JonSnow wrote:Seriously why does this question come up every single time? It's 16x optical PLUS 5x digital zoom. Not that difficult to understand.
That would actually be a total of 80x, but it's the right general idea. 16x optical zoom and another 1.3x "Intelligent Zoom" (i.e. digital zoom). I had a ZX6 camera that did the same thing, and the digital part looked horrendous. Far better to not use it and stick to optical zoom.
That was a very frustrating camera - I loved the features and the handling (except for the mechanical play/record switch), and it sometimes took very good photos. Unfortunately, it sometimes took really poor photos, and there was no way to know in advance which you were going to get. It seemed to have particular trouble with low-contrast textures, like hair or foliage, and would turn them into unpleasant-looking smears.
This appears to be a Panasonic ZS family trait - here's what the people at dpreview.com had to say about the ZS10:
"Our main complaint about the ZS10 regards its image quality. In bright, high-contrast scenes, detail reproduction is high, but the ZS10 has real problems when it comes to resolving low contrast detail. Even at its base ISO, images taken on overcast days look mushy and lifeless at 100% on screen, and image quality drops as the ISO sensitivity is increased."
They also did a travel zoom comparison test in which it fared badly. If I wanted such a camera, I'd think really hard about saving up the extra money for a Canon SX230 HS.
