Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3

Handling (6.50)

The ZS3 fits mostly well into the hand, but it does feel a little loose: the raised ridge on the side for the fingers to grip onto is small, and the sleek metal skin of the body looks good, but is rather slick, especially with sweaty hands. Both of these are presumably why Panasonic went with a wrist strap as a backup, as the camera is rather easy to drop.

We also found that the ring finger had a tendency to end up partly covering the flash, which caused a shadow in some photos.

Buttons & Dials (7.25)

The shutter and zoom controls of the ZS3 are well located, falling comfortably under the tip of the index finger of the right hand. It is also easy to move from one to the other, so you can zoom in or out and then take a photo quickly. The other controls are a bit more awkward; the position of the mode dial can be changed with one hand, but it is awkward to do. The other controls require both hands as they are all on the back of the camera, including the button that starts videos recording.

Once you have the camera held in two hands, the controls are relatively easy to use.

Menus (6.50)

The menus of the ZS3 are divided into two parts: the quick menu and the main menu. The quick menu (accessed by pressing the Q Menu button) contains the basic shooting controls that are used more frequently, such as ISO settings and image size. These are arranged along the top of the screen, and you use the directional control to move and select the desired option.

The main menu is accessed by hitting the menu button in the middle of the directional control and is where the more in-depth controls are located. These are divided into three tabs: Rec, Motion Picture and Setup. The Rec controls include features such as picture quality and the intelligent ISO settings in addition to all of the options on the quick menu.

The quick menu of the ZS3	The main menu of the ZS3

Manual & Learning (6.50)

The ZS3 comes with an extensive printed manual which covers every aspect of the camera’s performance in some detail. This is mostly well written with the first few pages forming a quick start guide. The same manual covers both the ZS3 and the ZS1, and it isn’t always clear which section is referring to which camera, as they have a different set of features. the manual that came with our review model also contains a number of spelling, typographical and other errors, and the index is inaccurate, sometimes by 3 or 4 pages. However, most of these seem to have been corrected in the revised version which can be downloaded here.