- Package Contents - ZS3 Camera, Battery Charger, Battery Pack, Battery carrying case, AV Cable, USB Connection Cable, AC Cable, Hand Strap, CD-ROM
- 10.1 Megapixels for high resolution, detailed images and large prints
- Image Sensor - 1/2.33-inch CCD
- Media - Internal memory / SD / SDHC memory card
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Technical Details
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Product Description
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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).
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
886 of 914 people found the following review helpful
Color Name:Silver|Amazon Verified Purchase
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.
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.
371 of 383 people found the following review helpful
Color Name:Black
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.
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.
245 of 251 people found the following review helpful
Color Name:Blue
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.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
I love this used Lumix camera
Great optics, color rendition, flash, recycle time, battery life, all in a compact, metal case. Lens (Leica) is very versatile with macro, wide-angle, 12x+ zoom; just as described... Read more
Published 9 days ago by Thomas J. Farruggella
MALFUNCTIONS ON TWO DIFFERENT LUMIX CAMERAS
We purchased this camera 2 years ago on Amazon. It produced wonderful pictures during that time. This camera was treated well and kept in a case when not in use. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Renee
feature hard to set and mic died just after warranty
Too many features to set, not able to set time stamp nor title before taking picture. Worst of, its mic died 2 weeks after the warranty period. Read more
Published 2 months ago by tman
Prepare yourself- for PROBLEMS.
I've owned several Panasonic items over the years: a small desktop stereo (that ratchets when you open the CD tray), an LCD TV (that failed after over $600 spent in repairs-... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Kaleb J. Anderson
Love this camera!
I have read the negative reviews on this camera and I'm confused. The Lumix ZS3 is the best point and shoot I have ever owned (and I have owned about 6 of them). Read more
Published 5 months ago by Marie Brandt
Really don't like it :(
After owning this camera about a year, I have to say I really don't like it. I had a Casio Elixm prior and LOVED that lil' camera! Read more
Published 5 months ago by Concerned about Kids
Good but Not Great
It is cheaper than buying the re-branded Leica version, but Leica or no Leica the image quality isn't great. Yes, I do understand it is a point-and-shoot. Read more
Published 7 months ago by OlleyWilliams
Good experience
Good seller experience. Shipped on time. No problems.
Camera has excellent video quality. Picture quality is good, but not the best Ive seen from this type of camera.
Camera has excellent video quality. Picture quality is good, but not the best Ive seen from this type of camera.
Published 8 months ago by Russ DeWitt
Hate it after 1 year
After 6 months I sent the DMC-ZS3 in for repair or replacement. The lens had a blur spot in it. It seemed to be between the PLASTIC LENS. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Strodder
Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3
Lumix DMC-ZS3: Good quality all around camera...nothing flimsy about it. The biggest disappointment is NO USER MANUAL supplied... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Luke
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