Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ30 Digital Camera Review

by Patrick Singleton
Published on October 21, 2005

Navigation
Intro	Testing / Performance
Physical Tour	Components
Design / Layout	Modes
Control Options	Image Parameters
Connectivity / Extras	Overall Impressions
Conclusion	Specs / Ratings

Auto Mode (7.5)
The Panasonic DMC-FZ30 offers a full auto mode via the mode dial. It sets the camera to auto exposure, auto white balance, and auto ISO. It sets the Autofocus mode to one-shot focusing using just the center AF sensor. The user is left to choose the picture size and quality, including the aspect ratio, and to set the camera to accept a conversion lens, if one is attached.  Exposure compensation is not available, leaving the user without any control over the shot. In auto mode, the FZ30 is solely a point-and-shoot camera.

Movie Mode (7.5)
The Panasonic DMC-FZ30 can record video at either 640 x 480 pixels or 320 x 240 pixels, and at either 30 or 10 frames per second. 640 x 480 and 30 fps will produce adequate video quality with fluid motion. 10 fps does not record motion smoothly, and 320 x 240 looks a bit pixelated. Panasonic warns that operating the zoom while making a video will result in a grinding noise in the video, and they're absolutely right. It's not possible to change the autofocus mode or aperture value while recording movies – though the camera focuses and adjusts exposure while recording. A 1GB SD card will hold 9 ½ minutes of video at maximum quality, and far more at minimum quality.  

Drive / Burst Mode (6.75)
The Panasonic DMC-FZ30 offers a burst mode of up to 3 frames per second for 5 frames in high-quality JPEG mode, or 9 frames in lower-quality JPEG mode. It also has a slower burst mode, which does 2 frames per second for the same number of frames, and a third mode, which will shoot until the SD card is full, but it starts at 2 fps and may slow down from there. None of the burst modes work with TIFF or RAW formats, and they will only take one frame if the flash is turned on. The FZ30 does not deliver a blistering performance here. Three frames per second is competitive among SLR-like cameras and entry level DSLRs, but it's not fast enough for the sorts of sequences many people expect in sports and action photography. A maximum of five shots is also very limiting, and nine isn't much better.

Playback Mode (7.0)
The Panasonic DMC-FZ30’s playback mode is activated by turning the mode dial, though it's possible to get a quick review of the last image displayed by hitting the review button, which is the bottom button on the four-way controller. Playback mode on the FZ30 will show up to 25 images at a time – or 16, 9, or 1 image at a time, and will zoom in 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x, or 16x on an individual image. (The specs claim that it can only zoom in 1x, 4x, and 8x, but the camera itself says otherwise.) The FZ30 includes a utility to designate images as “favorites.” The FZ30 will run slide shows on its LCD screen or on a television, and the show can include either all the images on the memory card, or only the favorites. The images can be shown for 1, 2, 3, or 5 seconds, or manually advanced, and the slide show can be set to play sounds recorded with the images. If Rotate display is set, vertical images will show up vertically when they appear on the screen one at a time. They'll show sideways when they are magnified and when they're shown in 9, 16, or 25 images at a time. Playback mode also allows the user to crop or shrink images, and to switch images' aspect ratios from wide to narrower formats. It's also possible to add audio recordings to individual images. The FZ30 is DPOF compatible, which means that the user can print images directly to a compatible printer, or save a print order on a SD card for delivery to a photo lab.  

Custom Image Presets (8.5)

The Panasonic DMC-FZ30 offers 14 custom image presets. The camera provides onscreen text describing each preset.