2.7The L100 sounds like an incredible deal: $249.99 for a 10 megapixel point and shoot with a 15x zoom lens. And you do get a lot of zoom for your money, but that's tempered by the fact that the L100 has poor performance and is missing features such as manual controls.
The Panasonic Lumix DSC-ZS3 is the slightly more expensive camera, but you get a lot more for your money: better performance, a better screen, a smaller package and much more control over the picture taking process.
In our tests, we found that the Panasonic had significantly better performance on most of our tests: it had better color, sharper images and a more effective stabilization system. It also has a very decent selection of manual controls which provide the photographer with a decent selection of options. The Nikon, by contrast, has no manual controls: you can't set shutter speed, aperture or ISO directly.
The only thing that you get more of with the Nikon L100 is a longer zoom, and that's not by that much. The Panasonic has a 12x zoom with an equivalent focal length of 25mm to 300mm, while the Nikon L100 goes from 28mm to 420mm. So, the Panasonic is actually slighty wider, but the Nikon has the longer zoom.
