Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZR1
It's always nice when a camera fulfills its promise. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZR1's unassuming outer shell doesn't stray from the company's other compact megazoom cameras, but what's inside does with a re-engineered autofocus system, an ultracompact, wide-angle lens with 8x zoom, and a revamped optical image stabilization system. Add in fast performance and very good photo quality, and you get a pretty great pocketable megazoom camera.
Overall, the photos produced by the ZR1 are very good to excellent, depending on if you care about how pictures look when viewed or printed at the full 4,000x3,000-pixel resolution. There's visible noise at all ISOs, but it isn't until ISO 400 that it and noise suppression combine to soften detail. At ISO 800, photos take on a painterly appearance, but fine detail is still fairly good. Though there's still some detail at ISO 1,600, photos are for the most part unusable because they are covered in faint yellow splotches along with a good amount of noise. Despite its 8x zoom range and 25mm-equivalent wide-angle lens, there was just some minor barrel distortion at its widest position. Purple fringing was minimal in high-contrast areas, too. Most importantly, the ZR1 produces bright, natural colors that are reasonably accurate. White balance and exposure were also very good.
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZR1 might not seem like an astonishing camera, but its combination of new technologies and materials, generally excellent photo quality and performance, and healthy feature set geared toward snapshooters makes it a standout pocket megazoom.
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