Panasonic Lumix FT2 Digital Camera - Blue (14.1MP, 4.6x Optical Zoom) 2.7 inch LCD

OK, just a quick one.... I change cameras all the time as I like to try things out and have never found one I've been happy with until now...

I bought this for my upcoming honeymoon, we bought 3 different cameras before this one (Samsung ST500, Sony W380 and Canon Ixus 100). We found all cameras to have serious issues with noise, shutter speed and video quality.... So I wasn't really expecting much from this as I had pretty much given into the fact no compact would be as good as my canon slr....

Woah, how wrong was I, first thing you notice is the shutter speed, very very very fast, pictures are bright and clear, with my last camera (the sony w380) about 1 out of 4 came out blurry and all unless a perfect clear day had excessive noise... This takes perfect shots everytime..

The video quality is also amazing, I really very pleasantly surprised how well it stood up to night time recording too. I have played back onto my sony 52" LCD and the quality is absolutely perfect....

In the box it comes with the wrist strap, battery, seperate charger, additional rubber cover to protect further, manual etc...

Negatives, there's always a couple of things... firstly the manus look dated and clunky, not as slick as the samsung or sony. It's a little bigger and heavier than I hoped for but now that I have got used to it it's fine. The initial procedure is a bit of a chew on, you have to wet the seals etc to make waterproof, I tohught they'd have come up with some bionic rubber or something by now to prevent this... and finally the batteries, the legnth of power is good but my FT1 spare battery won't work, when buying compatible batteries make sure it has the 'E' at the end for it to work... so get the BCF10E not the BCF10... It's the same battery but with different code... Panasonic are being silly here, as if manufacturers aren't just going to release a new version so annoying my FT1 battery I bought doesn't work...

Overall aside for the little niggles... this takes outstanding quality pictures, better than the top of the range competitor standard cameras never mind waterproof.... and the Video qualtiy beats them all, it's as good as my Sanyo Xacti HD which is a dedicated HD camera...

A little tip....I am using Samsung Plus Waterproof 16gb memory cards, I figured if the camera leaked then spending an extra 20% on waterproof memory was a wise investment....

I just got my first image printed onto canvas and it's come out AMAZING, perfect colours and detail, I would highly recomend this camera.

Am getting married in two days and then taking this on my honeymoon so will update this when I get back (spending a month in asia, singapore, hong kong, thailand, bali, dubai etc, will make for some intersting shots)

I usually use a Nikon D700 with 12 mp and fullframe sensor. I bought this camera to have a smaller rugged snapshot camera. I do a lot of offroad stuff and go hunting so the camera has to withstand the elements like drops, water and dust. I've tried it all and it is tough. Battery life is good. It is easy to make good settings in the cameras programs and the video is superb if you think of the size of the camera - I've been a TV News cameraman for 17 years working with big Sony XD cameras - so I have something to compare with. Summary: Just great - not a fullframe Nikon D700 - but superb as an extra camera in the pocket.

Quite simply, this really does do what it says on the tin, and produces great pictures in pretty much all conditions.

I'm a committed Canon fan, and use a DSLR for 'proper' pictures, plus an Ixus compact for casual shots; the Ixus needed replacing and I was about to go on a hot Red Sea holiday where I'd be snorkelling and hopefully seeing lots of sea life. My first thought was another Ixus at about £200, plus a full waterproof casing at another £200. The reviews suggested this Panasonic would be worth a go, and I have to say I've been delighted with it. I probably prefer the way that the menus work on my Canons, but that's just a personal preference thing, so I can't criticise the camera for that.

I admit I was initially sceptical about the 'internal' lens design, but the pictures are very good indeed, with precious little distortion from such a small camera; the lens is also fast enough compared to other compacts. In comparison to the waterproof Sony TX5 that I also tried, the pictures are much much better, as the Sony suffers from horrible levels of distortion near the edges.

As an alternative to a 'normal' compact camera with a separate full waterproof housing, this is not only much cheaper, plus it can be used in any weathers and it's very rugged too (so for me I can take it when I'm out on my mountain bike / walking etc without fear of it being damaged). OK, it's a little bit bigger and heavier than the smallest compacts, but not by much.

The spec is good, but it's the attention to detail that impresses on this camera, which clearly shows that it was designed from the word go as a pucka rugged underwater camera - the battery, card and connector doors are not only very well sealed, but the opening mechanisms have simple security catches, so you can't accidentally flip the doors open underwater - again, much better compared to say the Sony TX5, which has normal catches on the doors, that I think could quite easily be flipped open by accident when you're negotiating your way through a coral reef. I guess it's this sort of attention to detail that means it's waterproof to 10m (30ft) instead of only 3m (10ft), as the majority of 'waterproof' compacts are.

As a final note, I'd strongly recommend ignoring Amazon's recommendation for the ex-pro orange case (which everyone says is a bad fit) - I found that the Acme Made Chevron is absolutely spot on.