Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3 Point & Shoot Digital Camera - Silver - DMC-TZ3S
7.2 Megapixel - 10x Optical Zoom - 4x Digital Zoom - 3" Active Matrix TFT Color LCD

I am not a professional photographer. I simply use cameras for family outings and for products on my websites. This is by far the best camera I have ever had. I paid less for this camera than most of my other digitals (I have had 6 previous). The only drawback I have found with the camera is that the zoom is fixed when recording video.
 
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I think this is 1 of only 2 (maybe 3) compact cameras on the market which have 10x zoom and 28mm focal length. I really appreciate both. Focal length lets me take wide shots I was previously only able to take years ago with my "film" camera. This was the thing I hated about so called "digital" revolution -- we were paying 2x the money for digital cameras with 1/2 the optics of (relatively) cheap film ones. This is NO longer true. With this camera I think most tourists can get by without an SLR and all the hassle required to learn all its fancy functions, unless they want to -- which of course I don't and neither do I want all the extra weight. The only downside I found is that sometimes the camera freezes up after taking a picture, while possibly writing out the image, but that might be caused by my Std Speed 2GB SD card. Maybe I'll buy a high speed card to find out...
 
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This is the camera I've been waiting for- even if I didn't know it. Compact size with a 10x zoom- exactly what I wanted. I bought an earlier model with a 6x zoom and although it is good (Panasonic DMC-LZ5), this one is better. Roughly the same size but with a zoom that goes from wide angle (35mm camera equivalent of 28mm) to 280mm. Add to that the optical image stabilization (OIS) and it's close to unbeatable. My preference would have been for a camera using AA batteries, but the separate, compact charger (as opposed to either having to plug into the camera or put the camera into a base charger) and ready availability of inexpensive aftermarket batteries (ebay- 2 for $15 including shipping) make that a non-issue. The zoom range is impressive, and the OIS seems pretty effective- I've been able to take pictures at 10x zoom down to 1/30 second exposure without noticeable camera shake. Not everytime of course, but without a tripod, it's still an impressive performance. Images aren't quite as sharp as I would have hoped for considering the Leica lens, but compared to using a lower zoom camera and blowing it up, they're still impressive. And this is the first camera where I've found that the digital zoom actually results in images just a bit sharper than using just the optical zoom and a PC to enlarge it. Colors are accurate, and changing the aspect ration to 16:9 actually uses more pixels to the sides than the standard 4:3 format. Battery life seems to be good so far- 270 shot CIPA rating. All in all, a bargain at the $300 price I paid, and a steal at the latest $250 price!
 
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great Zoom in daylight - great sports photos in action from far away. Just as nice as more expensive SLRs for sports action shots. I love this camera, and its so much smaller that what I was using before. I can cary it easily anywhere.
 
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I test it in a week, take more than 100 photos, most of them are good. I like it.
 
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