LUMIX DC-ZS70K, 20.3 Megapixel, 4K Digital Camera, Touch Enabled 3-Inch 180 Degree Flip-Front Display, 30X Leica DC Vario-Elmar Lens, WiFi (Black)

Short review for the ZS70 here, my full review shortly will be published on my blog (google camera name and photographic-central). Quick rant/explanation: I'm giving it 5 stars for two reasons- One, I can't choose 4.5, and two, there were a couple one star reviews here when either the camera wasn't released yet or there was obvious user error. To me, those aren't valid reviews so the extra half point helps to mitigate them (since Amazon hasn't removed the reviews, and probably won't I'm doing my part to keep things fair). Moving on... Review: There simply aren't any decent pocket-able super zoom cameras on the market that shoot raw. As a professional and enthusiast, I demand raw. I suggest readers who don't use raw learn how to so that they can get the most out of the TZ70. This camera has a very small sensor, but, it is a modern BSI CMOS, which means it's very efficient for the size of its pixels. As long as you have reasonable expectations from a sensor this size, it will probably exceed those expectations. Image quality from raw is much better than I anticipated. The lens is very sharp through the range (just don't go over f5.6 if you can avoid it, natural diffraction kicks in). Therefore the sensor and lens combo out perform a camera of this class. Even dynamic range is better than I could have possibly thought. Credit to technology moving on. When you factor in all its features (a vast array from 4k video to wireless to time lapse video), it's top notch design aesthetics (minimalist, classy, utilitarian), excellent build and ergonomics, this camera is a powerhouse of a pocketable "all in one" compact. My only wish is that the lens were slightly brighter (max aperture through the range), but otherwise it's a camera in its class of sensor size that shadows all others. At first I dismissed the ZS70 because of its packed tiny sensor, but I was shocked and pleasantly surprised looking at the image quality in raw. 1" sized sensors are still going to outperform it mind you, but this sensor is much better than you might think. Once you get it set up, it's a joy to shoot with. That lens is so versatile for all kinds of snapshot photography- from landscapes to macros, action shots to long range stills or portraits. Its fast focusing so even actions shots are within reach. Overall the ZS70 is everything you need in a little point n shoot, and nothing you don't. The controls on the exterior are plenty and holding it is quite lovely for one handed shooting- it's slightly larger, thicker, and heavier than the ZS50/60 but that is a good thing for a camera with such a long zoom. It makes a more stable platform when you are shooting at full telephoto. It has just the right heft to it for a camera of its size and type, welcome if you ask me. The five axis stabilization helps tremendously to keep blur at bay. Most of the controls are customizeable. The LCD is helpful for waist level shots and acts as a sort of angle bi-pod when you place the camera down for more stable shots (if you don't have a tripod for example). The EVF is welcome and usable, and helps in bright light and for extra stability when you are looking through it with the camera pressed to your eye/face. I cannot get over how lovely its designed- all sides are nice n flat, nothing protrudes to snag, there's no obnoxious advertising of features on the camera itself, and everything appears proportionate and cleanly organized. The front and rear grips are improved and excellent. The design looks very Leica-esque - minimalist and beautiful. Great choice in exterior materials, the blend of flat fleck paint and satin metal. The black and silver versions are both excellent and classy. If you print, you can easily make lovely prints to 13x19", and if you have some talent or stack your raw images, you can raise that number substantially (30x40" perhaps!). To me this camera is the sleeper compact out there right now. And it's likely to get more reviews and fans as a result. Overall the ZS70 is the best of the newer ZS series (or TZ series if outside the USA) cameras. It's classy, versatile, discreet, minimalist, and utilitarian. I wish more cameras were designed like this. Keep it up Panasonic! Edit: My full review is now up on photographic-central blogspot dot com :)

