Panasonic has announced the release of three new digital still cameras that range over the spectrum. First glances are showing these cameras to be pretty impressive, but the price tags are still a little high.
The DMC-FZ30 is the big brother to their previous FZ20. This is an 8 megapixel camera featuring a 12x optical zoom, an image stabilizer, manual zoom adjustment ring and even a rotating LCD screen. Price for the FZ30 will be just below $1000. The DMC-LX1 is an 8.4 megapixel camera featuring a 4x zoom and the worlds first digital wide angle lens. The LX1 will begin at just under $800. The DMC-FX9 is a compact 6 megapixel camera featuring a 3x optical zoom and a large 2.5" LCD that takes up most of the back panel. The FX9 will be available for $600 in August along with the rest of the new DMC series cameras. Got a chance to play with a few of them last night and I was especially amused by the Food focus mode which is specifically designed for taking pictures of food.
FZ30
LX1
FX9 [PhotographyBlog]