While all you northerners were suffering an apparent ice storm last week, Panasonic was smart enough to organize a Winter shooting tour in Miami for journalists to test drive some of their new Lumix cameras slated for Spring ‘09. The sights and sounds of this southern beach playground definately relieved the Winter Blues in a major way. It was through the lens of these two Lumix cameras that many of us there experienced the seductive city of Miami Beach.

For the shooting tour, Panasonic hosted stations on the beach - South Beach - for us to test out the Lumix TS1 and ZS3. These “stations” were set up on right on the beach sand and at the walkway near the beach. Snake charmers, rollerbladers, volleyball players and even Miami Dolphin cheerleaders provided for great action-packed scenes to capture. The most anticipated feature of these new releases: HD video capability.

The ZS3 with HD recording in AVCHD LITE will be the flagship of the new ZS series which replaces the TZ series. This technology, as compared with conventional Motion JPEG format, allows for longer recordings and has the benefits of HD video and auto quality in compact.

This feature was pretty cool when the we (especially the guys) wanted to record the energetic cheers of the Miami cheerleaders to take home the experience ..um ..for their wives (ha! ha! ) or vice versa. I admit, I took a great recording of them for my husband. At that exact time, he must have been sitting in his artifically-heated office in Washington, D.C. as freezing rain hit the building’s roof. Earlier in the day, I recorded the quick moves of some very tan and fit volleyball players as well.

In both instances, I felt like I had great control of the recordings and was able to zoom, pan and create a short video with ease. The fact that the record button is positioned right on the camera’s back panel, insures you don’t miss the spontaniety that a beach day offers. Basically there’s no searching to get out of a still mode. For this reason, Panasonic calls the ZS3 its Hybrid model, appropriately named because it makes you want to be an amateur filmmaker as well as photographer. The popular Intelligent Auto (iA) is expanded to include Face Recognition technology (which exists on some other brands already) and could be a good addition for novices. It allows you to register certain faces for the camera to remember. How does it remember? It has something to do with the exact measurement between a person’s eyes. When a registered face appears in the frame, the camera will prioritize focus and exposure for that certain programmed face. You can also select an order of each’s priority in a shot. (Warning not to take to heart: This could create problems in families with many children and people with more than one best friend.)

The real beauty of Face Recognition may be back in the home office. It allows the photographer to streamline the function into a computer and pick out all of the priority faces you are looking for. And while the technology has some limitions, such as only being able to concentrate on one person per shot, it will surely evolve. In additon, the dial of the model still needs some tweaking as it slipped into a different modes as I went along the busy day–but this it easy enough to fix.

Panasonic execs embraced the salt water and sandy surroundings when it came to capturing the day with the TS1. This model Panasonic touts as the world’s first waterproof, shockproof, dustproof camera. It also has the cool HD video capability and Face Recognition. To me, this seemed quite unbelieveable that you can stick this one 10 feet below water and drop it on ground from a distance of 5 feet. But as I was up in my hotel room running late for the beginning of our first shoot, my colleagues were downstairs by the hotel pool busily shooting Lumix mermaids underwater. Chlorine and all, the cameras managed to make it onto the bus and to the beach in one piece.

Personally, I have never felt comfortable bringing any camera, except a film throwaway, to the beach–so this could be a perfect solution for those worries. I couldn’t believe that I could be in a sandstorm and this camera would come out of it better than me.

The real test here- the ocean. This thing can be underwater and still snap photos as well as take video. This is no throwaway…but rather a very slick looking point and shoot. Egged on my friends, I bent down on the beautiful sand and got my blindingly white toes wet. I kneeled further towards the sea and outstretched my arm to lower the camera but ….I just couldn’t do it. Putting a camera in the ocean just seemed unnatural to me.

Eventually, after being called “ridiculous,” I fought my instinct and dipped it into the water and got some very good underwater shots of the sand. Mind you, I was on the land, fully clothed at the same time, so I couldn’t get the proper shots this camera deserves- like schools of glowing fish or sunken treasures. Still, the TS1 was a little treasure that did not shipwreck. I expect when it comes out in April, it will be very popular with beachcombing parents and even their kids.

Below are some of the visuals I captured on South Beach with these cameras. Since I felt more comfortable with the Lumix ZS3, most are taken with that one. For captions, simply roll your cursor over the images.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 at 4:04 pm and is filed under Alysha Sideman. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.