 |   Publisher : Panasonic Company : Panasonic List Price: Our Price: $300.00 You Save: $49.95 (15%) Used Price : $248.00 |
Features
- 10.1-megapixel resolution captures enough detail for poster-size prints
- 12x MEGA optical image-stablilized zoom; 25mm ultra-wide-angle lens
- Capture HD video in "AVCHD Lite" format
- Intelligent Auto (iA) mode; Face Recognition feature
- Capture images to SD/SDHC memory cards (not included)
Product Description
AVCHD format - beautiful HD images, extended shooting time The Z3S records HD motion images at a smooth 60 frames per second with 1280 x 720-pixel resolution. It uses the AVCHD (MPEG-4/H.264) format, via AVCHD Lite, which stores less data than other formats and thus lets you shoot more minutes of HD motion images before running out of memory. Stereo Mic The world's first compact camera to feature Dolby® sound, the ZS3 records dynamic, true-to-life audio that brings out the power of the HD images. (Dolby is a trademark of Dolby Laboratories). Wind cut function Minimizes the distracting sound you hear from wind blowing into the mic. YouTubeTM Uploader This software (included with the camera) makes it easy to upload your video clips to YouTubeTM. (YouTube is a trademark of Google Inc.) HDMI output and VIERA Link The ZS3 is equipped with an HDMI output terminal for direct transmission of digital picture and sound signals. Just connect the camera to an HDTV using a single HDMI mini cable (purchased separately), and it's easy to view beautiful HD photos and motion images. If you have a VIERA HDTV, you can control the camera's playback functions with VIERA's remote control unit. (HDMI, High-Definition Multimedia Interface are trademarks of HDMI Licensing LLC).SimilarProduct
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Customer reviews
3rd time's a charm- a standing "O" for the ZS3! 
by .. Michael J. Christensen (Elk Grove Village, IL United States)
I have owned two prior digital cameras- the first was a Canon that took good pictures, but was too bulky to pocket around and required AA batteries to power it. The second was a Sony CyberShot DSC-W150 that took crappy, blurry pictures in low light. Needless to say, I felt an upgrade was in order.
So I'm going on an east coast trip next month. My buddy and I are avid baseball fans. One problem: as we do not always have great seats, taking close-up pictures of ballplayers is a real pain with 99% of the compact point and shoots out there. This is because the camera's size will only allow it 5X optical zoom. You can combine this with digital zooming, but I don't need to tell you how terrible and pixilated this looks. Thus my conundrum. So I really wanted a compact, pocketable camera with a long range optical lens, without having to lug around an expensive digital SLR.
Enter the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3. 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).
I also want to give Panasonic kudos for the build quality and compactness of this camera. The ZS3 is a replacement for the popular TZ5 model, which was 9MP and 10X Optical Zoom. So they increased the resolution, and added a wider range lens, and REDUCED the size by .4 cubic inches. Specifications aside, I was more than pleased that this camera will comfortably fit inside my jeans pocket. It's a bit bulkier than an ultracompact for sure, but not objectionably so. Note that the SX200 is a full 2.0 cubic inches thicker, another reason I passed on the Canon. Here's a few more reasons the Canon falls short: the Canon has a cheesy looking popup flash that sticks out at the top of the camera, whether you're using flash or not (bad design decision). It has less rated battery life than the Lumix. Also, when shooting video, the Canon does NOT allow you to use optical zooming.
Photo quality on the Lumix is excellent, although I've only snapped samples around my place so far. However, I've taken quite a few pictures at low light, and at maximum zoom levels to try to get a bad shot. So far, there's none to be found. I'll put this through its paces more when I travel next month, but I'm extremely pleased so far. As for video shooting, I've sampled it a bit, and it seems pretty solid. The camera gives you the choice of shooting video in its touted AVCHD Lite format (ideal for watching it on your TV in HD with an optional mini to standard HDMI cable), or JPEG if you prefer to email video clips to friends. This year's model also added stereo sound on video playback versus last year's monaural effort. One thing I found a bit strange, was the incredibly slow zooming when shooting video. I guess Panasonic was trying to give the user a more controlled, deliberate zoom, but unlike the snappy photo zooming, it's a bit slow for my liking.
Some other minor quibbles: The dial that controls the shooting mode is extremely loose. If you lightly rub it against anything (a camera bag, your pocket), there's a good chance it will shift. When you turn the camera on, it will digitally tell you what mode you're in, but it's still annoying when it happens by accident. Second, when making a quick zoom on an object, it will appear blurry on the camera's screen until the shutter button is pressed. There are modes to continually focus the object when zooming, but this drains the camera's battery life more rapidly. It would be nice if this feature was incorporated automatically without any such sacrifice.
Also, I'm not a huge fan of the included PhotofunStudio software bundled with this camera, as there are other, more compelling programs to view, edit, and print photos (I like Canon's Zoombrowser program better). Finally, this is not the camera to buy if you're into manual controls. There's a ton of preset scenes that can be used (nighttime, portrait, baby, sunset, food, etc.), and you can adjust items like flash, white balance, and max ISO level, but this is meant to be a simple point and shoot for casual photographers. Note that the Lumix has an intelligent auto mode (IA) that will analyze the shooting conditions and pick the right scene, flash, and exposure without any adjustments by the user. This camera screams simplicity, but there's enough tweaking on the Normal and Scene modes to keep the vast majority of amateur photographers happy.