Oct. 2020: If you're photographing foliage with a lot of stems & leaf edges, turn off/down i.Resolution. The "i" isn't that intelligent & makes some nasty over-sharpened halos in some spots. My advice, if you like the overall look of the jpeg, shoot raw+jpeg & process the raw using the jpeg as a guide. This isn't needed all the time. Only some scenes have this problem. 8/14/2020 I never played with the weird 4K burst modes. I just mucked with them today. They tend to hang up the camera. They don't seem to offer much over the regular drive modes. They take up two programmable buttons I can put to better use. 7/18/2019 Low light. No camera of this type is going to do well in natural light at last light (9 PM here.) This one is noticeably worse than my SX720HS. And that's bad. 6/29/2019 With an upgraded SD card, I tried the high speed video. The 240 fps VGA mode worked like a dream. To access it, you have to have the camera on [Cinema Camera]M mode. WARNING: Objects in camera fall 1/8th as fast as real life. :) 6/24/2019. With hundreds of pictures down, I really like the flip screen. I also like the auto bracket. I tend to keep it on 1/3 stop; 2/3 seems to be a bit wide. I've turned off the touch screen. Moving the focus position with the tip of my nose whenever I use the EVF is right out. 6/21/2019. Video playback seems to be twitchy on this model. Apparently some cameras, some times have trouble playing back some videos. Check your memory card specs. Even with a high end card, playback is chancy. Recording is fine. Playback on a PC is fine. 6/17/2019. The only serious negative about this camera is the slight increase in size and weight over my old SX720HS. It's about twice the volume. It has reasons for that, with the added features, particularly the tilt-screen and the EVF. I really like high-end, 1/2.3"-sensor, long-zoom, point & shoot cameras. This one is pretty close to the limit. Much more and you have to go to 1" sensor designs, which hurts your zoom range. I currently have: -Canon SX280HS--great camera, still has features no one else has, terrible for videos (I don't care), battery hog (I do care) -Canon SX720HS--basically the SX280HS perfected. I wouldn't normally upgrade this soon, but for, -Panasonic ZS70--this camera, which I got for very short money (thanks Amazon warehouse) * I wasn't that interested in the flip-up screen, I don't do selfies or vlogs. Boy was I wrong. It allows you to snake the camera into positions that would otherwise require a contortionist. * I was interested in the EVF. It's good in dim light, but I'm used to eyeballing pictures from an external screen. Still a plus, but less of one than I thought. * I was interested in the powerful bracketing functions. Still interested, but I'll need a bit more study to make it work. Generally, I shoot in P mode or M mode. Both modes work fine on this camera. The autofocus is better than on the two Canons. The focus modes take a little experimentation to find the one that works best for you, but they all seem to work. 'Standard' color balance is fine. I need to play with 'Natural' a bit to see which one I prefer. The attached photos were all taken on standard. All on a single sunny morning walk after a rainy night in Massachusetts. First impression? This is a really good camera, even at the list price.

UPDATE (4 Star) After getting the technician report it said: "excessive amount of dust in lens and on barrels causing issue-unable to clean off- dust also in unit-deemed abused". I am not sure how to abuse a camera to insert dust inside it- and to clean it the charges were to be over $200. For having this camera for two months through normal use, I felt the need to write a strong email and request to speak to a manager, especially with my big trip coming up (which this camera was mainly for) with a few days left to spare. He decided to authorize the repairs in warranty this time and had said to always store the camera in a case and never put it directly put it in my pocket (which is what I tend to do with smaller cameras). I luckily got it back today with 1 day to spare before leaving the country and it looks great and has no dust on the lens. I still warn others though that this camera is prone to this dust issue, which is a major design flaw in my opinion- but use with a case and never in your pocket and hopefully this experience does not happen to you! ORIGINAL REVIEW (1 Star) This is the second Lumix I have purchased, and after my experience with Panasonic I will never purchase a Panasonic product of any kind. My prior Lumix was great, however after a year there was dust/fibers in the camera that were ruining every photo (I would have to manually Photoshop it out of thousands of images). In that case, my Asurion warranty through Amazon came to the rescue and I got the camera good as new in under a week. With this new camera, I had it for under two months and it already had the same issue- I am not sure how dust and fibers get in Lumix cameras so easily. Asurion said the camera is still under Panasonic's warranty so they cannot handle it until later. I used Panasonic's help form and mailed in the camera. After not hearing anything after two weeks, I decided to give them a call today and they claim the camera is 'out of warranty and beyond repair because of excessive dust in the lens'. I am not quite sure how it can be deemed as excessive- regardless of the amount of dust, cleaning it is the same process. Also, Asurion was able to clean a much dirtier lens and get it back to me in less than a week. How does the repair center for the camera manufacturer so incompetent in their abilities that they cannot perform a basic clean their own product while a third party, like Asurion, can have it back in under a week? When I asked why they had not contacted me and that they were simply not going to fix the camera and were just holding it, they said they didn't have my email address on-file. The hilarious thing is that to give them all my information I had to send my phone, address, product, serial number, and other info via my email address through previous correspondence with them. I told the Panasonic representative that it was unacceptable their product is unusable after 2 months after minimal use, with a simple issue that their technician team is unwilling to address, and that they weren't even going to reach out to me to tell me?!? The technician didn't even apologize- for any of Panasonic's incompetency in design or service, and pretty much had a 'just deal with it' attitude. I requested a manager call me back and am awaiting to hear anything. I am going on a big Europe trip in two weeks and now I have no camera and am down $400. I am a very reasonable and patient person, but this is the worst customer service I have had in my entire life. Unless they fix this I will never purchase a Panasonic product again of any kind in my life- it is unacceptable. Panasonic's tagline should be 'Terrible Cameras and Customer Service™'

