Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3 10MP Digital Camera with 12x Wide Angle MEGA Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3 inch LCD (Black)

The ZS3 is the world’s first digital camera to feature HD video recording in "AVCHD Lite." Compared with the conventional Motion JPEG format, AVCHD Lite allows longer recordings with breathtaking HD visual and audio quality. This combined with a well-considered control interface, which includes a dedicated movie recording button on the camera’s back panel, makes the ZS3 a hybrid model that performs admirably for both still and motion image capture. The ZS3 also expands Panasonic’s popular Intelligent Auto (iA) mode with the addition of Face Recognition--a feature that "remembers" faces from previous shots. When a registered face appears in the frame, the camera will prioritize focus and exposure to capture it beautifully. With Face Recognition, when a familiar face is recorded several times, the camera will prompt the users to register the face. Once registered, if the face appears into the frame again, the camera will display the name specified for that person and prioritize focus and exposure so that the registered face is bright and sharply focused.
New this year to the ZS-Series, iA mode is also available in Movie Mode. It automatically selects the most suitable Scene mode and helps to correct handshake, focus and brightness problems - making iA mode your one-stop solution to capture beautiful still and motion images. In Movie Mode, the ZS3, Optical Image Stabilization (O.I.S.) helps prevent handshake when using the high-powered zoom. Face Detection automatically detects a face in the frame and adjusts focus, exposure, contrast, and skin complexion so it turns out perfectly. Intelligent Exposure continually checks the ambient light level and adjusts the exposure setting as conditions change to prevent blown highlights and blocked shadows. And Intelligent Scene Selector automatically switches between Normal, Portrait, Macro, Scenery, and Low Light modes according to the situation to optimize visual quality.



Customer feedback:

1. When I read the specs on it, I was in awe. 10 megapixel, 12X OPTICAL zoom. Here's the sweetest part about the zoom- if you planning to use smaller prints (i.e. 4X6), you can quickly adjust the camera's Megapixel (MP) count from 10 to 7, 5, and 3 to yield maximum OPTICAL zooms of 14.3, 17.1, and 21.4 respectably, without much loss of detail on such prints. I wish Panasonic would have allowed the camera to adjust the MP count automatically as you zoom, but it's not too much trouble to change the MP settings manually from the quick menu.
Another great feature: the camera's screen is beautiful at 460,000 pixels, twice the count as the rival Canon Powershot SX200 IS (more on that camera later). From the moment you view your first picture, you'll quickly notice how much sharper photos look on this camera. It's a nice convenience to view photos on the camera in a manner closer to the quality that will actually be seen when you're viewing them on the computer (and ultimately printing them).

2. I have a pro friend who got a review copy of this for a couple of days. He let me use it for one of them, as he hasn't shot with a point and shoot in a long time. I ordered my own within the first hour. What a camera. The zoom on this baby is amazing. It has a true wide angle and a long reach. Photos on both ends of the reach are sharp and have good color and saturation. I almost drooled when I printed out the samples. They are flat out the best point and shoot jpegs that I've had the pleasure of taking. Raw files would be nice but aren't available, nor is much in the way of manual exposure control. As a bit of a control freak, I thought that would be a problem but honestly, Panasonic's smart mode selection is brilliant at getting good, sharp exposures. Focusing is fast, even in low light. Flash seems fine, neither superior nor awful. I took 400 images and a short movie on my first outing and the battery still had some juice. It also has fast and accurate face detection. Holding the camera in my hand, pointing it in the general direction of people on the street without being obvious got consistently good focus. Oh, the image stabilization works very well, too.