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Well worth every penny spent!, January 14, 2006
Reviewer: Golfer Mom "Mom"
What a fantastic camera!! I spent months reading reviews and shopping cameras before I finally purchased the Lumix FZ-20. This camera is a little more than I wanted to pay, but I knew I would have to spend to get a camera that would be able to take the pictures I would be going after.

I have a 16 year old competitive golfer. At the tournaments, spectators are required to keep their distance from the players and I wanted a camera that would take good quality pictures from at least 30 yards away, which is my biggest requirement. This camera performs beautifully!

I also take pictures of the high school players at their matches to post on our golf booster website. Over the course of 2 months, I took over 5000 sports action pictures and have been wonderfully pleased with the quality and clarity of the pictures.
When I printed out the pictures of the boys for the end of season party, the parents and kids couldn't believe how great these pictures came out. And believe me, it is all the camera's doing. When I am walking for 4+ hours around a golf course to get pictures of 5 kids, I get unsteady trying to stand still and take a picture, so the stabilizer is a fantastic asset.

The zoom is great. I can stand a 100 yards away and still get great pictures of the players hitting their shots. When I have a little extra saved up, I am looking forward to getting a telephoto lens.

I would recommend this camera to everyone. This camera goes everywhere with me. I am not a professional photographer by any means, just a mom taking pictures. This camera makes me look like I am a professional. It is easy to use, and the manual is easy reading.

Con:
I wish that Panasonic included the AC adapter since I am downloading 300-400 pictures in a sitting. I haven't been able to find the adapter anywhere expect for the Panasonic website.
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Panasonic Lumix FZ20K, January 9, 2006
Reviewer: C. W. Thomas
Pros: Very good image quality. The shutter response time is very good. The 12X optical zoom is excellent. The manual is easy to read and programming the camera is very easy. It is an impressive camera.

Cons: It is very battery intensive. After a few hours shooting, the battery must be recharged. Spare batteries are very expensive. Also, no AC adapter is included in the basic accessories.
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A Great Camera Either Digital or Film, December 28, 2005
Reviewer: Digital Photographer "Used to Like Nikon,s"
I have had several digital cameras from other other manufacturers, some were not bad, some were awful,
the FZ20K is in a league of its own, I think its quite user friendly while still giving you a host of features.
The final test are the results, I dont think that any of the manufacturers can come near the 20K.
It certainly is not pocketable, but yet is not heavy, The Leica lens is the best and it is always at F 2.8, not shifting to a smaller F stop as you zoom out.
I could go on and on, so very simply, this is the finest camera I,ve ever owned. I'd give it 10 stars if I could!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Awesome camera, December 28, 2005
Reviewer: Quinton Beach
Ok, this review is short and to the point. This camera was bought mainly to take pictures of Tae Kwon Do students performing. The shutter speed is surprisingly fast. I've repeatedly taken 4 continuous shots of sparring (fighting) and all of the shots are clear and crisp. I also got 4 perfect shots of my husband doing a midair 540 jump kick (and this is handheld - no tripod needed).
Another plus is that you can take pictures in different colors. Within 3 clicks of a button you can take photos in black and white, sepia, warm tones, cool tones...

The only disadvantage is that it's bulky, you can't take it with you everywhere.

Quick note, when the 8MP came out for $700, this camera's price dropped seriously. I got it for $250, so you should shop around.
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 great camera, great fun, December 19, 2005
Reviewer: Carla J. Schroder

This is an awesome camera. The digital zoom takes acceptable quality images even at the maximum 48x, if you can hold it steady enough. The image stabilizer is rather challenged at that magnification. Use one of those slick little car-window mounted tripods for long shots when you're on the road.
It feels good, and overall worksmanship seems solid. Nothing on it feels flimsy. It is bit heavy for packing along on a hike, but it replaces an even heavier Canon EOS with two lenses and extra film, so it's a net gain. And my Canon doesn't even come close to 48x zoom.
I printed some photos on good-quality photo paper with a Canon Pixma ip4200, and you cannot tell that they are not film photos.
The autofocus works well under challenging conditions, though it struggles a bit in low-light and low-contrast situations. The manual focus is nice to have, but it's not as easy to see when you're in focus on the LCD screen as it is on a film camera.
The rechargeable battery pack lasts a long time- I can go for a couple of weeks on the same charge if I don't do a lot of flash pictures. (note that the flash intensity is adjustable!) It has a hot shoe for an external flash.
I put a one-gigabyte high-speed SD card in it, so I can go on a picture-taking frenzy and not worry. (Why do they even bother with those dumb little 16mb cards?)
The controls are well-designed and well-laid out, unlike a lot of digital cameras, which seem to delight in making common tasks unnecessarily complex.
Color balance, contrast, and details are excellent. A plus for me is it supports TIFF as well as JPG. (And even RAW, for whatever good that does, since every vendor has a different idea of what RAW should be.)
It takes movies with sound, and comes with audio cables for copying your little movies to a computer.
The camera comes with a lens hood, and you can put filters on it, though I haven't found anyone who sells filters yet. A skylight filter should be inexpensive, and you can leave it on all the time to protect the lens.
The bundled software is pretty good, and easy to use. All in all, this is one nice camera.
One thing I wonder about is its claimed equivalency to a 432mm zoom lens. I have a 300mm zoom, and the maximum magnification is exactly the same.

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