Comments about Panasonic Panasonic DMC-ZS3 Black 10.1 Megapixel Digital Camera:

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Comments about Panasonic Panasonic DMC-ZS3 Black 10.1 Megapixel Digital Camera:

I am very pleased with this camera. The quality of the pictures are great. The zoom is terrific, and the video is really great. I recommend this camera highly. Great to take on vacation or to use at home.

Comments about Panasonic Panasonic DMC-ZS3 Black 10.1 Megapixel Digital Camera:

I bought this camera for the hd video and was not dissapointed.

Comments about Panasonic Panasonic DMC-ZS3 Black 10.1 Megapixel Digital Camera:

Fantastic point and shoot camera, if you want manual settings (iso, shutter, f-stop etc) look elsewhere. 12x zoom is great, shake reduction works great, low light-no flash pics are unbelievable for a point and shoot. HD video with stereo sound is just icing on the cake! Also, I dropped the camera onto a cement sidewalk and except for a scratch, it still works perfect!

Comments about Panasonic Panasonic DMC-ZS3 Black 10.1 Megapixel Digital Camera:

I've had the camera a month or so. So far, so good. It takes great photos, and does a good job in low light for candid shots as well.

Comments about Panasonic Panasonic DMC-ZS3 Black 10.1 Megapixel Digital Camera:

This is the best point and shoot camera that I have seen so far. The 10 MP camera takes rather sharp pictures by being more lighthanded on the noise reduction (which can be done in post-processing anyway), but even then the noise isn't that bad until 800 ISO. The color of the pictures is also very well rendered. The lens-shift motion reduction is also really good, and essential for the spectacular 12x zoom (for those sneaky "paparazzi" like shots).

The 720P video is also a huge plus. As long as you have a memory card like the Sandisk Ultra II or better, you can get clear, smooth high definition video with great audio from the stereo microphones! I highly suggest using AVCHD Lite over Quicktime though, since the bitrate of AVCHD Lite at the highest definition is about the same as VGA Quicktime (which means about 26 minutes of AVCHD Lite in SH mode verses about 8 minutes 11 seconds in Quicktime HD mode on a 4 GB memory card). DivX Converter in the HD Plus mode can cut the size of the AVCHD videos down by half and still look the same too.

I don't trust the iA mode at all, since I heard that it sometimes is inaccurate. I suggest playing around with it if you can't handle learning the settings that you can change.

The main problems that I have with this camera are that it is easy to partially block the flash with your right index finger. Be careful where you put it. Also, it can be easy to hit the video record button on accident. The review times really should be up to 10 seconds instead of off, 1 sec, 2 sec, and hold. I have it set to hold since I like seeing the pictures that I have taken before continuing in many cases. Also, you can't delete the pictures while previewing them directly after the picture is taken; you must go to the review mode to delete them. The delay between switching to review mode and when the lens decide to retract seems to be too short for me (~30 seconds instead of a minute).

However, I think all of these cons are mostly nitpicky ones, and are easily small compared to how great this camera is. It's like a camera that thinks it's a camcorder.

Just get a few batteries; this camera eats them relatively fast and you might need two to get through a day of heavy picture taking.

Comments about Panasonic Panasonic DMC-ZS3 Black 10.1 Megapixel Digital Camera:

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Comments about Panasonic Panasonic DMC-ZS3 Black 10.1 Megapixel Digital Camera:

OUTSTANDING PRODUCT

Comments about Panasonic Panasonic DMC-ZS3 Black 10.1 Megapixel Digital Camera:

For a point and shoot this is a terrific camera. I have a Canon 5D for my main use, but this is great for taking on casual shoots at the beach with my granddaughter or the dogs.

Comments about Panasonic Panasonic DMC-ZS3 Black 10.1 Megapixel Digital Camera:

I did extensive research and compared this camera with the new Canon SX200. Although the Canon seemed to have more manual settings, I believe the ZS3 is definitely easy to use and all the automatic compensation features are great. I wanted a compact point and shoot with a good zoom and I also like the HD Video which you can also do zooming unlike the Canon which still doesn't allow.