I have owned two prior digital cameras the first would have been a Canon that took good pictures, but was too bulky to pocket around and required AA batteries to power it. The became a Sony CyberShot DSC W150 that took crappy, blurry pictures in low light. Unavoidable, I felt upgrading was in order.

So Let me with an new england trip the following month. My buddy and i also are avid baseball fans. One problem: as we don't invariably have great seats, taking close up pictures of ballplayers can be described as real pain with 99% from the compact point and shoots you can get. This is due to the camera's size only will allow it 5X optical zoom. You are able to combine this with digital zooming, but I really don't ought to explain to you how terrible and pixilated this looks. Thus my conundrum. Thus i wanted a compressed, pocketable camera which includes a long range optical lens, and never having to lug around a high end digital SLR.

Enter the Panasonic Lumix DMC ZS3. Once i look into the specs into it, We were in awe. 10 megapixel, 12X OPTICAL zoom. Here's the sweetest part concerning the zoom if you happen to interested in use smaller prints (i.e. 4X6), you may invariably 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 decrease in detail on such prints. I wish Panasonic will have allowed the digital camera to modify the MP count automatically as you may zoom, but it's not too much trouble to convert the MP settings manually on the quick menu.

Another great feature: the camera's screen is beautiful at 460,000 pixels, twice the count since the rival Canon Powershot SX200 IS (more on that camera later). From the moment you view your first picture, you'll quickly notice simply how much sharper photos look on this subject camera. This is a nice convenience to check out photos around the camera during a manner closer to necessary to resist that should be seen if you find yourself viewing them on your computer (and ultimately printing them).

I should also give Panasonic kudos for your construction and compactness about this camera. The ZS3 may be a replacement for the popular TZ5 model, which had been 9MP and 10X Optical Zoom. So they increased the resolution, and added a wider range lens, and REDUCED the mass by .4 cubic inches. Specifications aside, I'd been more than pleased that your camera will comfortably fit inside my jeans pocket. It's kind of bulkier than an ultracompact no doubt, yet not objectionably so. Observe that the SX200 is really a full 2.0 cubic inches thicker, one more reason I offered the Canon. Here are a couple more reasons canon's fails to deliver: the Canon features a cheesy looking popup flash that shines appears the digital camera, whether you have flash or cold (bad design decision). It's less rated battery life than the Lumix. Also, when shooting video, the Canon just isn't going to will let you use optical zooming.

Photo quality along the Lumix is wonderful, although I've only snapped samples around my place a long way. However, I've taken quite a few pictures at low light, including maximum zoom levels to try to get the wrong shot. To date, there's none found. I'll put this through its paces more as i travel next month, but I'm extremely pleased at this point. The center of video shooting, I've sampled it a lttle bit, and it also seems pretty solid. Your camera provides you with a selection of shooting video to use touted AVCHD Lite format (good for watching it with regards to your TV in HD through an optional mini to standard HDMI cable), or JPEG when you will want to email movies to friends. This year's model also added stereo audio on video playback versus last year's monaural effort. A very important factor I recently came across somewhat strange, was the incredibly slow zooming when shooting video. I guess Panasonic was endeavoring to allow the user a very controlled, deliberate zoom, but unlike the snappy photo zooming, it's kind of slow for my liking.

Some other minor quibbles: The dial that controls the shooting mode is quite loose. In case you lightly rub it against anything (a camera bag, your pocket), could possibly pretty good chance it would shift. Should you turn the digital camera on, rrt's going to digitally reveal what mode you're in, but it's still annoying when it takes place by chance. Second, when coming up with a zoom in an object, it should appear blurry relating to the camera's screen before shutter button is pressed. One can find modes to continually focus the thing when zooming, but this drains the camera's battery a lot quicker. It is nice detail feature was incorporated automatically without any such sacrifice.

Also, Practical goal a giant fan on the included PhotofunStudio software bundled within this camera, and there is other, more compelling programs to check out, edit, and print photos (I'm keen Canon's Zoombrowser program better). Finally, this is not the camera to buy for anyone into manual controls. There's a simple a lot of extra preset scenes used (nighttime, portrait, baby, sunset, food, etc.), and you'll adjust such things as flash, white balance, and max ISO level, but this is often can be a simple point and shoot for casual photographers. Realize that the Lumix comes with a intelligent auto mode (IA) that should analyze the shooting conditions and pick the right scene, flash, and exposure which have no adjustments by your user. This camera screams simplicity, there is however enough tweaking for the Normal and Scene modes to have lot's of amateur photographers happy.

Regardless of them nitpicks, the Panasonic Lumix DMC ZS3 happens to be an awesome camera, unbeatable if you want the very best of both worlds a fantastic contact and compact body. It's kind of pricey at $399, but you're getting a great deal of camera on your hard earned dollars. Concerning certainly that my third video camera is really a terrific buy along with long term staple for my travels.