Compact point and shoot for Alaska

Heres two more, taken with an eight year old travel zoom ZS1 on full automatic.

Birds on top

and zoomed in

I'd like it to work perfectly in automatic mode and not to have to think about the settings, but your comments aren't very actionable. They don't suggest a camera that does better on automatic. All the cameras I've looked at Amazon reviews for have a bunch of people very happy with the camera but some people complaining about blurry pictures - the Panasonic has fewer (but fewer reviews overall - perhaps a more recent release).

 

Do you have a suggestion for a compact camera that will perform better?

 

A lot of the review sites mostly give reviews based on the specs. I've haven't found many that say much picture quality tests and/or user-friendliness instead of just comparing the numbers on the spec sheets.

 

I understand the impact of shutter speed and aperture - I had a film SLR that I used decades ago. But there are often times when I'd like to just take a quick snap and not fuss with settings.

 

I may go out and get the Panasonic ZS70 tonight.

 

P.S. I'm a woman. Prounouns can be difficult on forums like this.

The couple of pages of reviews I read, there were hints that suggest (but I can't be totally positive), that the blurriness is because they need to mess with the settings more (such as shutter speed). There is also natural blurriness due to the lens just not being sharp, but most point and shoots will have that problem to some degree.

Still, it's just hard to really get a feel for a camera based on online reviews alone. It's best to try. Costco and Sam's club have a great return policy so you can try one of their offerings and return if you don't like. The Best Buy in Roseville has staff that's really good about letting you test out the cameras they have on display. Action Camera in Roseville is really good too, and you can pick their brains about what they think is the best full auto travel camera.

In a couple of months, I should be back from a trip in which I'll have gotten to play with a Sony RX100 V. That's the consensus best point and shoot right now, but those reviews tend to come from really experienced photographers. I'll see how it is on full auto though. And the Sony is EXPENSIVE. For you, there are comparable Fuji, Canon, Panasonic, and Olympus cameras that don't have quite as many bells and whistles (such as 4K video), but are way cheaper. I'd ask local camera stores about those if they have them.

The couple of pages of reviews I read, there were hints that suggest (but I can't be totally positive), that the blurriness is because they need to mess with the settings more (such as shutter speed). There is also natural blurriness due to the lens just not being sharp, but most point and shoots will have that problem to some degree.

 

Still, it's just hard to really get a feel for a camera based on online reviews alone. It's best to try. Costco and Sam's club have a great return policy so you can try one of their offerings and return if you don't like. The Best Buy in Roseville has staff that's really good about letting you test out the cameras they have on display. Action Camera in Roseville is really good too, and you can pick their brains about what they think is the best full auto travel camera.

 

In a couple of months, I should be back from a trip in which I'll have gotten to play with a Sony RX100 V. That's the consensus best point and shoot right now, but those reviews tend to come from really experienced photographers. I'll see how it is on full auto though. And the Sony is EXPENSIVE. For you, there are comparable Fuji, Canon, Panasonic, and Olympus cameras that don't have quite as many bells and whistles (such as 4K video), but are way cheaper. I'd ask local camera stores about those if they have them.

If I'm looking at the correct camera, the Sony RX100 V optical zoom is only 2.9x.

I went to Mike's Cameras in Sacramento and they were recommending the Panasonic Lumix ZS70, Nikon A900 or Canon SX730. Costco or Sam's Club (don't remember which now) has the ZS60 but not the 70 and not enough cheaper to tempt me.

I bought the Panasonic last night. Guess I'll see how it goes. Mike's includes a half hour consultation to go over the camera and a couple of their classes with the camera sale. I figure I'll go through the manual and play with it first for a bit before taking advantage of those.

Mike's is good. Hopefully the 70 is good. I tried the older and lower model 50 a while back and it was AWFUL, but the higher model was much higher rated while the 50 wasn't. I didn't realize it would make that much of a difference.

I know someone with the Canon and they say they've been pleased. I know they only shoot fully automatic, but I actually haven't seen the photos (just them using it).

Definitely play with it right away in case you need to exchange it. I think you only get 7 days.