Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF3 CSC Camera – User Review

The third generation Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF3 is at present world’s smallest CSC camera available in the market. You can carry this in your pocket. Impressive isn’t it? 

14mm pancake lens , comes with the package, has f/2.5 aperture, the equivalent of a wide-angle 28mm on 35 mm film camera. It's sturdily built, with an aluminium shell, small front grip and rear thumb pad to keep the camera steady for your handheld shots. This is an useful feature, as with its competitor Nikon J1, the GF3 doesn't have an image stabilised camera body, nor is the pancake lens is equipped with anti-shake. However, other lenses in the range have the stabilizing feature built in. 

Autofocus is near instant, resolution is 12.1 megapixel and RAW capture is available alongside JPEG. 

 GF3's three-inch, 460k dot LCD has touch screen feature but fixed. Along with the good set of physical control, touch screen ease the operation to a good extant. 

The Expressive shooting mode is really good. In this mode you will get much brighter and colorful snap than the standard default mode. 

 Like its competitors, it shoots full HD video but the sound will be recorded in mono. The autofocus is very helpful when shooting video, adjusting silently and smoothly when you pan from one frame to other. Shooting video on a DSLR is not at all comfortable like this . 

Though top ISO speed is 6400, photos will be grainy from 1600 upward.

J1 Nikon Compact System Camera (CSC) – User review

Nikon has launched two compact system cameras (CSC) the smaller one being J1 and its big brother is V1. The 10.1-meg J1 comes with a twin lens kit 10-30mm (27 – 81mm 35 mm equivalent) standard zoom and a longer and larger 30-110mm (81 – 297 mm 35 mm equivalent) telephoto zoom. If you want a single 10mm fixed-focus lens, that is also available. With the supplied lenses you will have fairly broad range of frames to shoot. However, their length and diameter make it difficult to hold the camera steady and to avoid blur. If you have Nikon lenses for you DSLR, with Nikon FT1 mount adaptor (buy as accessory) you can use those. 

The design of J1 camera is pleasingly simple, with neatly sunken controls and an L-shaped pop up flash. Light sensitivity range available from ISO 100 to ISO 5400 which is very useful while you shoot in low light conditions. RAW image shooting capability is incorporated too. Autofocus (AF), with a maximum 135 focus points, ensures subjects are sharp no matter in which part of the frame they appear, as long as you keep your camera steady. Colours are a little dull when you bring out JPEGs straight from the camera, of course you can do the in-camera adjustments. 

The J1 shoots video at full HD (1920x1080 pixels), with frame rates of 30fps or 60fps and the sound recorded is in stereo. Video focus adjusts almost imperceptibly when you zoom in manually. No dedicated button for video shooting is provided. You have to physically rotate the dial before you shoot a video. 

 Fixed 3 inch 460K LCD screen will do modest job for you. 

 This camera is very easy to use, simple compact design, built in flash, HD video capability, and interchangeable lenses are some of the good features. However, the price of a 10 Megapixel camera is more than an entry level DSLR is a real turn off.

Canon SX240 HS – User Review

The SX240 HS is the latest travel 20 X zoom, yet pocket able camera from Canon. Equipped with a 12.1megapixel sensor combined with a huge 20x optical zoom lens and DIGIC 5 imaging processor, this camera has everything you require in a travel companion snapper. All except GPS, which is available in the new SX260 HS, big brother of SX240 HS.

As with all high-end cameras these days, it allows you to shoot videos in full HD. The optical zoom is usable in video capturing too. 4 stop optical image stabilizer do a decent job to make your capture smooth.

The mode dial has everything from auto to manual. With the LIVE mode you can change the basic settings on the fly. Whole range of presets, creative fitters and Canon’s Movie Digest mode ease your shooting to a great extant. The Smart Auto mode can choose between 58 different scenes, and there's a Face detection feature that lets you register 12 faces along with their names and date of births. This feature allows the camera to adjust settings once it detects a registered face, taking into consideration of the age factor too! For example, when it detects a baby, it can disable sound and flash on its own. Controls are intuitive, but the automatically retracting flash is badly placed.

Leaving aside the technical details, the SX240 HS is of course an accomplished and capable camera. Overall, the image quality is very pleasing in all light conditions, with true and accurate colors and good handling of noise even in high ISOs. Below 20K it is a good buy as a travel companion.