a bit annoyed at that, hope it won't come off over time. Build quality is top notch, (except for the lens cover thingy, it is very thin and weak, even rattles a little, not a good as I have seen on lower quality cams) The entire camera actually feels a tad on the heavy side, which I like. Easy to hold in your hand...I hate those super thin, credit card style cameras...sure, they can easily fit in your pocket, or even a cell phone case, but I always fell like I am about to drop the thing.