Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7 digital camera review

The main purpose of this testing of Panasonic Lumix FZ7 is to see the result of its superb 12X optical zoom. Author stands on the other side of the sea shore and takes photo 1. By using 12X optical zoom, those boats far away are just like moving in front of me suddenly. We can see the zooming result in photo 2, the photo is still with good sharpness after 12X zooming. 

All photos have been resized to 500X375 pixels in order to shorten web page download time.

Program mode-photo 1	Program mode 12X zoom in-photo 2

By taking advantage of Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7 12X zooming capability, we can easily take photos for subjects on the other side of sea shore or tree leaves on the tree top. (for example photo 3 and photo 4) As we all know, the more zooming you use, the more blurry photos you may get if tripod is not used. However, the MEGA optical image stabilizer (MEGA O.I.S.) will solve the problem in this situation. According to our test, we can get 8-9 out of 10 clear photos with 12X optical zooming either on mode 1 or mode 2 MEGA O.I.S. 

Program mode-photo 3	Sunset 5:30pm Program mode 12X zoom in-photo 4

Photo 5:

The following photo is taken by Panasonic FZ7 night scene mode with 16:9 wide screen format. From my personal point of view, the night shot photo has good exposure and ISO control by using FZ7 preset night scene mode. Author does not need to do anything but point and shoot for this night shot. 

By comparing to other brand of medium size digital cameras, Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7 is relatively lighter in weight. Author has good holding feeling of this camera. Moreover, the flash control button makes users easier to pop out flash. The new design manual operation joystick is quite handy to change aperture ratio and shutter speed in manual mode. Panasonic FZ7 not only has superb 12X optical zooming capability but also get a good macro photo ability up to 2-3 cm close up according to our test. 

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