Customer Reviews: Read 420 more reviews...
 Very good camera. September 22, 2008
I have used this camera for two vacations and many back yard pictures and am quite impressed with it's capabilities! It was a little hard to get used to because it has more complicated settings than our previous Kodak digital camera, but I do love the 10-power zoom and high quality images! The 10-power zoom is especially helpful in capturing wildlife shots that will amaze your friends!
 Like it. September 6, 2008
This camera is a great point and shoot. It replaced a camera purchased from somewhere else and returned due to no battery life. This has great battery life and takes fantastic pictures. I'm a little challenged with all the settings... but.. that's my fault and the reason for the 4 star rating instead of 5.
Perfect point and shoot... August 20, 2008
This camera is really fantastic. I have owned a Sony point and shoot and an Olympus. The Sony was horrible and after a year I decided to buy a new camera and found this one.
This camera is incredibly advanced for such a small package. You can use it without ever fiddling with a setting and get great results. It also has some great advanced features if you like to play around with things like exposure compensation or ISO there is that option as well. You can adjust the color (cool, warm, natural, etc), the shutter speed, and the ISO sensitivity. There is a great continuous auto focus for moving subjects, 3 different metering modes, various focus modes (9 point, 3 point etc) and a great auto bracket mode where it will automatically take 3 pictures at 3 different exposures. There is also a continuous burst mode that allows you to take multiple pictures at 3 frames/second. Not to mention the 10X zoom is fantastic for such a small camera. The lens is also an excellent Leica 35mm film camera equivalent of 28-280mm/f3.3 to f4.9.
If you read all the reviews, you will see the negatives. It is true, at low light situations with the automatic setting it doesn't do well. You can play around with some of the adjustments and get a decent picture, but sometimes that isn't useful since by the time you make the ajustments the picture may be gone! Not to mention, if it is truly low light it can be hard to see the screen to make the necessary adjustments...
Overall I have to agree with most of the other reviewers and give this product 5 stars based on my experience with the other point and shoots I have owned.
WHAT is the name of the lens? August 19, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I rated this camera 4 stars, despite never having handled one, based upon my experience with a TZ1, which I own. I might have rated it less, based on the following problem: I LOVE my little camera, except for one thing - it lacks a viewfinder, and that is a problem with the TZ3 also. This may not seem like much, but it is, especially if you use reading glasses. Using the LCD screen alone, one needs to constantly switch back and forth between "no glasses," to see the view, and "glasses," to see the screen. This would not be such a problem if it had a viewfinder, in which case one could take photos without donning one's reading glasses! And without having to switch back and forth.
I gave it a 4 star rating because otherwise, it is outstanding! The Leica lens is superb, the amount of telephoto/wide angle range is great, and, although my TZ1 is only 5 MP, that is quite adequate for most purposes, even for 8X10 blow-ups, and 7.2 as provided in the TZ3 must eliminate most theoretical issues with resolution and sharpness.
One other issue I have is with the very extensive descriptive material on the Amazon web site. It NEVER gives the exact name of the lens, making it difficult to impossible to determine whether it is the same lens that is in my camera, or not! It sounds like the same lens, but I cannot be sure.
One other little issue is that apparently this camera is far from shockproof. I suspect, based on the info in the manual, though I haven't broken mine yet, that it is rather delicate. If it WERE at least shock resistant, it would be a whole order of magnitude more desirable, in MHO.
Anyway, if this camera, and its siblings had a viewfinder, and were a bit (maybe a lot?) tougher, I don't think there's another digital camera out there that could touch it for less than $400.
Consumer Reports rates very high August 6, 2008
I researched digital cameras on Consumer Reports and they rated this Panasonic Lumix very high. It takes great photos, has a huge screen, takes very good video, and is easy to use. I can use the quick shot feature to take a picture without the fuss. Or customize my shot with all the extra features.
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