Regardless of these nitpicks, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3 is an awesome camera, unbeatable for those that want the best of both worlds- a great zoom lens and compact body. It's a bit pricey at $399, but you're getting quite a lot of camera for your hard earned dollars. I have no doubt that my third digital camera is a terrific buy and a long-term staple for my travels.
Oh my goodness, what a camera! by .. Michael McKee (Port Townsend, WA United States)
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.
The camera is just small enough to fit in a shirt pocket but unless you're wearing heavy denim it's just to heavy to be comfortable there. It slips fine in a vest pocket or jacket, though. Point and shoots have definitely improved in low light performance since I bought my last one. I got perfectly usable shots at 400 ISO. A little noise touch up and they print fine at 11x14. At 1600 ISO you can still get a usable Flickr sized image, again with a run through a noise processor like Noise Ninja.
It has a new video mode that uses half the memory of the normal mov files that it also supports. But finding where they are on the card is a bit of a treasure hunt the first time. They are also a pain to process. I ran a conversion program to turn them into H.264 format. That makes editing much easier. Do that first thing. You can even run the optical zoom while shooting movies, though focus can be a bit slow. Videos are much better than those from the Flip that is all I own for movies.
Great zoom, great photos, great lens, reasonable size, scary accurate automatic mode switching, wow!. If it had a bit more manual control it might be better, then again, I've got a few hundred really nice images. So no complaints.
Excellent zoom and features, chose this over the Canon PowerShot SX200 IS by .. Helldiver (Toronto, Canada)
Although I have a Nikon D80 DSLR, I needed a more compact point and shoot camera replacement for my aging Canon S60 with dying batteries. After reading a couple of reviews and a visit to a local camera store I decided to choose the ZS3 over the competing Canon SX200 IS with very similar features. Although the Canon is more familiar to me and has more manual features, the compact size of the Panasonic with better battery life, robust video functions and the fact that it's still made in Japan (versus the Canon which is now manufactured in China) edged out the Canon for me personally (you may want to try both to decide for yourself). So far I have been very happy with this versatile camera - screen is big and bright, facial recognition is neat, zoom is remarkable for a camera of its size and the video quality is excellent for a camera. Only downside is that like the camera store employee said - the autofocus motors inside the Panasonics do seem to be quite loud - i.e. if you are aiming the camera around randomly you can hear the motors whirling away as it refocuses at different potential targets. I enjoyed this purchase and I would recommend this camera to anyone who is looking for a easy-to-use, high quality point and shoot with 12x optical zoom.
Great Camera, few helpful tips by .. A. Scott (DeWitt, MI USA)
You really have to work hard to take a bad shot with this camera. Also the 720p HD video is amazing. Very happy overall.
Below I've put together a few notes on getting the most out of the camera and avoiding some of it's minor foibles..
It's not as obvious as it should be when video is recording.. I liked my old camera's blinking led.. The ZS3's on screen record indicator(especially when you have the display set to view histogram and a bunch of other info).. is not distinctive enough. The record button is also not as easy to press as it should be. I may add one of those small little self-adhesive rubbery sticky dots on the button and see if that helps.
Highlights can end up clipped in videos(and pictures to a much lesser extent).. This can be fixed by putting camera in "normal mode" on the dial and pressing "up" on the D-pad. This is the ONLY place you have access to exposure control that works for both video and pictures. I would recommend -1/3 for pictures and even -2/3 for video. For some reason the camera is very aggressive at brightening video.. I've taken video of my son playing lacrosse at night on a lighted Football field.. looks almost like broad daylight using default exposure and still clipped the whites even in that low light.
One other note on video.. and I was burned by this. When you hit the record/stop button at the end of shooting a video, it does NOT continue to process video left in the buffer.. it just dumps it. That means the actual end of the video is about a half second before when you hit the "record/stop" button. I lost one of my son's goals that way.. Hit the button to stop recording right after he scored, and the video ended up clipped right as he was shooting. :( My old camera had very limited recording length per card(no SDHC support), so I am still a little trigger happy.. will have to adjust for this minor flaw.
Video does stutter slightly on panning.. I think this is a function of the imager only recording at 30fps while video is converted to 60fps for AVHDC.. it is either duplicating frames, or averaging one in between which causes it to not be as smooth as I might like in that situation. Seems most noticeable in very bright light with something like bricks in the background. Might try MJPEG mode(30fps only) and see if that changes anything.
I was surprised by the camera's focal depth while shooting video. People in the stands right in front of me seemed as clear as the players on the field 50+ yards away even in fairly low light.
I also use "Intelligent ISO800" in picture mode.. nice feature that boosts ISO automatically when it detects motion in the frame.
