Panasonic Lumix TZ3K 10x Optical Zoom 7.2 Megapixel Camera

It is quite amazing how much the digital camera landscape (pun intended) has changed in just a few years. I played around with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3K 7.2MP Digital Camera with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom this evening. The photo on the left is the TZ3K compared to the Canon PowerShot S1 IS 10x optical zoom camera from a few years ago (the current model is the Canon PowerShot Pro Series S5 IS 8.0MP Digital Camera with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom which about the same size as the older S1. Panasonic’s controls don’t seem as intuitive or simple as the Canon IS. However, that might be because I have used a lot of Canon digital cameras over the years and this is the first Panasonic I’ve tried. However, there is a lot to like about a camera with 10x optical zoom that is so much smaller than the Canon IS series and with a larger 3 inch bright LCD. It’s also nice not to have to deal with a manual lens cap (what a hassle). More on this camera later… I’m also going to be playing with a Canon PowerShot A710 IS 7.1MP Digital Camera with 6x Image-Stabilized Optical Zoom in the next week or so. It came out last Fall and was, I believe, the first of the Canon A series cameras to have optical stablization. Its price has started to drop. So, I’m guessing it will be replaced by a higher resolution version within the next few months.