Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZR1 -Silver – A Great Mega Zoom Camera
Sum and Substance:
Thumbs Up:
Excellent performance due to better hardware, sleek looks, great photo quality.
Thumbs Down:
No controls over aperture or shutter speed.
Inside the Trunk:
Software- Panasonic PHOTOfunSTUDIO 4.0, drivers and utilities, USB cable, A/V cable,
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
DMC-ZR1 is a 12.1 mega pixel camera, ISO auto (1600-6400), ISO auto, ISO 1600, ISO 800, ISO 400, ISO 200, ISO 100, ISO 80. The device has 4x optical zoom. Shooting programs include high sensitivity, night portrait, hi-speed burst, self portrait, portrait mode, party/indoor, aerial photo, sports mode, night scene, flash-burst, underwater, starry sky, film grain, soft skin, fireworks, clipboard, pin hole, scenery, sunset, candle, beach, baby, snow, food, pet. Special effects include black and whilte, neutral, vivid, sepia, warm, cool.
Minimum shutter speed is 60 seconds, maximum shutter speed is 1/2000 seconds. White balance presets include cloudy, shade, halogen and daylight. Digital video format is Quicktime and MJPEG, still image format is JPEG, video capture resolutions are MPEG – 1280 x 720, MPEG – 848 x 480, MPEG – 320 x 240, MPEG – 640 x 480
The camera has a 40 MB onboard memory and you can expand it further by putting a SD memory card. Options for image resolutions are JPEG 640 x 480, JPEG 1600 x 1200, JPEG 1920 x 1080, JPEG 2048 x 1360, JPEG 2048 x 1536, JPEG 2560 x 1440, JPEG 2560 x 1712, JPEG 2560 x 1920, JPEG 3264 x 1840, JPEG 3264 x 2176, JPEG 3264 x 2448, JPEG 4000 x 2248, JPEG 4000 x 2672, JPEG 4000 x 3000.
Flash modes include red-eye reduction, flash off mode, slow synchro, fill-in mode, auto mode. The camera has zoom lens – 4.5 mm – 36 mm – F/3.3-5.9, focal length 4.5 mm – 36 mm, minimum focus range is 19.7 inches, macro focus range is 3 cm, lens aperture is F/3.3-5.9, has 8x optical zoom,
Additional features include – Camera orientation detection, in-camera red-eye removal, rgb primary color filter, digital noise reduction, digital image rotation, USB 2.0 compatibility, Face Detection AF/AE, Built-in help guide, PictBridge support, Resizing an image, histogram display, cropping an image, built-in speaker, date/time stamp, audio recording, face detection, direct print, DPOF support
The display of the screen is 2.7 inch TFT LCD. Connectors on the camera include component video output, DC power input, composite video/audio output, USB. There is also a SD memory clad slot. The camera is powered by 950 mAh li-ion rechargeable battery – 950 mAh
Razzle Dazzle:
The device is available in three colors, blue, silver, black and red but it will not make heads turn. We got the silver one in our test centers. We don’t mean to say that the camera is ugly but it doesn’t have a great look. The camera is really sleek which will easily fit in to your pants pockets. The camera 3.9 inch wide, 1 inch deep, 2.2 inch high, and weighs about 4.9 oz.
Inside Dope:
This is another point and shoot camera from Panasonic and they have revamped a few features to give better photo quality while still managing to keep it small. The autofocus system of the device is re-engineered, the optical image stablilistaion has been improved to provide better quality pictures clicked with shaking hand and there is a great new 8x zoom wide-angle lens.
It is a surprise how Panasonic has managed to put all this and still make it a sleek and thin camera. Mostly you find 5x or 3x optical zoom on cameras of this class, we were glad to find an 8x zoom. The secret behind the compact lightweight body is the presence of extremely thin 0.3 millimeter elements in the lens.
If you need a reason to buy this camera, it must be for the Power OIS, a new image stabilization feature from Panasonic. We were delighted with the results in our image stabilization tests.
DMC-ZR1 is a basic point-and-shoot camera so you probably won’t need much time to get used to this device even if you are new to the world of photography. However, it simple to use interface means that much of the advanced features are sacrificed so this is just a device for light photography. When it comes to buttons, we thought that the mode dial was a bit of a disappointment because we often ended up slipping between the options for shooting. Other than that the buttons are large and easy to press.
There is Extended Optical Zoom (E.Zoom) near the thumb rest which will completely zoom the lens out with a single touch. The extended optical zoom is activated when you press it again and the image quality is downgraded to 3 MP from the original 12 MP. The zoom gets larger but the resolution is less which means lower quality than what the camera is capable of. The lens will go back to the starting position when you press it for the third time.
The main menu system has 3 tabs of shooting features, setup and travel mode. The latter will allow you to set the time, location and date for your outing and it groups together whatever is clicked on a programmed day. This is an excellent way to keep your collection organized within the camera. To view your videos or photos that you have taken on the trip just start the playback option for slide show. There is a cord provided if you want to watch the photos on a TV. In all, we found the menu system very user friendly.
Don’t expect to get controls for shutter speed or aperture in this point and shoot device. However you get to control the color effects, light metering, focus, white balance, exposure and ISO. We recommend you to stay within ISO 800 setting because the photo quality degrades after that. There are 29 scene modes in the camera like night scenery, landscape, portrait, etc. Some modes like film grain and pinhole will limit the resolution of the camera to 3 MP. If all this confuses you then you can always use the Intelligent Auto (iA) where in the camera decides what is the best for the given environment and sets itself accordingly. It is of great help in correcting issues of brightness, focus and blurring.
The movie mode can capture HD quality videos in which the quality is very good and the optical zoom is surprisingly when you use it. The camera has a tiny 40 MB internal memory so make sure you use this to store photos which have all the settings minimized or you won’t be able to store a lot of files. With the 25mm-equivalent wide-angle lens you can click pictures of timetable or notices that you may want to click. Of course you can always put a memory card in to the camera for more memory.
We couldn’t disagree with Panasonic when they said that this camera has a lot of features improved in order to give better performance. The mega zoom camera takes 1.3 camera to start up and get shooting. Shutter lag is 0.4 second in conditions of bright light and 0.6 seconds in low light conditions. Shot-to-shot speed is 2 seconds with flash switched off and 2.5 seconds with flash on.
Photo quality was very good on the ZR1 and provides a maximum resolution of 4000X3000 pixels. At ISO 400 the quality is the best, at ISO 800 the fine detail is good but the pictures have a painterly appearance. At ISO 1600 the quality is poorest and there are yellow splotches with lots of noise. The exposure and white balance is quite good.
Nitty Gritty:
We are fans of Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZR1 because of the new hardware inside that gives us better performance and great looking photos. But this camera is not for professional photographers as there are not much advanced settings. Get this camera if you are looking for a point-and-shoot device.
