Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ7

Bought this based upon a recommendation and not regretted it at all. Easy to use and the pictures are astounding. So much that I bought the water proof casing to take it diving - brilliant, even the vidoe worked well under water.

Camera is small, easy to use and very user friendly and the battery lasts a long time, the longest was about 1100 photos including flash!

I'm still fairly new to using this camera, to be honest it is quite difficult to grasp the features because there are so many (which isn't a bad thing)!

Best thing about this camera is the video. The quality is phenomenal, just as if you were there.

Only down side to this camera is the battery life. I took it to a weekend trip and the battery died by the afternoon of the 2nd day! If you want to buy a new battery it won't come cheap either - around £35!

Accessories don't come cheap either and I do think it's a necessity, for example, bag or cover, or tripod stand.

Overall I definitely would recommend it. At the time of purchase it was the best one for me but now I think there could be better ones available overall.

I have SLRs all my life but they are too cumbersome to carry with you when playing Golf,Fishing or just out for a stroll.My TZ7 however is ALWAYS with me, so I don't miss any opertunity whenever it presents itself to take shots of wild life ,Flora /Fauna. In the Concert Hall you can Video Record both Sound /Image without distracting other concert goers.

All in all I am delighted with my TZ7.

Brilliant camera, great pics and zoom - Caution- YOU MUST KEEP THE RECEIPT! I didn't and after 2 months the camera has developed an intermitant system error that will not allow the flash to work and locks the camera. Panasonic will not authorise repair even thought this model has only been out 12 months.

Live & learn - keep receipts time warranty expired.

Brilliant camera, easy to use, really happy with the picture/video quality. Love the added versatility of both wide angle and zoomed in shots, dolby sound on the HD video, all in all purely belter and if you research online you can get great deals. I got a bundle which included case, 16 gig memory card, spare battery etc for less than your run of the mill local stores can sell the basic camera-don't hesitate go buy one now!

I wanted a pocket camera, something that would go anywhere just to take snaps and snippets of video.

After looking through every compact digital camera on the market, I chose the Panasonic DMC-TZ7.

I was astounded by the features available on this camera, and the image quality, user-friendliness - everything. My last compact was a chunkier Canon G9, which was good and allowed for more manual control, but it had problems with dust that couldn't be avoided due to a design flaw. The panasonic, whilst it is more automatic than the G9 (as a pro photographer, I prefer manual control), it hammers the G9 in every department. Image quality is exemplary, rivalling entry level SLRs easily. The macro facility is the best I've ever seen on a compact, and is not far off a much more expensive professional set up I use (that cost £7000) - I was floored! The wider angle start point for the zoom lens than is available on most compacts is one of the things that made me choose this camera, and it really does make a difference for landscapes and for getting creative with perspective. The Leica lens is excellent, and unlike many older panasonic cameras, isn't compromised by poor quality image processing in camera. Panasonic have really cracked it with this one. The only thing that it can't offer is pro flash standards - the built in flash is more than adequate, but the flash is the only area where this camera fails to punch way above its weight class.

The other thing I wanted was video - and nobody does it better. Full HD video at usable frame rates, and the quality is stunning. I take far more videos than I imagined I would, and due to the low price, I'm happy using it for sports (like skydiving (in a housing attached to my helmet), scuba diving (in a dive housing), cycling (clamped to the handlebars, forks, or wheelstays), and I've got some great, fun videos that I actually want to come back to and watch again, unlike a lot of video I've shot in the past which was such low quality that there was little point. It works nicely in low light too.

I only expected to be using this camera for simple snaps, but I find myself using it more and more, and whereas I have always been waiting for my next upgrade in the past, I feel no such compulsion with this camera - it's perfect for my needs, and the video quality is fantastic. Think of it as the cheapest True HD video camera money can buy, combined with one of the best compact cameras money can buy. I've owned more than twenty compact cameras, and over a hundred SLRs or medium format cameras. This one is the best compact by far, and probably my fourth favourite camera ever - considering the cameras I rate above it are complete kits costing thousands of pounds more (and it beats some costing the same), this is the best value for money camera I've ever owned, and probably the most fun too. I recommend it unreservedly.

The TZ7 is a gorgeous little point-and-shoot 12MP camera. I wanted something light to pop in my pocket or a small handbag at weekends, rather than carting my heavy DSLR and lenses around. This does the job brilliantly; nice big screen, image and (HD) video quality is really good and it has a whacking great 12x zoom.

If you want to produce videos on a Mac with this, please note the AVCHD file format isn't compatible unless you've got iLife 09 and Snow Leopard, which could cost you up to £200... then it's a simple drag-and-drop into iMovie. Or you could save your pennies and use the Motion JPEG format instead. If you use a PC you'll be OK whichever format you use.

Hope this helps, and happy snapping!

Bought this to replace a previous Panasonic (which it turns out doesn't appreciate being dropped in the sand at the beach). So far this is a big improvement. The biggest issues with the previous model were the autofocus which I think never worked properly, and the quality of the zoom. This new camera seems to have these two things well coevered. Controls are exactly the same so there was no learning curve at all, and the lense is a real improvement. Optical zoom has increased considerably, and the autofocus does much less 'hunting'. Biggest plus though is that it gets an unequivocal thumbs up from my wife.