DMC-TS3 First Impressions Pictures later on

[Photo 5]

I received my new Panasonic DMC-TS3 in the mail today. It is a rough type camera. It is replacing my Olympus SW1050 which I got in December 2008 (the camera will be going to my brothers two kids 4 and 6 who both want a really camera, they have some kid of digital camera toy type camera but are disappointed with the results, but mommy won't trust them with her Cannon G-11).

To my surprise the camera battery that came with a charge on it. And yes the box was sealed and the battery was shrink wrapped. I was able to get all the settings put into the camera (time, date and set the various modes) and take 20 images before the battery died. After charging it for two hours I took it out for an hours test.

I was very impressed in that on the LCD screen it is very easy to tell if the image is good or bad and needed to be re-taken something my previous camera wasn't the greatest at doing.

There is some issues when I am at 4 and 4.6x zoom with camera shake. You do have to hold the camera steady, but when I was shoot at less than 4x all the images were tack sharp.

Shot to shot the camera is very quick. I'd say 3x what the Olympus was.

It powers up very quickly with a lite press of the shutter button, no need to hold it down for a few seconds.

I did find outdoors it was overexposing images and had to shoot at -1 and -2/3 in bright sunlight to get the right exposure. When I did some sunset images I shot them at -2/3 for a dramatic effect and they turned out very good.

Delete images was the only operation of this camera that took as long or longer than my previous camera.

I have yet to shoot any video with it.

The zoom is quick to move through the entire range 0x - 4.6x

The only bad thing is I need to get used to holding it a little different on the left side so I don;t block the lens with part of one of my fingers.

Overall so far I am very happy with the camera.

dave

[jjdog2]

Very well done review Dave. Sounds like it's a nice upgrade from the Olympus.

Post some examples if you have time.

Thanks for sharing.

jj

[Photo 5]

should have time after Monday have two weddings and a Easter egg hunt to cover this weekend