Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZR1 (black) – A Megazoom camera that’s a class apart!

Sum n Substance:

Thumbs Up: Easy to handle, good design, remarkable performance and picture quality.

Thumbs Down: Model exclusive of AV output cable, shutter speed control and aperture control.

Inside The Trunk:
Price – $ 279.95
Dimensions – 2.1” X 3.9” X 1”
Weight (inclusive of battery and media components) – 5.6 ounces
Megapixels -12
Image sensor- ½.3” CCD LCD size
Resolution/viewfinder – 2.7 inch LCD, 230K dots/ none
Lens- zoom, aperture and focal length : 8x, f3.3-5.9, 25-200mm (35mm equivalent)
File format (still/video)- JPEG/Motion JPEG (.MOV)
Highest resolution size (still/video) – 4,000x 3, 000 pixels/1,280×720 at 30fps
Image stabilization type- Optical and digital
Battery type life – Lithium ion rechargeable, 330 shots

The Whiz Kid Speaks: Essentially a compact megazoom camera, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZR1 is quite similar to the older versions of the genre on the outside. The inside is revamped of course. The auto-focused ultra-compact lens with a wide angled coverage and 8 times the normal zoom and reengineered optical image stability yields high quality photographs. The camera is a speedy performer too.

Given the presence of a   long 8 X mega lens, you might find the camera disproportionately small. You generally expect the lens to be thick as its mega zoom, but you’ll be surprised to see that this has an ultra-thin megazoom lens of 0.3 mm thickness which keeps the body light. Though the hues of silver, blue, black and red for the body are impressive, this phone is no stunning beauty. One-handed shooting is made convenient with a well rounded right side. The camera works well especially the zoom output is good.

I didn’t have to spend hours reading the camera manual for operating it for the first time. The controls are simple and any person acquainted with digital cameras can straight start operating the ZR1 without any hassles for the first time. Toggle between different shoot options with the mode dial button on the top. You’ve got to cross over the mode dial to reach the shutter release/zoom ring which you might not like. The rest all controls are conveniently placed and operable. Zooming in is fast and quick with EZoom (Extended Optical Zoom) which you click just once to get complete zooming. But try to zoom out to the original dimensions by repressing the EZoom button, you’ll not get the original but the central cropped 3 mega pixel sized portion of the 12 mega pixel image. You get the highest zoom possible but that is not the fullest. When you press the button for the third time, the lens reverts back to its beginning point.

The menus are simple and easy-to-use. A Quick Menu option triggers options that you’d like to use while shooting on the lower right side. There’s a centralized menu button with navigational controls that take up the dual functionality of timer, flash and exposure controls. The main menu has three broad tabs for setup, shooting and travel modes. The travel mode is an interesting feature where you set the start and end dates and all the snaps that you click during the interval are organized together like an album. The slide show can entertain you with a panorama of all the snaps and videos that you’ve taken during your trip or any event. View these on the TV using a USB- AV cable.

Essentially a point and shoot camera, when in the normal mode you get to control light metering, ISO, focus, color effects, exposure and color effects. The Panasonic Intelligent ISO allows you to restrict the sensitivity to 1600, 800 or 400. There are 29 scene modes out of which you might be already aware of the portrait and landscape options. Night scenery is also a favorite option. Film Grain, Pinhole and High Dynamic range are the other scenery ranges that are available. The fully automatic Intelligent Auto Scene mode allows your camera to select the most appropriate scene for your picture and it also corrects the blur, focus and brightness of the snaps. With the movie mode, you get HD pictures. Clipboard mode allows you to store pictures temporarily for quick recovery. The wide-angle lens is apt for taking shots of train/bus timetables.

Megazooms, though slow to start, are quick in the case of ZR1 it takes only 1.3 seconds to start. You can click 2 frames per second and that’s quite speedy. Shutter lag is 0.4 in sufficient lighting and 0.6 in dim lighting.

The photo quality of the ZR1 ranges from the good to the extraordinary. Visible noise at most ISOs is present. At ISO 800 look like paintings, but detailing is still impressive. Picture detailing though present at ISO 1600, you cannot simply finalize them as there are light yellow tinting on them along with noise. The colors are bright and natural.

Nitty Gritty: You might not find the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZR1 extraordinary, but you’ll vouch for its excellent usage of new technology and resources, superior photo quality,  and good performance.

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