This is the kind of camera for which one-upsmanship on this spec or that spec is pointless. It's what I call a convenience camera--one that's easy to carry and gives you a usable photo a high percentage of the time without a lot of careful setup. One that you can activate fast and not lose the moment, and still get pretty good results.

If you're a serious photographer you're probably going to have a much more capable camera for when you want to make the effort to take a really great photo. And you also realize that great results take considerable effort. You're probably going to have a camera with a great lens, a large low noise sensor, lots of manual control features, and one that records in RAW format so you can do great post processing. My Canon Digital Rebel gives me all that, but it's big and clunky and sometimes you can really feel that's it a lot of bother per picture, and so you tend not to use it much resulting in many lost moments.

On the other hand, you could be a person not fond of complication (which is also what expert photographers are when not in the expert mood). You want enough capability and smart processors to get pleasing results with little or no contemplation. And we're still talking pretty impressive overall results way way beyond, say, picture quality of an iPhone.

There could, of course, be people in the middle, but in my experience there's a lot of people who are not satisfied by something in the middle--they want to go all the way to one end or the other. The DMC-TZ3 is, well, in the middle. Perhaps the question should be: "Is the extra cost and bulk of the TZ3 justified by giving you enough extra?" compared to the quite capable smaller cameras? Let's examine this.

Essential features for the "convenience" users:

(1) Wide angle lens. The TZ3 can capture approximately a 60 degree sweep, way more than the typical 45 degree view of most cameras. For indoor shots this can be essential because often you do not have the room to move back to take everything in. To me wide angle seems indispensable. However, it's a lot more difficult to make a small wide angle camera. Take for example Canon's excellent SD700is which enthusiasts praised for its pristine picture quality. When Canon produced a similar wide angle model, the SD800is, it got a lukewarm reception because it's picture quality wasn't as well regarded. Perfectionists (includes most enthusiasts) aside, the TZ3 is capable of great looking shots in strong light.

(2) Image stabilizaton. It reduces hand shake blur and it also provides steadiness for longer exposures so pictures can be taken in lower light. On the TZ3 this seems to work well, although when you're zoomed out shake is often amplified beyond the stabilizer's ability to compensate.

(3) Smallness and portability. Here the TZ3 is considerably larger and less convenient than typical convenience cameras, all of which lack the TZ3's zoom capability. They usually zoom no more than 4x compared to the 10x of the TZ3. For example, Panasonic's DMC-FX07 is nearly half as deep and is significantly less wide and tall. It's much more comfortable in most pockets. And you don't sacrifice much with its 2.5" screen compared to the 3" on the TZ3. For example, when I need to find a replacement part for something at my local hardware store, I snap a picture of my broken part and show it to the clerk in the store who can then locate the exact part for me. The 2.5" lcd is perfectly adequate for this and the smaller camera is always in my pocket.

(4) Zoom. How much do you really need? I find that I take most shots at full wide angle. When you're not close enough to your subject you can zoom in, and the 4x amount is usually enough unless you're watching really distant objects like birds or aircraft. At higher zooms the camera has more trouble focusing, and the TZ3 has given me a discouraging number of poorly focused shots at high zoom settings, especially when strong light is lacking. Not very convenient.

(5) Battery life. When Panasonic says you get 250-300 shots on a charge, they are really oversimplifying. That number drops when you start using the flash and the big zoom zoom, both of which use power. The TX3's battery is only 1000mah. The smaller less zoomy FX07 has 1100 mah, and so it feels like it lasts much longer. I was able to exhaust the TX3 battery in one day of enthusiastic use which included about 80 photos, about 2 dozen movie clips of about 25 sec. each, and lots of zooming.

(6) Movies too! The TZ3 takes great quality movies! With a 2 GB high speed memory card you can get up to 19 minutes of 480x828 frames at 30 fps. This is wide screen DVD quality resolution. Unfortunately there's only mono sound. Also you have to set the zoom before starting shooting, and you have to stop to reset the zoom. And because the movie file format is Quicktime compatible, with software like Apple's iMovie/iDVD HD, you can construct a pretty impressive movie burned to a DVD that will look great on your flat panel HDTV. Some of the TZ3's thunder is stolen here as the same capability is found on lesser Panasonics like the FX07.

When it comes to other aspects of performance: low pixel noise, light sensitivity, etc. most compact cameras are limited by use of such small sensors. Only Fuji has developed an exceptionally sensitive small sensor, and as far as I know, they have not offered it in combination with the desirable features above. Bigger bodied cameras have larger sensors which gather more light. More megapixels doesn't help here, as it is just dividing too small a light gathering surface into more segments. The 6 megapixel output of my Digital Rebel's large sensor yields a far smoother image than any of the cameras with tiny sensors (the sparsely featured Fuji F30 comes closest), no matter how many megapixels are present (7.2 for the TX3 and also for the FX07).

The choice comes down to the zoom.

The 10x zoom combined with a wide angle collapsible lens is really the TZ3's compelling feature. If you must have the extra zoom, despite the fact that the long zoom reduces the probability of good results, makes the camera bulky, and reduces battery life, consider the TZ3. But if you can do with the 4x zoom, you'll get much more convenience from smaller cameras like the FX07 or the Canon SD800is. Also, with such a long zoom range, the zoom moves very quickly (after a bothersome lag) making it difficult to zoom precisely by a certain amount. It makes you appreciate the precise manual control you have with larger barrel lenses on SLR or SLR like models. The FX07 with its shorter zoom range seems far easier to control.

A note about reliability

I ended up buying the TZ3 when my Panasonic FX01 (a nearly identical predecessor to the FX07) lcd screen failed after only 18 months. It's not possible to say if this is typical of Panasonic product--but I never had any such problem with a Kodak or 3 Canon digital cameras I have owned. This time I opted for Best Buy's 4 year defect coverage for a reasonable $60.

Warning! Zoom obsession can lead to impaired convenience!

For me, the added bulk, shorter battery life, and more difficult handling are too high a price to exchange for the extra zoom. The smaller FX07 matches the TZ3 in almost every way except zoom magnification while it is superior in many aspects of convenience. In fact, as I write this, I've retired my TZ3 in favor of a new FX07.



Recommended:
Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 307