To distance on their own from digital camera phones, smart devices, cameras in iPads, PCs and tablets and a full host of specialized ephemera, the humble compact of today has to perform more difficult than at any time to supply an incentive to purchase. It can be now not just in regards to the capacity to consider usable photos and video clip. So how about a camera that's nigh indestructible for starters?
Using a price tag around the £300 mark which while not low-cost feels like honest worth, Panasonic's third generation toughened video camera, coming after the Lumix DMC-FT1 and FT2, is naturally the FT3. Two many years on from the original rugged product, resolution has (unusually) remained precisely the same at an helpful 12.1 megapixels (from a 12.5 megapixel one/2.33 type CCD sensor), so its manufacturer has plainly been concentrating its initiatives in direction of establishing other regions.
Whereas the FT1 offered waterproofing to three metres, the airtight FT3 has quadrupled that to 12 metres. It might now survive a fall from two metres in height as opposed to 1.five metres, and, as we accidentally discovered, onto a concrete surface (certainly between one of the most unforgiving) far too.
For the reason that authentic iteration the series has long been furthermore mud proofed and so it remains. The most recent technology is also freezeproof to -10°C. So whether you desire a video camera with the ski slopes, the poolside or are like us are just plain clumsy, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FT3 would appear to fit the invoice. Measuring 103.5x64x26.5mm, so about a third more substantial than the common business enterprise card when you have been to upscale 1, the digital camera will match right into a trouser pocket, though a jacket pocket will be much more at ease.
You will discover a handful of toughened opponents on the market, the Olympus Mju Hard, now only plain 'Challenging', series currently being the closest competition inside the FT3's class. It has not long ago announced the TG-810 design, which throws within a crushproof capability too. But there is a different location during which it can be nigh identical when it comes to spec on the FT3. Equally cameras now characteristic a built-in GPS antenna.
This offers real-time info naming the site at which your shot is getting used. This really is displayed ticker-tape vogue along the bottom of the again screen. Panasonic statements the on-board info covers 203 nations, thus encouraging throughout the world use, and a lot more than a million landmarks. What's more it appears to give good results, competently choosing out our regional Nationwide Belief house. We stay using a bend from the river, which was ample to fool it, so making use of the photographic camera spine in the home we ended up being classified as located throughout the mineral water. Though in everyday use GPS may seem to be somewhat of your gimmick - and is usually a function that is often turned on or off at will, there's some use to be acquired perhaps in the event you're in another country and haven't purchased a guidebook to otherwise find out what's what - or would like to plot the route of the travels via Google maps or the communal marketing of the selection after. Longitude and latitude coordinates are saved from the certain JPEG image's Exif information.
GPS, coupled using the destruction proofing, earmarks the FT3 being a feasible best journey companion thus, even though its optical lens attain doesn't rather edge in to the 'vacation zoom' category, getting a modest by present requirements four.6x - precisely the same as that around the unique FT1 - being equivalent to a extensive angle 28-128mm in 35mm film phrases. Predictably the Leica-branded lens operates a folded mechanism comprised of ten components, which signifies that at no position is it place in damage's way by virtue of protruding from the system. Appear on the equally new but non-toughened 16x zoom Lumix DMC-TZ20 if a big selection of framing chances is often a greater precedence.
Like its competitor the FT3 is usually a chunky, reliable experience beast when gripped inside the palm, its look virtually industrialized thanks on the corner screws incorporated into its brushed steel entrance and back again plates. The weight is 175g with out battery or card, however feels a lot more substantial than that when gripped. It might experience a dent or a scratch when you forcefully dropped or scraped it - and in the event you purposefully desire to smash one thing, Gadget Present design, you undoubtedly will - but at the least it does not think like it could shatter into a thousand pieces. Like its predecessors you'll be able to't, for the most portion, fault the create top quality, which also consists of dampening rubber padding, reinforced glass and carbon resin inside the digital camera.
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