Panasonic DMC-ZS3
Digital Camera Review
Mar 03, 2009
- By Richard Baguley
4.6
It's not often that we see a whole new video format being introduced on a digital camera, but that's what Panasonic has done with the Lumix DMC-ZS3; as well as being a well specified 10-megapixel still camera, it's the first digital camera to shoot high definition video in the new AVCHD Lite format. Camcorder fans may recognize the first part of the name (AVCHD is the format that many high def camcorders shoot in), but the Lite part is new. AVCHD lite is a subset of the full AVCHD standard, which means that the ZS3 shoots 720p video (which is lower in resolution than the 1080i that most dedicated camcorders shoot) that can be watched on a HDTV and edited in many video editing programs, such as Apple's iMovie.
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Overview
Although it has a long feature list, the ZS3 is a pretty compact camera; it weighs in at just over 8 ounces and is about 1.29 inches thick. This is a little chunkier than some, but it's still small and compact enough to fit into most pockets and bags. When the lens is extended, it projects about an inch out from the camera body with the zoom at the wide setting, and about an inch and a half at the telephoto zoom setting.
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| The front of the ZS3 is dominated by the large lens |
Front
The biggest feature by far on the front of the ZS3 is the lens; the telescoping mechanism takes up most of the front of the camera body. Above and to the right of this is a small red AF assist lamp, and the flash is to the left of the lens. On the left side is the ridge that forms the hand grip.
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| The front of the ZS3 is dominated by the large lens |
Back
The back of the ZS3 is dominated by the LCD screen; a 3-inch LCD screen with 460,000 pixels. To the right of this are the controls; the shooting and playback mode slider at the top, the video mode button, the 4-way control, and the display and quick menu buttons below. The 4-way control also allows for controls of the self timer, exposure compensation, flash, and macro mode.
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| The back of the ZS3 is domianted by the 2.7-inch LCD screen |
Sides
The left side has no major features.
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| The left side of the ZS3 |
On the right side is the cover that conceals the multi port and the mini HDMI port for outputting video.
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The cover on the right side
conceals the two main ports |
Top
There are a wide number of features on the top of the ZS3. From the left, we have a speaker grille, two grilles over the stereo microphones, the on-off slider switch, the shutter and zoom controls and the mode dial.
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The two grilles in the center of the camera body are for the
stereo microphones |
Bottom
There are two features on the bottom of the ZS3; the cover over the battery and memory card port and the tripod socket.
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| The tripod socket is in the center of the ZS3 body |
