Although this is a "compact" camera, measuring 105mm wide, 60mm high and 38mm deep, it has a viewable LCD screen which is 60mm long and 45mm high, which therefore covers most of the back of the camera. When switched on, in non-playback mode, the depth increases to a minimum of 55mm, and, on full zoom, to 70mm. The controls are easy to use, and the built-in lens cover saves you forgetting to replace it. There are six different still photograph settings on the selection dial on the top of the camera: simple, normal, intelligent, macro, and two preset selectable "scene" settings. I find the macro mode setting very useful, being able to focus down to about 50mm, as, on my previous camera, it had to be set before each picture. The scene modes offer a choice of 21 exposure and shutter speed combinations, including portrait, sports, pets, candle-light, party, fireworks, and night pictures. Setup is simple, as you would want to keep most of the default settings, but they can be changed, for instance, entering holiday dates. The battery charges in about 90 min, and will last for 270 pictures (CIPA standard). Start-up is very quick, and it is usually ready for the first picture within 2 seconds of operating the on button, and, if you set "auto-review" to "off", you need only wait about a second between shots. The built in memory will only allow you to take two pictures at the maximum quality of 7Mp (3072 x 2304), so an SD card is essential. The camera can use up to 4 GB SDHC, which will give 1090 pictures at maximum quality. Another essential is some form of protection for the large LCD screen, and it helps if this is protected before initial use. The camera advertises its 10 times optical zoom, which is a great selling point, but, in fact, you can trade off quality for increased optical zoom, and you can choose to have 5Mp, and 12 times zoom, or 3Mp and 15 times zoom. There is also a 4 times digital zoom, but why bother. I selected this camera from a number of different products, after a lot of research, and I felt that it offered the best value for its size, gaining a lot of the advantages of high specification without the bulk and cost of a digital SLR.
More details
Durability
Good
Reliability
Excellent
Size
Small
Weight
Average
Instruction Manual
Excellent
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digital cameras, which is renowned for packaging a remarkable 10× optical zoom in a compact, stylish body. To further add to its appeal, the TZ3 go one step further t...
digital cameras, which is renowned for packaging a remarkable 10x optical zoom in a compact, stylish body. To further add to its appeal, the TZ3 goes one step further ...
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