Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3

Viewfinder (0.00)

There is no viewfinder on the ZS3: everything is handled through the LCD screen.

Display (6.05)

The 3-inch LCD screen on the back of the ZS3 is its main interface to the rest of the world, and it does a good job of this. With 460k pixels, the images on the screen are clear, and the colors of the screen were clear and bright. It was a little difficult to see in bright sunlight, though, and we would have liked to seen even a small viewfinder to use in these situations.

Flash (4.50)

The small flash of the ZS3 is built into the camera body just to the left of the lens itself. It is on the small side, but it has a decent amount of power. We found that it was capable of illuminating a face up to 10 to 12 feet away. Panasonic claim a range of up to 17 feet, but that’s somewhat over optimistic. Four flash modes are available: auto, auto red eye, forced on and forced off. The red eye mode uses a single pre-flash to contract the iris and minimize red-eye. This should be used, as the close proximity of the flash to the lens tends to exaggerate red-eye. In the Normal mode, you also get options for a slow synch/red eye mode, which combines a slow shutter speed and a flash to take night portraits.

There is no way to attach an external flash; there is no flash shoe or external flash trigger.

Lens (7.50)

The lens of the ZS3 is a DC Vario-Elmar with a focal length of 4.1 to 49.2mm, which works out as being equivalent to a 25 to 400mm focal length on a 35mm film camera. That is a good range: 25mm at the wide end gives you plenty of room to get large groups or expansive landscapes into the frame, while 400mm is long enough to get close to the action.

When the camera is turned off, the lens fits into the camera body and a cover goes over the front element of the lens. This is rather flimsy, and could be easily pushed out of the way, so this camera should not be stored with keys or other objects that could push past this and scratch the front element.

Below are examples of the range of this 12x zoom range, from the widest to the zoomiest.

Zoom Ratio Examples
4.1 mm	27.8 mm	49.2 mm

Battery (5.00)

The battery of the ZS3 is a proprietary Lithium Ion battery (the model number is DMW-BCG10PP) that holds around 895 mAh of charge. This has to be removed from the camera and recharged in the included charger: it cannot be charged in the camera itself.

Memory (4.00)

The ZS3 can stash photos in two places: in the approx. 45MB of memory built into the camera or on a SD or SDHC memory card. An 8GB SDHc card will cost about $20, but it is good to have a little extra space on the internal memory. At the highest quality and resolution, this 45MB can hold 6 or 7 images.

Jacks, Ports & Plugs (4.50)

There are just two ports on the ZS3, with both located under a small panel on the right side of the body. At the top is a mini HDMI port for viewing images and photos on a HDTV. Below this is the AV/Digital/Multi port, where a number of leads can be used to connect the camera to a computer via the included USB cable or a standard definition TV via the A/V out cable.