Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7

[ Background music ] >> Josh Goldman: Hi I'm Josh Goldman Senior Editor for CNET reviews and this is a look at the Panasonic Lumix DMCZS7, it's the companies top of the line compact mega zoom camera featuring a resolution of 12 megapixels, a 25 mm equivalent wide angle lens with a 12C zoom, a 3 inch LCD and a built in GPS for attaching location information to your photos and videos. As for shooting features the ZS7 goes from full automatic to manual shooting and has shutter and aperture priority modes too. There's also a spot on the dial for storing a set of frequently used settings and 2 spots for favorite scene modes with more than 25 to choose from. The camera's movie mode activated with a push of a button on back captures in resolutions up to 720 P in either Panasonics AVCHD light or quick time motion JPEG. There's a stereo mic on top and the zoom works while recording, though you will hear it moving in your movie. Also the camera supports SD, SDHC and SDXC memory cards. Controls are fairly straight forward. For example changing shutter speed and aperture simply require pressing this exposure button and using the 4 way buttons to switch the settings. The ZS7s menus are lengthy though offering up a lot of options including the new intelligent resolution feature that improves contour, texture and smooth areas in photos and in our test it worked quite well. The GPS is easy to use too but you have to remember to shut it off or it'll kill your battery. Shooting performance is ok but there's a noticeable shutter lag in dim lighting and even in bright conditions it's a bit long. Photo quality is very good, note typical of compact camera its high ISL low light results are less than ideal. [Backgorund music ] I'm Josh Goldman and that's the Panasonic Lumix DMCZS7.