Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3K 7.2MP Digital Camera with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black)

Im a photographer. I compared this head to head with My Canon S70. The S70 quality of pictures far exceeded this camera. After working with other photographers and Panasonic I have determined It can NOT take a very high quality picture even in perfect situations. It only takes pix with 72 DPI vs 180 DPI with my Canon. The highest MB image it will take is 3.51. My canon will take averate 2.5 to 3.5 and will do 4.5-5.5 often. WHY is this important. Well if you blow this picture up to say 5x7 or larter you will notice SIGNIFICANT grain and distortion. It was sad. I took pix in all lights and even focused on ASA 100 and used a tripod. Im sending it back, Its not worth keeping for anyone who wants to blow up or appreciate a good picture. Panasonic even stated its a beginners camera. So my 5 year old technology in my Canon 7m camera Blows this Brand new camera out of the water.

I opened the box and couldn't found the power cable. In fact, there isn't one. The cheapest power cable available online for this camera costs $60 on the internet. Unless you buy it, you will have to take the battery out every time you store the camera to charge it. The included battery charger lacks a cord, so it cannot be placed conveniently.

Battery life is due to the huge screen and lack of an optical view finder. If money is no object, Panasonic will sell you an extra battery for about $45. You can also buy a car charger or a charger with a cord from third parties for more $$$.

A related problem is that the image on the screen is delayed a fraction of a second. You see what was happening, not what is happening. That, combined with the excessive shutter delay, makes taking a picture at just the right moment impossible.

The camera boasts an Auto Stabilizer feature. Unfortunately, if you pan the camera while taking a video, the results are very jerky unless you remember to disable the Auto Stabilizer feature. What good is an Auto Stabilizer feature you can't use? Incidently, you can't use the Zoom feature while taking videos either, because the zoom buttons don't work during vido capture.

The last straw was when I took a bunch of pictures of my family. Fully 1/3 of the pictures turned out blurry. That is a much greater failure rate than with other cameras I have used and owned.

This thing is going back to Costco tomorrow.

In the beginning I was very excited to have a camera with 10 optical zoom. This was the reason I switched from the very reliable Cannon digital camera to the Panasonic. I have had this camera for 4 months. It takes fine pictures but other then the increased optical zoom I don't like it better then the 3 Cannons I have owned before. I bought this camera for a trip to Egypt. The camera worked the day before my trip and the first day of my tour it stopped working. It would turn on and off, on and off and then say turn off and then back on. All it would do is repeat this over and over. Needless to say I was not able to purchase another camera or have it fixed on my tour. I had to rely on disposible cameras and other people's photos. I will NEVER purchase another Panasonic camera again.

Met all my expectations. Excellent stabilization even at 10x. Very good automatic ISO function. This camera is a dream and very easy to use. I had some trouble seeing the LCD screen in bright light. The absence of a viewfinder is noticable but the other features of the camera made it a good trade-off.