Panasonic Lumix ZX3

UPDATE 19 October 2010: the overall score of the ZX3 has been brought down to four stars. In line with our newly tightened test criteria, the quality of the lens at 200 mm and the sound quality in video mode cost the ZX3 its fifth star.

Panasonic's ZX1 was originally released in mid-2009, boasting an 8x zoom in an ultra-compact body. The brand was, however, careful not to equip the camera with anything that could make it a serious rival for the TZ7, notably by keeping the video mode to the bare minimum. The Lumix ZX3, however, is a more genuinely hybrid camera for photos and videos, with a separate video record button and recording in the AVCHD Lite format.

Handling

The design of the ZX3 is very similar to the ZX1. The only difference is that the E.Zoom button has now been replaced with a video record button, so you won't have to mess around with the thumb wheel to switch to video mode. In fact, the thumb wheel is now likely to spend the rest of its life on the iA setting. As usual with Panasonic cameras, the Intelligent Auto mode (iA) is very reliable, and you'll only occasionally need to switch into P mode, let alone select one of the numerous scenes modes manually.


The manufacturing is excellent. Apart from a very slight wobble to lens, the ZX3 is incredibly well made and a perfectly worthy relation of the TZ series. It has, for example, the same genuine connections compartment found in Panasonic's TZ cameras, rather than the rubber covers favoured by many competitors. It does seem a shame that Panasonic didn't bump the screen resolution up a bit, but the viewing angles are still just as good.

Responsiveness

Right now it seems like each new generation of camera takes a little longer to deal with its ever-growing number of pixels. We were therefore a little concerned about Panasonic's new 14 Megapixel model. However, Panasonic has done a good job with the ZX3, as rather than just limiting the damage, this camera is actually faster than the previous model, and isn't that far off the top-of-the-range TZ10, which has two less Megapixels!

The ZX3 has one of the fastest start-up times around. It also saves photos a third of a second faster than the ZX1. There's no significant difference in the autofocus speed, with fast and effective focusing in all conditions and at all focal lengths.



Picture quality

Noise handling is often a critical factor in 14-Megapixel cameras, but it's well handled by the ZX3. Controlled smoothing starts to appear at 400 ISO, but it's only at 800 ISO that speckling and fuzziness start to become visible on an 8" x 10" (20 x 27 cm) photo print. Things quickly go downhill at 1600 ISO, a setting that's generally best avoided if possible.


The ZX3 lens holds its own in wide-angle (25 mm), with pictures that are perfectly sharp in the middle and still pretty good around the edges. In telephoto, things get a little more complicated, as while the central area is still good (but not quite as good as in wide-angle), the outer sections are a little more hazy. It's not a huge problem, but the slight loss of sharpness is visible on a 8" x 10" (20 x 27 cm) photo print. It's not surprising really, as the ZX3 has exactly the same lens as the ZX1, which also had this problem.


Video

Unlike the ZX1, the ZX3 has a separate video record button and a brand new video chip for recording in the AVCHD format. So although the ZX3 films in 720p resolution, just like the ZX1, it now uses a more effective video encoding format (although it can be a little more complicated to post-edit). The zoom can be used while filming and image quality is decent enough.

One drawback, however, is that there has been no improvement in sound recording. You'll find the same not-so-accurate mono microphone as the ZX1, whereas Panasonic's higher-end models (TZ7 and TZ10) record stereo sound of a much higher quality. Anyone who's serious about video should probably take a look at one of those models instead.