New Toy: Panasonic DMC-ZS5

I return from the abyss of non-blogging! Between school, work, work like school (senior project), and school like work (TA position) I haven’t felt like doing much recreational hacking and programming, or at least anything worth blogging about. I did, however, decide that I was tired of not having a digital camera and got around to getting one.

For my price range of around $200 and the requirement that I would be able to manually set most things and not just have a generic point and shoot camera, it came down to the Canon SX130 or the Panasonic ZS5. Both of which offered high optical zooms, macro modes, comparable pictures, and the ability to use manual/custom settings instead of just relying on an automatic mode. I ended up going with the ZS5 due to the smaller form factor and the longer battery life with a lithium-ion pack instead of AA’s, although the ability to buy spare AA’s could certainly have been useful.

The specs,

Resolution:            12 Megapixels
Lens:                         12x optical zoom (25-300mm eq.)
ISO:                            80-6400
Shutter:                    60-1/2000
Max Aperture:       3.3

 

Here are a few random shots took in the middle of the night.

 

Up close photo of my Leatherman Wave with mediocre indoor lighting.

 

Gumstix Overo with Tobi Expansion board… and a quarter for size.

 

View looking North from top of A Mountain.

 

View looking South from top of A Mountain (60 second exposure time).