When you want to look like a professional photographer but not pay the price that comes with it, Panasonic's Lumix FZ30 may do the trick for you. This prosumer is built to look like a digital SLR, but without the option of interchangeable lenses. The FZ30 went through a mini design overhaul with its new button layout, control wheels (which are traditionally sported on dSLRs) and manual zoom and focus rings on its non-extendable lens.

Not considering the bulk and cost, the Lumix FZ30 marks an improvement in the overall design, feature set and performance, but its image quality wasn't something to rave about compared with its predecessor.

Design
Measuring 141 x 86 x 138mm and weighing 740g, the FZ30 is a lot heavier and slightly larger than its predecessor, the FZ20. Though we expect the build of the FZ30 to be an improvement over the earlier model, the camera is vertically challenged and our pinky had difficulty finding a place on the handgrip of the FZ30. Otherwise, this model feels and looks good in our hands. The lens is positioned more to the right (from the front) than in the center, giving our digits more room to wrap around the rubberized handgrip on the right.

The main control dial on top of the shooter is clearly marked with the standard shooting functions--including two options for the built-in scene modes. We like the two control wheels--one on the front of the handgrip, just below the shutter release; and the other on the back of the camera, top right hand corner--which for instance allows us to change aperture settings when we are in the aperture-priority mode. But we find it slightly uncomfortable using our first finger to rotate the front control wheel. The rear control wheel is even harder to reach with our thumb.

There aren't as many buttons on the FZ30 as there are on Fujifilm's FinePix S9500. So for some of the commonly used settings like the white balance, sensitivity and picture quality, you will still need to make a trip to the camera's menu. Otherwise, most of the major controls (a switch to toggle between using the electronic viewfinder or LCD; display; menu; delete; exposure compensation; timer; flash; review) which are well-spaced out, form part of the rear estate on the FZ30

Unlike the FZ20 where its electronic viewfinder is located all the way to the left (from the back) of the camera, the EVF on the FZ30 is more logically placed nearer to the center, aligned with the hotshoe to the top and the LCD screen on the bottom. The tilt-and-swivel 2.5-inch display panel allows you to protect the screen by facing it inwards on the camera body when not in use and outwards when previewing images.

A vertical three-way selector lets you toggle between auto/manual focus on the camera and macro option. Generally, the control layout on the FZ30 is well thought-out and clearly an improvement over its earlier model. Of course, we will have to see more dedicated buttons for commonly used settings if this camera is to pose some serious competition to its competitors.

Features
Besides looking better than its predecessor, the Lumix FZ30 incorporates a 12x optically stabilized zoom lens that cover from 35mm to 420mm (35mm equivalent). Though telephoto junkies will appreciate the long-reaching arms of the Lumix, landscape shooters may give this prosumer a miss without a wide-angle lens. Optical stabilization helps at extreme telephoto focal lengths, but at that distance, it's still better to use a tripod for clearer images.

A major advantage of the FZ30 is its capability to shoot in RAW format. Enthusiasts should love this feature as RAW images retain more details than a JPEG image. It also allows users to manipulate and post-process their photos without losing quality.

A 235k-pixel free-angle LCD means more flexibility in framing your shots. For example, you can shoot overhead at a concert, and with a 12x zoom lens, you'd have a better chance than those standing beside you capturing a picture of your idol. The camera works fine the other way as well, allowing you to shoot from a dog's eye perspective. However, our advice is to shoot with caution if you don't want to be mistaken as a lecher prowling on the streets.

Another major improvement from the FZ20 are the high-speed autofocus metering modes available on the FZ30: One-point high-speed and three-points high-speed. In addition, the user can manually select to focus on one-point, with or without high-speed.

The Lumix FZ30 supports full manual operation and in movie mode, the camera can record VGA-quality motion JPEG at 30fps limited by the capacity of your memory card.

Performance
Depending on whether you prefer using the electronic viewfinder or the free-angle LCD, choosing the later will require you to flip the screen out before placing it back into its recessed space on the camera. So to capture that spontaneous shot, we would recommend using the EVF to shave off that precious few seconds. Time-to-first-shot was slightly under 2 seconds. You can continue shooting with flash every 2 seconds and without flash a little under that amount of time.

Shooting in RAW was zippy at approximately 4 seconds for every shot. The ArcSoft PhotoBase software that comes bundled with the camera allows you to adjust brightness/contrast, hue/saturation and sharpen/blur settings on your PC.

We didn't complain using the burst mode on the FZ30. The camera limits itself to five frames in both high- (3 sec) and low-speed (4 secs) settings. You can shoot till your finger tires or your memory card runs out of capacity (whichever comes first) at approximately 1.7fps. We captured a total of 107 images on our ultra-high speed Imation SD card in a minute during our tests. It was a pity, however, that the shooter cannot record continuously in RAW or TIFF file formats.

The focus ring on the FZ30 retains the merit of its predecessor: Responsive and precise. In addition, the camera magnifies the centre portion of your image to aid in judging sharpness. Autofocus was performed generally well at under 2 seconds in dim-light situations.

Image Quality
The FZ30 produces generally good images. Our test photos look vibrant and sharp though we did get some over-exposed pictures at the default settings. You can adjust for contrast, saturation and sharpness in-camera. The white balance on the camera works especially fine outdoors, and you can manually set the white balance when your pictures turn out off-color.

Noise was not too much an issue at ISO 80 and ISO 100 if you are not too picky, but gets noticeable at ISO 200 and above and is easily visible at high magnification. Images at ISO 400 were practically useless save for small prints. Do expect more noise at all ISO levels when light levels drop.

We didn't notice any purple fringing in our high-contrast shots which was good and barrel distortion was kept to a minimal at the maximum wide-angle setting.

One of the more notable improvements over the FZ20 is a jump from 320 x 240-pixel resolution to 30fps VGA-quality movie setting. Overall quality was good and being a manual shooter, you can zoom in while shooting motion images.