Expert: John Oliverio - 6/12/2006

Question
I'm looking at digital cameras and plan too buy one soon.  In rhe past I've had an Olympus that was very good and allowed the owner to go to manual settings to cusstomize shots.  I am looking for a new digital camera that would allow some manual operation, but mainly would offer the ability to address most picture-taking situations.
If you could only buy one camera, which one would you buy?  How about the 8MP Panasonic Lumix DMZ-FZ30?  I would like ability to take short movies too.

Answer
Bruce,

 ISO means "international standards organizaton".  Also known as "film speed".  Digital cameras, even though they use no film, still offer you a choice of film speeds when shooting.  (They really shouldn't use the term film speed but the proper term....  "gain" would only confuse people)  The higher the film speed you use, the more grain you see in the image.  Some cameras have less grain than others at high film speeds and the Panasonic is not really considered great in this respect.  If you are not doing much low light shooting, this should not bother you.

John