As for the flash.. which BTW is perhaps the camera's weakest feature. I find a much cleaner way to deal with turning it on or off, is by using the quick menu and turning Unlimited burst mode on and off.. In burst mode, the flash is forced off. I leave burst mode on most of the time.. you can click and just get one shot, or hold shutter down and snap off a series of quick shots.. Great for group and individual candid photos.
Software that comes with the camera is not great..
I am using my old Cannon Zoombrowser software for pictures. I am forced for now to use Panasonic's provided software only for video. The Software provided is also far worse at playing back video clips on my slow computer than a couple of other players I use. Video trimming feature, while nice to have, is counter intuitive.. you select the part of the video you want to delete, and not the part you want to keep.. that threw me for a while. Also frustrating that there is no easy way to rename videos and there's also no way to set a "star" or "favorite" rating for videos(on or off the camera).
Good news is the AVCHD(mt2s) video files can be directly uploaded to YouTube(which will convert them to their HD format for you)
Flash burst mode(in scenes) while limited in resolution(3mpix at 3:2) works well for capturing quick snaps of kids playing around in poorly lit rooms.
Wide angle really is nice.. so much easier to compose shots than with my old Powershot S2..
Can't believe I have so much more resolution, effortless shooting with snappy focus and amazing HD video quality, All in a camera 1/3rd the size and weight and it still has the 12x Zoom. Stuff it in my pocket and take it anywhere. Good ridance to extra batteries and the "man purse" I had to carry with that S2 clunker! The big bright high res screen on the back is a wonderful addition as well.
Five stars if you forgive the chipped battery by .. A. Butterfield (UK)
To get the best photos, you obviously need an SLR and some great lenses. Hmm. Well, I have an SLR and some great lenses, but I tend to leave them at home when I go on a trip.
So I bought this TZ7 (which is what it's called in the UK where I got mine - the ZS3 is exactly the same camera) to take with me when I can't be bothered to take my SLR, which is nearly all the time. The TZ7 (ZS3) is small enough to go in a jacket pocket, or to hang unobtrusively from your belt. But is it good enough for anyone used to the quality of an SLR?
For me it is good enough, as long as you adjust your expectations. Which you have to do when you have such a small camera with a 25 to 300 zoom. Try getting a 25 to 300 zoom for an SLR! Even more amazing is that it's a very decently sharp lens. It's a little bit less than razor sharp at the extremes of the zoom range, but almost all my shots came out nice and sharp (but not too sharp, meaning the camera isn't over-processing things).
So the lens is good, and since the lens is the TZ7's party piece, that's a good thing.
Next on the list of killer features is HD video. This is 720p video, not `full' HD, but what do you expect? The great thing is that you can use the optical zoom while taking video, which is rare in these cameras. It zooms slowly so the noise of the zoom isn't picked up by the microphone but works very well. You get stereo sound too, and the quality of the sound is way ahead of any camera like this I've tried before. You might think that you wouldn't get proper stereo with microphones so close together, but it does a decent impersonation of it. Videos look pretty good, with the image stabiliser smoothing things out even at full zoom. Hold it carefully and it looks like you're using a tripod. You will need a decent computer and graphics card to play HD video though, or a compatible HD TV. You may need to buy an HDMI cable since you don't get one in the box.
The next great thing is the LCD. It has 460,000 pixels and looks fantastic. It even brightens and dims automatically depending on the ambient light.
If you know what you're doing you can use the good smattering of `manual' features to good effect. I'm not talking about changing the aperture or shutter speed, but you can adjust exposure compensation, bracketing, white balance, ISO etc. You can set auto ISO to not go higher than 400 or 800, which is useful since things look less than great above ISO400.
If you can't be bothered with all that, set the mode dial to iA (intelligent auto) and leave everything to the camera. It works remarkably well, and you'll see the symbol change in the top corner of the LCD to tell you what scene it thinks you're taking. It even automatically goes into macro mode when set to iA.
But I use mine mostly in standard mode, and I keep the ISO to 80 for the very best results.
One of the best things about the TZ7 is the superb auto exposure system that gets the exposure spot on in an amazing variety of challenging situations that would completely fool my other cameras. Reliable auto-exposure, top-notch image stabilisation, really quick and accurate autofocus, a great LCD... these are the things that give you the confidence to pack the TZ7 as your only camera on a trip.
There must be downsides though... mustn't there? Not many, to be honest, unless you expect the unreasonable, like good performance at ISO1600, or in very low light. The TZ7 doesn't overcome the laws of physics.
But minor niggles for me are that there's a physical switch between record and playback mode, so unlike some cameras, you can't just half-press the shutter to get to record mode if you're in playback mode. Also, I'd prefer to have the metering options in the quick menu, which is otherwise very useful for changing settings.
Actually, there is one other thing, and it's the battery. The TZ7 uses a battey with a Panasonic microchip in it. If you want a spare battery, and you probably will, since battery life is just average (HD video seems to sap battery life quite quickly), you'll have to buy a proper Panasonic one, and they're quite expensive. Third party batteries won't work, at least for now. I nearly knocked off the fifth star because of this.
But the bottom line is that the TZ7 captures sharp, well-exposed images pretty much all the time with the minimum of fuss. I like mine very much indeed.