ISO comparison
Depending on what your plans are for its photos, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-SZ7's shots are either very good to excellent or unusable. If you're looking to use its 14-megapixel resolution to enlarge pictures to full size and heavily crop in, don't buy this camera (or most other point-and-shoots). Things just don't look great when viewed at 100 percent.
However, those viewing on screen at less than 100 percent or making prints up to 8.5x11, which is probably the majority of buyers, will be really happy with the results. These are 100 percent crops from our test scene. Looking at them more closely you'll see subjects are somewhat soft and noisy even at the camera's lowest ISO sensitivities where things should be their sharpest.
As you go up in ISO, such as when you're shooting in low light, you'll pick up more noise, particularly yellow blotches. Panasonic's JPEG processing has gotten much better at these higher ISOs, though, making them usable. Things definitely get worse at ISO 1600 and above, however, so you'll want to avoid using them whenever possible. Also, subjects generally look soft above ISO 200; if it's something you're sensitive to, you can always sharpen somewhat with editing software.
Macro
Color
Zoom range
HDR mode
Color modes
Miniature Effect mode
Panorama Shot
Sample photos at 250mm (f5.9, 1/250th, ISO 250)
The following slides are all shot at full telephoto at various ISO sensitivities. A link is provided below each slide to view photos at full size. These are large files, though, so it may take a few seconds for each to load.
Sample photos at 250mm (f5.9, 1/500th, ISO 160)
Sample photos at 250mm (f5.9, 1/640th, ISO 160)
Sample photos at 250mm (f5.9, 1/1,000th, ISO 100)
Sample photo at 500mm (f5.9, 1/800th, ISO 100)
This was taken using Panasonic's Intelligent Zoom feature, which digitally doubles the optical zoom to 20x.