Full of features, but still easy to use

Electronics (namely computers, TVs, cameras, phones, etc) are a funny thing. You buy one, thinking it's the best thing since sliced bread, show it to your friends proudly, use it in public and you're generally very excited about owning whatever it is you have. Then a few years go by, complete with whatever technological advances that have been made in that area and WHAM...what you have is out of date. Sure, it might still do the job...you might even feel you don't need the latest and greatest thing-a-ma-jig. But sometimes they add these little features that make you think..."Hmmm...it WOULD be nice if I could do that..." Thus describes my thought process in buying a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3 Digital Camera.

I needed a camera, badly. I sold my (old one) a few years back and was using a borrowed one (Sam's special) that really wasn't anything near the quality I wanted. After researching various manufacturers and models, I settled on the Panasonic Lumix, but wanted to see it in action first. I'm not an easy sell, but the features of this camera won me over. Right out of the box, and after charging the battery, it's ready to go. The battery and charger are included with the camera and fits in any wall socket for charging. Once that's complete, insert the battery (and memory card), set the mode dial to the "camera", press the shutter and you've got pictures.

Of course, for a $400 camera, there are features galore past the "Simple Mode" setting. There's the 10X Optical Zoom, Optical Image Stabilizer to prevent blurring, Intelligent ISO for pictures in dark places or moving subjects, motion pictures to capture moving scenes, the ability to view playback on a large screen, print directly to a printer, save to your PC or directly to DVD recorder.

Included with the camera are the unit itself, battery pack, charger, battery carrying case, camera strap, USB Connection Cable, AV Cable and CD-ROM with the Lumix Simple Viewer & PHOTOfunSTUDIO viewer software. It is HIGHLY recommended you buy a memory card for this camera...internal memory is only about 12MB. This is important when your settings are to take larger size photos.

The camera functions are fairly logically placed on the unit itself. Most valuable is the Mode Dial, which tells you what function the camera is currently set to. There are ten modes, all pictured on top of the mode knob. Panasonic had the forethought to realize not everyone was going to remember what picture went to which mode, so the Mode Dial is reproduced on the LCD screen, along with text to display what mode goes with what picture. Very nice. The Up/Down/Right/Left selection button is a bit more complex. This button controls the Self-Timer, Viewing the most recent picture, exposure compensation, auto bracket, white balance fine adjustment, backlight compensation and the flash. I can't begin to tell you the number of times I've messed this one up.

As stated earlier, the camera comes with a charger and battery, which must be charged in a regular household outlet before using the camera. According to the manual, the battery should last for approximately 270 pictures, depending on flash, zoom, power LCD, or any number of other factors. My experience has been that it lasts long enough where I haven't had to worry about it. That's good.

Initially, I intended to go through each menu and item in the Setup screens to check the values and what they do. There are SO MANY that I decided that was more than I needed to do. For instance, there are settings for: Clock, World time, Monitor, Guide Line, Travel Date, Auto Review, Power Save, Zoom Resume, Economy, Beer, Shutter, Volume, No. Reset, Reset, Video out, TV Aspect, Scene Menu, Dial Display and Language.

Fortunately, you don't have to be a camera expert to take great pictures with this camera. In Normal Picture mode, press the shutter halfway to adjust the focus, then press fully to take the picture. That's it!

Pictures can be reviewed instantly or within the Play mode setting. To review instantly and while still in a recording mode, push the "down" button, then right/left to view pictures. At this time you can also delete one or all pictures. This same functionality is available in Play mode, along with the ability to scroll through pictures quickly.

What impressed me the most about this camera was the ability to zoom in on subjects quite a ways away. The salesman zoomed in on a box halfway across Best Buy and it was as though it was right in front of you, words and everything. Subjects can be enlarged by ten times with Optical Zoom and up to 15 times with Extended Optical Zoom. Digital zoom can then be used to multiply this effect by four times further, but with picture deterioration by factor of enlargement.

Other impressive features of this camera include:

Display of a Histogram, which shows brightness of subject as a graph, useful for exposure compensation

The ability to change the visibility of the LCD monitor, from regular to Power LCD (makes the screen brighter than normal for outdoor use) or High Angle (makes the screen easier to see when taking pictures from high positions, i.e. as you're holding the camera over your head).

Self Timer

Flash settings: Auto, Auto/Red-eye reduction, Forced flash on, forced flash on/Red-eye, Slow sync/Red-eye and forced off

Exposure Compensation

Optical Image Stabilizer: Automatically detects and prevents jitter, which is just an amazing feature

Scene mode: Where the camera settings are already set for many different scene types. For instance, if you're taking pictures of the kids while they're playing sports, there's a "Sports" setting that has the correct settings to allow for close-up pictures while playing soccer. This way you won't have to guess and fool with the camera to try and get little Johnny as he's scoring his first goal (or miss it while you're fooling with your camera!). The Scenes include: Portrait, Soft Skin, Self Portrait, Scenery, Sports, Night Portrait, Night Scenery, Food, Party, Candle Light, Baby, Pet, Sunset, High Sensitivity, Starry Sky, Fireworks(!), Beach, Snow, Aerial Photo and Underwater.

Intelligent ISO: Detects movement of the subject and sets the optimum ISO sensitivity and shutter speed according to the brightness.

Macro mode: Allows you to take extreme closeups of objects (flowers, trading cards, etc), to where you can see even the smallest details, such as the statistics on the back of Roger Clemens Topps card from 2007.

Motion pictures: This camera will take video and some very excellent, clear video at that. I tested this during The Police concert this past July and wished I had bought a larger memory card as a result.

Under the REC menu, there are many advanced settings: White Balance, Sensitivity, Aspect ratio, Pict mode (for motion pictures), Pict Size, Quality, Audio Rec, Metering Mode, AF Mode (Aligning focus), Burst (rapid succession of pictures), Cont.AF (continually adjusted focus), AF Assist, Slow shutter, Digital zoom and Color Mode
Clipboard pictures: Useful for taking pictures of timetables and maps instead of taking memos.

Creation of stills from Motion pictures

The Play menu allows for Dual Display to compare similar photos, a slide show, marking of favorite pictures, display with auto-rotation, date stamp, DPOF Print, Picture protection, adding audio to previously taken pictures, resizing, trimming and aspect conversion

While this camera may just be a bit more than what I need, it is very easy to use and takes very vivid, clear pictures...which is what we buy cameras for, isn't it?