Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4960 in Camera & Photo
• Color: Black
• Brand: Panasonic
• Model: DMC-FZ7K
• Dimensions: 15.00 pounds
• Display size: 2.5

Features

• Leica DC Vario-Element Lens System with 11 elements in 8 groups (3 aspherical lenses/3 aspherical surfaces)
• 12x Optical zoom (equivalent to 36mm to 432mm on a 35mm film camera lens) with aperture of F2.8 to 3.3 & 4x digital zoom
• Compact 6mp camera with Mega Optical Image Stabilization which addresses "anti-blu" of hand & subject movement
• LSI Venus engine II handles image processing, LCD functions, & writing to the memory card simultaneously for incredible responsiveness
• Five software packages included, comes with battery charger& pack, 16MB Sd memoery card, AV cable, USB connection cable, AC cable, strap, CD Rom, Lens cap, lens hood, & lens hood adaptor

From the Manufacturer
The Panasonic Leica DMC-FZ7K 6MP Digital Camera with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom features a Leica DC Vario-Elmarit Lens with a remarkable 12x optical zoom, equivalent to a 35 to 430 millimeter lens on a 35mm film camera. While a film camera with an optical zoom this powerful would be so big and heavy you couldn't handle it with one hand, the digital Panasonic Leica DMC-FZ7K small, lightweight and easy to handle. It also has Panasonic's Extended Optical Zoom feature. While causing minimal deterioration by using the center part of the high-resolution CCD, this function magnifies the image to give you total zoom power of 17.5x -- roughly equivalent to a huge 1680 millimeter lens on a 35mm camera.

The camera also features Panasonic's advanced MEGA Optical Image Stabilizer, which helps eliminate blurry pictures. Jitter from shaky hands is one of the main reasons why cameras produce blurry images. The Panasonic Leica DMC-FZ7K has a built-in gyrosensor that detects any hand movement and relays a signal to a tiny microcomputer inside the camera, which instantly calculates the compensation needed. A linear motor then shifts the Optical Image Stabilizer lens as necessary to guide incoming light from the image straight to the CCD. You won't even notice it working; all you'll see are the outstanding results!

The Panasonic Leica DMC-FZ7K also features a large, 2.5-inch diagonal LCD and a Power LCD function. Simply touch the power LCD button, and the display becomes about 40 percent brighter for easier viewing on sunny days. The camera also has the world's first developed high-angle LCD feature, which makes it easier to check the LCD when you need to hold the camera high over a crowd to take a shot. The large LCD lets you check the focus, frame the shot, and use functions like 25-thumbnail display and calendar view in comfort, with no eye strain. In addition, Panasonic has aligned the electronic viewfinder and LCD along the same line of sight to minimize differences in the images you see when framing shots.

With mega-burst consecutive shooting, you can snap off up to 14 consecutive shots at a swift 3 frames per second in standard mode. The camera also has unlimited consecutive shooting, so you can keep on shooting until the SD memory card is full.

The joystick on the back of the camera gives you quick, easy and accurate manual focusing. You can also use the manual focus assist function, which helps you set a perfect focus by magnifying the center of the LCD image and displaying a bar graph of the focal distance and depth of field. The joystick also makes it easy to manually adjust the exposure and focus. You can set the aperture, shutter speed and focus with your thumb while framing the shot on the LCD monitor. Press and hold down the joystick, and you can also instantly change four key settings -- white balance, ISO sensitivity, image size, and image quality -- while viewing the subject on the monitor. There's no need to switch to the menu screen.

What's in the Box
DMC-FZ7K digital camera, battery charger, battery pack, SD memory card (16 MB), lens cap, lens hood and adapter, AV cable, USB cable, and strap.

Customer Reviews

Still love it after a year and a half
I'm not an expert photographer, but in my experience using the Panasonic DMC-FZ7, I've found that:
- it takes clear, crisp photos in daylight or using the flash.
- in dim light, the photos have a lot of noise.
- the optical zoom lens is great.
- the macro feature allows incredibly detailed close-ups.
- it's best to use a tripod if you're not using the flash (to reduce blurriness).

I've owned the FZ7 for about a year and half and I still love it and have had no problems with it thus far. My best use of the camera was during a camping trip to the mountains where I got some really good photos that I'm still showing off to people.

The optical zoom feature is INCREDIBLE! I was standing quite a distance from a tree that had a huge hornet (or wasp?) nest in it and I zoomed in as close as possible and the photo was crystal clear.

Two of my absolute favorite photos taken with this camera were a super close-up (using the macro feature) of my cat's face and the photo described above of the hornet nest (using the 12x optical zoom). Awesome.

good camera great pictures
This is a fine camera, light, small, great zoom and stabilization. Battery life is also good.

The negatives would be the manual focus is a bit tricky to master and the small size leaves your pinky finger with no room. The other negative was the high ISO setting is a bit obtuse as you have to go to scene mode to engage it.

Lens caps seem to get lost as well.
The light weight makes it a bit unstable at long zooms. Michelle Ress USA

Pretty good for the price
I bought this camera to replace my canon POS, because it has a lot of pro features and was - well, cheap. And you get what you pay for: the lens and the zoom are great (Leica), the features overflowing; but *alas* even at ISO 80 it's a really noisy image. Also, it tends to shoot too bright, so I have to underexpose by just a little. And no RAW, so no pro images.

A great trainer camera for a newbie exploring to see if a pro-cam is worthwhile, and I don't know if the Fz8 or 50 has a better sensor chip, but this one has kind of a crappy sensor chip, definite pixellation at full-sized without any tweaks. I spend a lot of time in Photoshop these days, and will likely replace it with a Canon instead of another Lumix.