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| (Photo Credit: Panasonic) |
Panasonic announced what it’s calling “the world’s smallest photo/video hybrid superzoom digital camera,” according to the company’s Jan. 26 press release. The ZS7 has 12.1 megapixels and a wide 12x optical zoom lens in a compact body, but its coolest feature is sure to be the built-in GPS.
The ZS7’s GPS system embeds photos and videos with the exact location where they were captured. The latitude and longitude are written into the EXIF data, and the current time and location is displayed on the 3-inch LCD screen. Panasonic hopes that this will appeal to travelers who want to document their adventures on applications like Google Earth.
The new camera also has an interesting feature in that it shows information for more than a half-million landmarks in 73 countries. The ZR7 stores the info on the internal memory, and 15MB is open to store images.
The ZR7 has a 12x optical zoom lens with a wide 25mm that gives the camera versatility. Panasonic also added flexibility to the camera with the addition of a manual shooting mode, something that was not included on previous ZS-series digital cameras.
The ZS7 records AVCHD Lite video, which can record more, higher quality HD video than standard Motion JPEG format. The ZS7 has a dedicated movie mode button, another new feature.
“As a successor to the Panasonic Lumix ZS3, which was last year’s most popular compact model, we are confident the Panasonic Lumix ZS7 will continue the success, thanks to big features like HD video, 12x optical zoom and the newly added GPS capabilities and its super-fast auto focusing,” said David Briganti, senior product manager of imaging at Panasonic Electronic Company. “Panasonic is excited to introduce our first GPS-enabled digital camera, and it adds to the ZS7’s appeal as the ultimate travel companion – from its range of shooting options, both far and wide, and now the ability to record exactly where photos were taken. We are confident consumers will have all the features they need to capture high quality photos and video and share their travels with their friends and family.”
Panasonic also introduced the ZS5 that comes with the same resolution and lens, but uses the memory-hogging Motion JPEG instead of AVCHD Lite for its HD video recording. The step-down model does not include the built-in GPS and it shrinks the LCD screen to 2.7 inches and 230,000 pixels instead of the 3-inch, 460k version on the ZS7.
