Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS8 Black Digital Camera

Good features for the money, but poor low light preformance

By Professor  Dec 23, 2011 | 2 out of 2 found this Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS8 Black Digital Camera review helpful

Pros: Easy to use, high resolution

Cons: Slow autofocus, poor low light performance

I bought this because it got great reviews and Leica optics are very high quality. Out of the box it appears very well made, the pdf manual is good and comprehensive, although the paper manual that comes with it is useless. It has lots of outstanding... features including a nice face recognition mode where you can store certain people's faces for identification and lots of scene modes. The problem I had with it was that in low light situations when I took photos without a flash the resulting photos turned out very grainy. I tried adjusting the settings to prevent the reduction in quality that automatically takes place in low light, but then photos just turned out too dark. As a result, whenever indoors I ended up using the flash, which added significant delay between being able to take shots which meant that I missed lots of photos. While on paper this camera looks like a great deal, in practice I'm not happy with the photo results. Read more Less