5141

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good but not great

Aug 2, 2007

Rating: 7 out of 10 (Very good)
Pros: 10x tele- 28mm wide angle-3" LCD
Cons: difficult manuvers for date stamp and vertical changes
Opinion:
i recently purchased a DMC-TZ3 digicam- have been pleased w/ its handling qualities, first photos, in trial modes,were relatively good. flash range is quite short , but non shake feature allows for more ASA to compensate for lack of flash. low light photos are decently exposed. The 10x optical zoom is a big plus -works well. The macro capability at below .6 feet is useful..Got some detailed picts of old photos that were copies in macro mode-make sure antishake feature is on...I tis a tedious way to get date on front of photo - you must do each one individually , involving 5 hand motions- the same for angling vertical taken photos to see full photo.. tedious 5 steps needed ,and must be done for each individual photo taken-reallly not state of the art technology- the canon A710 is does date imprinting and angling of vertical shots to see entire photo,automatically and seamlessly- much advanced technology over the panasonic DMC-TZ3. That being noted- the DMC- TC3 is a nice camera to shoot with. In the dark you had better learn placement of menu ques. they are small and very invisable in darkened situations..suggest a small pen lite flashlite should be in your camera bag for the darkened photo ops you wish to take.. The 3" read ut screen can not be turned off,while camera is on, that is because there is no view finder.. You can set the camera to turn off automatically when not used for at least 2 minutes or longer... The battery is consumed quickly on Playback mode, stupidly labeled PLAY mode-- so reviewing photos in the field is not recommended unless you have spare charged batteries. If the DMC-TZ3 is used strictly for shooting and no reviewing or lengthy mode changing , then about 200 photos can be taken . 1/2 flash and 1/2 w/o flash.. The SD card best to use would be a 512 or less. Larger capacity cards will destroy some of the photos integrity ,due to the extreme compression needed to store large capacity info in such a small disc ... You can get almost 200 photos,give or take , with a 512 card..there are many more small nuances with this camera- 21 scene modes-yet no scenes "copy mode" or "off the TV mode"-the shutter lag is evident for action photos, so be prepared to snap at beginning of action -- a remote shiutter tigger device would be a great addition fo absolute "no shake" remote photos. In addition the enabling of a auxilary flash for thru the lens coordination would help illuminate further than the current flash which extends 13 feet tops.. panasonic does not recomend a auxilary flash at this time..all in all- it is what it is. the 3 main great features- 10x tele- 28mm wideangle and 3" LCD are offset by some glaring lack of state of the art technology. live with it if you opt to own this camera. I will use both my A710 is and the Panasonic DMC TZ3 Canon and this on any camera excursions I go on . A head to head comparison of the canon A710is and panasonic DMC TZ3 show these differances in comparison : 6x tele vs.10x tele-- 35mm wideangle vs. 28mm wideangle--2.5" LCD vs.3" LCD-- viewfinder vs no viewfinder--auto date stamping/ each photo manual date stamping--auto vertical photos seen in full by angling camera 90 degrees vs. complicated 5 steps needed for each photo to angle..larger icons vs. smaller icons. Canon A710is is rated 9 as USER FRIENDLY and the panasonic TZ3 only 6 as user friendly --overall the DMZ-3 us rated 7 on a scale of 10-- hope this review helps .hal 5141