Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3 10MP
Digital Camera with 12x Wide Angle
MEGA Optical Image Stabilized Zoom
and 3 inch LCD (Silver)
Great Upgrade
The ZS3 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.Just set the camera to iA mode, aim and shoot. The camera does
all the rest. It automatically determines the most suitable scene mode and
helps correct blurring, focus, and brightness problems. With iA mode, its
easy to get beautiful, clear results. In the ZS3, iA mode cannot be used
when shooting motion images.The ZS3 packs a LEICA DC VARIO-ELMAR
lens with 12x optical zoom into a compact body. This versatile
photographic tool lets you shoot everything from sweeping vistas at the
25mm wide-angle setting to dynamic 300mm telephoto shots. And the lens
systems exquisite rendering ability lets you capture even the subtle
nuances of the sights and scenes in your travels.

Personal Review: Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3 10MP Digital
Camera with 12x Wide Angle MEGA Optical Image Stabilized
Zoom and 3 inch LCD (Silver)
Let me start by saying that I did quite a bit of research before I bought this
camera. Prior to buying the Panny ZS3, my other digital camera buys had
all been been Canons (Rebel XT and XTi, various lenses/flashes, and a
Powershot SD700IS Elph -- all fine digital cameras). My background: I'm a
retired/recovered lawyer, who now runs a small web/print/"new
media"design and technology consulting shop for other small businesses.
I'm a reasonably competent (largely self-taught, not a true expert) Adobe
Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and After Effects CS4 (Windows) user. I also
consider myself a semi-advanced amateur photographer (but who
doesn't?).
The motivation for making this purchase is that I succumbed to my adult
daughter's admiration (and constant use) of my Canon SD700IS and finally
I just gave it to her. My wife would undoubtedly say that I engineered the
whole thing so that I could buy a new, more advanced point and shoot with
a longer zoom and better video quality/capability and that giving the
SD700IS to our daughter was simply a vehicle for assuaging my own guilt
about spending the money and getting her (my wife of 30+ years) to
approve the transaction. Can you believe that anybody could be that
cynical?
To me, the camera is a little gem of compact, useful
technology/engineering. The fit and finish are very nice (the equivalent of
the SD700IS). I have not encountered the "too loose" problem with the
mode-selection knob/wheel that others have mentioned; however, I bought
a "recent shipment" model from a well-known, reputable photo equipment
reseller (BH), which may account for the improved fit/action of that item. I
am a long-time, reasonably loyal Amazon buyer, but I was able to get a
better price from the other vendor at the particular time I was ready to buy.
The 25-300mm (35mm equivalent) 12x Leica zoom lens is just amazing for
such a compact form. Subjectively, it's great little piece of glass that,
coupled with effective auto-focus, consistently produces very sharp, well-
exposed images with surprisingly little distortion for a such a compact,
wide-tele zoom lens (there are always trade-offs). There's a nice review of
the camera and lens at DigitalCameraReview, which you may find helpful.
As noted by others, the camera lacks manual shutter-speed and aperture
settings/control; however, in the "Normal" mode, you are able to
manipulate various parameters of the camera's automatic functions, which
I thought were fairly useful/intelligent. The no-brainer iA (intelligent Auto)
mode seems quite effective as a fully automatic shooting mode, but I'll
leave the full assessment of that to others who have used that mode under
more/different conditions than I. If you like scene-oriented automation,
other modes provide a veritable s**tload of scene models to choose from.

The camera has a macro capability and other goodies too numerous to get
into here.
The 1280x720 HD video capabilities of this compact camera are almost
sure to bring a smile to your face. Although, certainly not the equivalent of
a dedicated, high-end consumer video camera like the Canon Vixia
HFS100, the ZS3 produces sharp 720p HD videos with surprisingly good
color balance and stereo sound (for such a compact camera). Trust me,
you won't be embarrassed to put your ZS3-HD videos up on YT or on a
widescreen dvd. There's been much discussion about the compatibility of
the AVCHD-Lite video recording format with various editing packages. I
can speak from first-hand experience that Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 (with
the 4.1 update installed) WILL edit the AVCHD-Lite format natively. The
non-RAM preview function is a little choppy (even on a pretty powerful
computer), but the Premiere Pro editing function is more than serviceable
and produces nice, smooth results at AVCHD 30fps/progressive sequence
settings and comparable h.264/.mp4 output. I haven't tried the other
available AVCHD settings/outputs, so I can't comment on them at this
point. My understanding is that Sony Vegas Pro 9, too, natively handles
the AVCHD-Lite format (others may as well). If your software doesn't
handle that format natively, take a look at VoltaicHD by ShedWorx and/or
HandBrake (open source), which claim to convert AVCHD-Lite files (the
.mts files located in the AVCHD>BDMV>STREAM folder) to other, more
editing-friendly formats. I can't comment on the included Panasonic
software, because I haven't installed/used it. Also, there is a camera
firmware update (ver 1.2) currently available at Panasonic's update site,
which, apparently, prevents non-compliant batteries from being used in the
camera.
Wish-list: a little faster zoom and focusing speed while shooting video (I'm
not sure, but at this time the ZS3 may be the only compact point&shoot/HD
camera that zooms/focuses while shooting HD video). More manual
controls would be nice (not a deal-killer by any means). The battery life
(subjectively) doesn't seem all that fantastic, although
DigitalCameraReview places it in the top-tier of comparable battery-
camera combinations. All-in-all, this is a very nicely made, super-zoom,
compact p&s camera that produces great images and surprisingly good
HD video that, taken together, seem well worth the purchase price.
UPDATE: Thanks to commentator, Matt Eye, for pointing out that the
Samsung HZ10W and HZ15W, like the ZS3, also allow zooming (and
presumably focusing) on the fly while while shooting video.
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