Having fallen in love with my Panasonic Lumix ZS3 digital camera, I was a little reluctant to replace it with the new Panasonic Lumix ZS7. Do not fear! The Lumix ZS7 is every bit as good as its predecessor.

Advantages

It has a very efficient design and a very sturdy feel. You can even hold it with just one hand and still feel in control. It power-ups very quickly and you don’t have to worry about shutter delay. And it focuses extremely fast. I like that it has a button specifically to toggle into instant video mode. Another great feature is the 3 inch screen that is bight enough to display well, even in broad daylight. The menus are laid out very intelligently and even the quick menu has it’s own dedicated button. The lens is exceptional and the digital images it captures are in focus across the full zoom range. The lens is 25mm which works quite well for digital images taken indoors and gives it a wide angle feel. It has a handy twelve times optical magnification that is wonderful to have in such a small footprint. Once you get the hang of the zoom capability you can toggle between express images zoom or normal zoom with just the flick of a lever. Another wiz-bang feature is the Global Positioning System that is built into the camera that among other things allows you to automatically stamp the location and time into your digital images. This digital camera is also smart enough to know when when your subject matter is on the move so that it can raise the the camera speed to compensate for any motion blur that might occur. Along with that the camera exposure mudle is quite good and almost always detects the proper settings for the envronment you are in.

Disadvantages

As with most small sensor cameras the digital images taken with the Lumix ZS7 can sometimes have a little bit of digital noise in them. That being said, The digital images taken look even better than the images I am getting from the ZS3. Even when they are enlarged on my computer screen. Of course taking into consideration the model is using a 12 MegaPixel sensor this is not too surprising. I also wish there was a little more low light capability than what has been displayed.

All things considered Panasonic has made some great improvements to their latest digital camera, which is apprent in the digital images, and they have a definite winner in the ZS7.