Wow! As a retired Photographer I own 2 Nikon's and 1 Sony, (owned a Canon and a Nikon Cyber shot) and love them all, but what that little Lumix can do is amazing! Connecting with my phone and tablets, microphone etc. The zoom is great I am use to that, but to touch the zoomed item on the monitor and the focus will be on that?? I am speechless. Always had problems if the zoomed object was a little bird sitting in a tree to get the focus exactly on the bird. I got the camera yesterday and I am still exploring the exciting features it has to offer. For our travels (we fly a lot) I wanted a smaller, lighter but still a good camera. I think I got one with this Lumix ZS70. From my former experience, the Leica lens is considered one of the best and I am looking forward to put it to serious work next week! Update will follow! Update: The camera is great but for what I need it has too many buttons too close together. It is very sensitive to touch, often when I turned it back on, it had the settings changed by itself. Since I love the Leica lens, I will replace the ZS70 with the ZS100. Unfortunately I will lose the long zoom from 30x to 10x but we will see.

This is a nice camera that I am still learning, and there are quite a few things to learn if you are coming from a point and shoot. Still has some neat tricks even for the seasoned photographer coming from the dSLR side as well. What I like: - Image quality - Large zoom (30x) - OPTICAL - Full manual control - Viewfinder (this is increasingly more difficult to come by in the point and shoot market) - Full program mode to take the thinking out of it when in a hurry - Many various ease of use photographic capture features - Connectivity options (xfer, remote shutter control) What I do not like: - Odd placement of flash (on opposite side of camera to what is 'normal') and just below where you naturally hold the camera. Still not used to it after nearly 4 months. My fingers still get in the way and most people that I hand over the camera to in order to take a picture get stumped on it as well. Seems odd and can get annoying, or worse, ruin a good shot opportunity.. - Limited F-Stop range (but somewhat to be expected for what this camera is) Overall it is a nice camera that gives a lot for its size.

Things I like: * The zoom. * The small size and flatness compared to a full DSLR. * The flip screen that allows taking selfies or videos on tripod. * Sound quality is excellent for a built-in microphone. Had some misgivings about the lack of a jack at first, but realized I won't use sound except for environmental shots, otherwise using my USB microphone for voice overlays. * Ability to take 4K video is a must. * The camera's ability to take macro is excellent, with nice depth of field blur (see test photos). What I dislike: * The image quality. The sensor is so noisy it's unacceptable except in broad daylight. This gets worse in video as images cannot be exposed longer to compensate for bad ISO. Anything slightly dark above ISO 100 is poor, and even then not crisp. For the form factor, I absolutely love this camera. Everything is great about it except the picture quality. I've taken far better 4K video from my old Windows Phone. The sensor is noisy in a way that reminds me of my old teenage year cameras. Basically, extra pixels were crammed into photos without increasing the sensor size from the days of 1080p. This is just unacceptable for my needs, and within one day have decided to get a camera with a larger 1" sensor immediately.

The zoom motor went out on the one I had, and I liked it so much I bought another one! I have a DSLR, and a bridge camera that I love, but this one fits in my purse for spur of the moment shots. Very easy to operate and has lots of automatic settings if you want to go that route. I’m very happy with the quality of pictures and has a great zoom. Thought about getting a different model, but was so happy decided to stick with the same one.

This has been the most belligerent and intolerable group of people I've had the displeasure to work with. They are recycling old, refurbished cameras, and they do not work as originally intended. Because of COVID, I tried reaching out a bit delayed for help on the fact that it was not working properly, both with mechanisms, and the picture qualities, only for them to blatantly ignore my requests. These people are horrible and unkind and inconsiderate. Their cameras no longer work as they once did a few years ago. This is a nice camera but it doesn't hold up. My camera was under warranty when the telescopic lens mechanism froze. The camera was completely unresponsive and useless. If you look up the performance of this camera you will notice that this is a common problem. In addition the camera is not weather-sealed and is very prone to moisture and dust damage. So my advice is to STEER CLEAR of Panasonic Lumix cameras, unless you want a really frustrating and costly experience. What I cannot understand is how a company can invest so much in building a brand, and fail to provide top quality service on the back end. UGH!!

excelente cámara, para los amantes de la foto y no quieran llevar una cámara pro, con esta te da excelentes resultados para los amantes de la foto

Excellent optics and operating modes, complex but easy to use. I enjoy the lens ring that can be used for various adjustments, including fine focus. The latter is a bit of a fad, as it is not that convenient to hold camera while operating the ring, especially if covered with a leather case. The electronic viewfinder is also very good and accurate, it even has dipter adjustment. Camera is not a pocket model, as I thought (note to self, read carefully the dimensions...). Nevertheless, it is a fine piece and the Leica 30x zoom (35mm equivalent to a 720 mm optical tele zoom lens) combined with the shake-free system are astounding. Highly recommended.

I do not reccomented this camera... Waste money... Please buy sony or canon.

I bought this camera with purposes of using it for YouTube. After playing around with it, I'm going to be taking it everywhere. The picture quality is great, the zoom on it is fantastic, and the video quality is great! I'm so happy with this camera