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My wife and I bought a Panasonic Lumix ZS1 (for $260) last July to replace our old, broken Nikon Coolpix S10. It’s been more than a month now and we’ve brought the Lumix to different places to test its capabilities.

Here are the results and my review on it but first a short introduction on the ZS1.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS1 (TZ6 in Europe) is strictly a point-and-shoot camera which is what we wanted. It doesn’t have any manual settings (unless you call its scene mode manual) whatsoever but as a point-and-shoot, it delivers one of the best images I’ve seen.

It’s a wide-angle (25mm), mega-zoom (12x)m 10 megapixel camera that can fit the average-sized pocket. It doesn’t have HD video-recording capability but I don’t mind.

Looks

We got the black one and the metal build along with its metal knob gives this camera a solid and sturdy feel which I like. The size and grip is just right but one of the problems people report is the placement of its flash.

The flash is located on where your middle finger usually rest so if you’re not careful or if you have large fingers you might cover it partially.

Its dial for the shooting modes can easily get out of position when nudged or placed inside a pocket so you’ll typically get “dial out of place” message when you turn it on. No big deal though.

Features

You don’t know how much helpful the 12x zoom is especially if you’re watching a concert or if you wanna take a close picture of something far off the sea. The lens doesn’t protrude too much either at maximum zoom.

Haven’t used any wide lens camera before so I didn’t know how great it is when shooting landscapes. Its 25mm Leica lens is one of the widest available for digital cameras of this size.

I like the auto-face-tracking feature on the ZS1. When we went to the FHM Party, it was easy to get good shots of the models while they were walking on the ramp. It also auto-detects faces on a scene to know where to focus.

If there’s something I don’t like about this camera is that its battery gets drained quite easily. In two straight shoots, it only lasted half a day. People say that it’s because the battery is new and it would get better over time. I also tweaked its power saving mode and battery life got better.

Another thing is that it uses proprietary cable to connect the camera into a PC or TV.

Some Results

The most important of all when choosing a digital camera is the image quality it can produce and the ZS1 really delivers in this regard. See for your self:

It is normal to expect some smudging at 100% zoom but it won’t be noticeable if you zoom out on a high-res image.

While not the best compact camera out there, the Panasonic ZS1 belongs to the top (along with its brother, the ZS3) when it comes to superzoom point-and-shoot cameras.

We couldn’t be any happier with our choice.

If you still can’t decide whether to get this camera or not, here’s an article from dpreview comparing others in the same category to convince you.

• Waiting for my Panasonic Lumix ZS1
• Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS1 or Samsung HZ15W?
• My Panasonic Lumix ZS1′s trip to FHM Party 2009
• I am now a Panasonic LX3 addict

Filed under: Gadgets n' Games