A fast shooting full featured pocket camera at a good price

My wife and I take LOTS of pictures, occasionally providing images for local publications, so I knew what I wanted in a replacement for my lost Pentax Optio. Research of the latest pocket models around 200 bucks became a real chore, there are so many new models to choose from. Anyways, I narrowed it down to the Lumix DMC LZ7 and the Canon Powershot A-5XX series. What swayed me to the Lumix was the 6x zoom with optical stabilizer, simple menu with a usable dial, night shot capability, and a comfortable solid feel in the hand, all at a very reasonable price well under $200.

While the LZ-7 is not the smallest camera around, its still easily carried in a pocket, besides for me a little extra heft yields better pictures anyways. My biggest complaint about my now defunct tiny Pentax Optio was that it was TOO small, that and the long wait between shots spoiled a lot of pictures. I was determined not to duplicate these shortfalls in choosing my new camera.

My experience so far with the DMC LZ7 has been very good, it takes great pictures throughout its impressive 6x zoom range thanks to the image stabilizer. An added plus is that the optical zoom actually goes up to 9x by cleverly using half of the 7.2 MP capacity. Then the digital zoom kicks in adding another 4x, so effectively you have an incredible 36x zoom camera in a small size. Admittedly, digital zooms are not as good as pure optical, so quality starts to diminish past 9x, but to my great surprise I got better than expected images at the full 36x. Nice!

Another neat feature is the Stary night mode that enables you to take pictures in almost total darkness using up to a 60 sec exposure with almost NO noise! That is incredible as I have never been able to take night shots requiring a long exposure with a digital camera due to the high noise, noise being snowy appearance, making the images unusable. This feature alone justifies owning this camera.

Video is both crisp and fluid, and records sound, although you will have to play it back on a PC to hear it as the camera lacks a speaker. Thats a small trade off as after all this is a still camera, video being just a nice bonus, and what a nice bonus it is! Watching clips on my home TV were a real treat. The zoom feature must be set prior to starting the clip as it can not be adjusted during capture, thats a little annoying. The sound quality, however was superb coming from a tiny microphone.

On the downside, while the bright LCD viewer is great, it is also the only viewfinder. This is the case with most all new small digital cameras these days where optical viewfinders more and more are not being used. I guess with this particular camera trying to make a glass viewfinder that is capable of tracking a faithful image through 9x of optical zoom in such a small package would be pretty impractical, but its still a missed feature. Truth is though its only an annoyance in bright sunlight, and for me at least, I can live with it as a folded hand over the screen makes it usable. Its a compromise, but considering how much you get with the DMC LZ7 its well worth it to me. Still, if you are going to take most of your pictures at the beach I would make the sacrifice and get a model that has an optical viewfinder.

Batteries are AA, I like that, no expensive special proprietary batteries and their chargers to carry around, and it uses SD cards. which for me makes it compatible with my other digital cameras.

This is a fast shooting camera with quick shot to shot cycle times, and the flash can be set to a favorite mode, or even turned off, and the camera remembers the setting even when powered down. That is important to me as I do not have to wait for the flash to re-charge each time the camera is turned on. Speaking of the flash, you will find it typical of most small pocket cameras, meaning range is limited to close ups. It is adequate enough though and good for fill flash, but it will not illuminate the whole room. In this area there is just no substitute for a full sized camera using a big powerful flash unit.

In conclusion I find the Lumix DMC-LZ7 to be a very good all around camera that I am 100 percent pleased with. As with most things, there are a few shortcomings and compromises alright, but it has all the features that are important to me. High powered zoom, night time capabilities, video with sound, AAs, feels solid in the hand yet small. It is priced right and looks great in black. Love it!