Cameras and holiday always seem to go together don’t they? I am so old that I remember my Mum letting me have a go of their Box Brownie camera at Margate-On-Sea in 1960. I also remember going on holiday abroad with some mates for the first time, and snapping any and everything with my Kodak “Instamatic”. Of course it wasn’t instant- you had to come home and have the film developed before you could see your photos as prints or slides.
These days things are so much easier for the budding David Bailey (showing my age again!). With the advent of computers, digital photography, Wi-Fi and miniaturisation, quality photography has become available to everyone- and the only limit is your own creativity. If you see someone lugging around a large SLR and a bag full of lenses and a tripod, I dare you to tap them on the shoulder and ask them if they’ve heard of the Lumix TZ40. It’s Panasonic’s top of the range digital compact camera and at a stroke (IMHO) tosses old style bulky cameras and camera phones into the pile labelled “yesterday”.
Hold your hats on, grip the rails and prepare yourselves for a white knuckle ride of (just some) of this camera’s capabilities and features:
Zoom. Remember when a zoom meant a separate lens the size of a bazooka? This compact camera has an optical 20x zoom. And optical zoom is better quality than digital zoom.
Wide angle. A 24mm wide angle- but that’s not all. If that’s not going to take in all you want to encompass in one shot there’s something called the panoramic feature. Snap all around in a circle- 360 degrees if you like- and the camera will stitch it seamlessly together to present a picture likely to take your breath away.
NFC. (Near Field Communication). This changes a smartphone or tablet into a remote controller for LUMIX by just touching the camera with the smartphone. Not only can you use your phone as a remote triggering device for the Lumix (making self-portraits a doddle) any picture you take can be transferred right after shooting: The image data on your camera will be automatically transferred to a computer or other compliant device such as a smartphone via the wireless access point. Panasonic also provides a free, dedicated application software called “Panasonic Image App” for iOS/Android smartphones/tablet. You don’t have to wait till you get home from a holiday before you share your shots with your friends and family (assuming they not on holiday with you!)
Geo-positioning. Nope, this isn’t a Sat-Nav, but you can copy the map data of a designated city to an SDXC/SDHC/SD Memory Card out of a bundled map DVD which comprehends detailed map of approx. 90 countries worldwide on a scale of 1/25,000 or better. The LUMIX’s GPS shows the name of the Country/Region, State/Prov./County, County/Township, City/Town/Village and Landmark using the internal data to give users real-time information of the place when taking photos. Wow.
Everything else… Is what you would expect from a 2013 state-of-the-art camera. Superb picture quality. Lightning fast auto focus. Low light feature. Auto or manual function or a mix of both.
If you want more information, take a look at this video- especially if you’re planning to go abroad. Forget the notion that your phone camera will be sufficient. It won’t. Don’t take snaps, take pictures!
And did I mention you could get a Lumix TZ40 for free? Lookie here:
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