This first shot was taken with the Lumix TZ7 / ZS3 with its lens zoomed all the way out to an equivalent of 25mm. This is comfortably wider than most compacts and allows you to grab large compositions – it’s also ideal when you can’t step back any further. As seen here and on our first results page, the Lumix TZ7 / ZS3 remains sharp into the corners when fully zoomed-out. The crops are also detailed here, although they’re lacking the ultimate crispness of some rivals. Conversely at least there’s no concerns over sharpening.

Landscape: 5.91MB, Normal, 1/500, f5.6, ISO 100, 4.1-49.2mm at 4.1mm (25mm equivalent)

						Another shot taken with the Lumix TZ7 / ZS3 fully zoomed-out, and another that captures a larger field than most compacts at the same distance. We increased the sensitivity to 100 ISO and there’s a faint smattering of noise artefacts in areas of flat colour, but nothing to overly be concerned about. Again there’s lots of detail here and well-corrected optics.

Landscape: 3.65MB, Normal, 1/1000, f5.6, ISO 200, 4.1-49.2mm at 49.2mm (300mm equivalent)

Set to the default Continuous AF, the TZ7 / ZS3 kept the subject sharp as it approached, allowing us to grab several sharp shots.

The increase to 200 ISO has resulted in more noise artefacts and a loss of the finest details. But optically the lens is still performing respectably.

Despite switching down to a relatively low 100 ISO, pixel-peepers will spot some noise textures in the crops, but they’ll also see fine details and an absence of optical artefacts.

Even zoomed-into 195mm and the subject at relatively close range, the depth of field has remained quite large. The TZ7 / ZS3 has a wider aperture available at this focal length, but you can’t manually adjust it. It wouldn’t have made much difference here though – like most compacts, it’s difficult to achieve a truly blurred background.

This photo was taken from that distance with the lens fully zoomed-out. The sensitivity was increased to 400 ISO.

Across the plane of focus, the crops are sharp and detailed, while the increase to 400 ISO hasn’t been detrimental to this particular subject matter.

The increase to 400 ISO has resulted in an increase of noise artefacts and a lack of sharpness around edges of subjects. There’s also a slight loss of saturation in this particular image.

As you’d expect, at 800 ISO there’s a noticeable increase in noise and processing artefacts. Areas of flat colour can look quite patchy, but there’s still a fair amount of detail in some of the crops.

It’s also worth noting the stabilisation has ironed-out any wobbles from the 1/6 shutter speed.

Noise artefacts have now become quite obtrusive and fine detail has become lost. You’d only want to use 1600 ISO for smaller online or email images, such as the shrunken version, left.

The TZ7 / ZS3 then goes onto offer a High Sensitivity Preset that operates between 1600 and 6400 ISO at a reduced resolution of 3 Megapixels. You can see an example at 2000 ISO in our High ISO Noise results page.