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Question: Zoom on movie clips with TZ3...its possible? Can I use optical zoom whrn I recording movie clips?Thanks
Document: The movie capture isn't ideal. It uses real .mov format and you can't seem to adjust the zoom while recording. Its ok though. The battery is unique to this camera and has to use a special charger outside the camera which is less convienent then say a docking station. You take the battery out of the camera, put it in a holder, and then plug that in to a wall outlet. Not a perfect system, you have to prepare ahead of time and be ready.
I would have upgraded to the TZ5 model or better but my friend has one (very satisfied with it) and we found that our underwater housings were not interchangeable so I would also have to buy a new housing if I upgraded my camera (not very nice of Panasonic to do that). All in all, I have taken thousands of photos and movie clips with the camera and found it very reliable and easy to use until the battery problem.
It has wonderful clarity and lots of controls and scene modes. Macro and movie modes are very important to me. I like to take macro shots and I've used my camera in place of a video camera for years. The macro mode is great and the movie mode is excellent. I can do a 10x zoom and get great clips. One issue is you can't zoom while shooting movies. Canon does let you zoom while shooting movies, but their picture quality goes down hill.Another key for me is size.
(no fast action or sports in general) I don't use a flash if at all possible.CAMERAS I OWN: Canon PowerShot S70 & S80, Kodak P880 & Lumix DMC-TZ3 (in black)OVERALL IMPRESSION: Excellent point & shoot for well lit scenes only. Fabulous lens, great zoom range and professional feeling camera.PROS: Sharp lens (edge to edge & no flare or fringing) great color rendition in well lit scenes, super fast writes to SD, fabulous LCD and great build quality.
This is an Excellent Camera! I have not seen anything bad with it since I started using it, the Pictures are Extra Sharp and the Video Recording. If I am to use a Digital Camera again, I will not think twice before choosing Panasonic Lumix TZ3.
The TZ3 is a fantastic bargain camera, definitely maximizing the price/performance ratio. The Leica lens is the best lens I've ever seen in anything short of an SLR, with zero distortion and no purple fringing. Menus are easy to use. The camera offers burst shooting, exposure compensation and auto-bracketing, an excellent widescreen movie mode (although it can't zoom in movie mode), and can produce 16x9 images with very little cropping.There are two key shortcomings. First, there are no manual settings.
Many similar cameras use rather destructive compression algorithms for recording video and, in NV10's case, the smearing and blooming was simply terrible. The TZ3 of course has some of the same problems but they're much, much, much less noticeable.Good:Image quality is pretty good.
I bought this for my wife, and when we got it, we were amazed at the ridiculous amount of settings we found for picture quality. I mean, there's even a lighting setting for taking pictures of Food.The image quality is great! And the 10x optical zoom comes in handy.My only wish would be that you could zoom or focus when using the video recording.
I am far from a pro but the TZ3 dosen't care. I have yet to use movie andstarry night modes but I am satisfied with the rest. I'm not getting many pics with the battery but the amount is increasing with each charge. I'm sure there are faults with it but I haven't found any yet.
Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3K 7.2MP Digital Camera with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black)As an infrequent camera user we've had an older KODAK which had sufficed. Double AA batteries are a killer on a long run. I have lots of back up for it. Our recent purchase and use at Disney/Orlando,(in prep for an Alaska trip) with the DMC-TZ3 for both single and video shots was just great.
Answer: No, and the focus will not change either. The focus issue is an even bigger problem than the lack of zoom.