Coming back on the Panasonic ZR1: 25-200mm zoom, 720p video and Power O.I.S.

Here is the official press release by Panasonic – it should be read with hindsight, as it contains a high rate of marketing material and of self-satisfaction:

July 27, 2009: Panasonic Lumix cameras go from strength to strength with technological advancements designed to offer the ultimate in picture performance and convenience. Panasonic’s new DMC-ZR1 is the latest addition to the award winning Lumix range of cameras. A younger, sister product to the highly regarded SZ series, the ZR1 offers even further compactness whilst also boasting a powerful 8x optical zoom.

Pocket Power!
Streets ahead of its competitors, the new ZR1 offers unparalleled features – incorporating an impressively powerful 8x optical zoom into a slim and compact body. Made possible by the newly developed lens unit incorporating the world’s first 0.3mm super-thin aspherical lens and industry’s first 0.3mm spherical lens*2– the DMC-ZR1 is highly technically specified yet remains astonishingly slim and compact.

The DMC-ZR1 features a 25mm ultra wide angle LEICA DC VARIO-ELMAR lens and powerful 8x optical zoom (equivalent to 25-200mm on a 35mm film camera) together with a 12.1-megapixel high resolution CCD into a compact body. The lens unit comprises of 9 elements in 7 groups, including 4 aspherical lenses with 6 spherical surfaces.

The 25mm ultra wide-angle feature is ideal for both broad landscapes and tight indoor shots like parties, restaurants or just in the home, letting photographers capture a wider view. Add to this the impressive 8x optical zoom lens and you can effortlessly zoom in and capture subjects in the distant, with dynamic perspective – ensuring you never miss that special moment. Perfect for concerts, festivals or even just when out and about, this powerful zoom also works during motion picture recording. Further, in 3-megapixel resolution mode, the Extra Optical Zoom function uses the centre part of the CCD to provide additional magnification, extending the zoom power to 15.6x.

Introducing the New POWER O.I.S
Panasonic’s Intelligent Auto mode – a hallmark of Lumix cameras – is now further advanced with the inclusion of further advanced image stabilisation system POWER O.I.S and Face Recognition*3. In iA mode, the camera does all the work, leaving you free to compose shots and capture moments. Just press, aim and shoot.

Taking advantage of Panasonic's accumulated optical technologies, MEGA O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabiliser) has been incorporated into Lumix cameras from the early stage of digital camera development. Demonstrating the absolute need for hand-shake compensation led to its prevalence throughout the industry. MEGA O.I.S. has now evolved into the new POWER O.I.S., helping prevent handshake even when using high-powered zoom. The new POWER O.I.S clearly captures subjects in the ultra-telephoto range, which previously required a tripod.

With twice the shake suppression capability of previous models, the new POWER O.I.S is particularly effective when shooting at night with a low shutter speed for example, whilst also greatly improving the quality of shots taken indoors where a flash cannot be used or where a photographer doesn’t want to use a flash because it would spoil the mood. Thanks to POWER O.I.S, beautiful photos can be taken in situations that previously
resulted in blurring.

Advanced Face Recognition for Beautiful Portrait Photography
The iA mode is even further advanced with the inclusion Face Recognition*4, a function that "remembers" faces. When a familiar face is recorded several times, the camera will prompt you to register the face. Once complete, if the familiar face appears into your frame again, the camera will display the name you specified for the person and prioritise focus and exposure so that the registered face is bright and in sharp focus. Up to six people’s faces can be registered, and up to three can be simultaneously recognized to show their names once registered. Three images of each face can be registered for every person, to dramatically raise the detection accuracy. And when the angle of view is changed horizontally, the name display also rotates for easier reading.

With AF Tracking, the ZR1 can lock onto any subject and keep it in focus even if it moves - making it easy to get beautiful, clear shots when a great photo opportunity suddenly arises. Simply aim, lock, and shoot.

In addition to the advanced functions mentioned above, the iA mode inherits fundamental functions users need in a good digital still camera. These include Intelligent ISO Control, which reduces motion blur by adjusting the ISO sensitivity if the subject moves as the shot is taken. Intelligent Exposure optimizes the exposure for each part of an image, preventing blocked shadows and blown highlights and helping ensure that gradation and details are reproduced beautifully. It now features an automatic backlight compensation function that activates whenever the camera detects the subject is in backlight. Intelligent Scene Selector automatically detects the five most common shooting situations - Portrait, Night Portrait, Scenery, Night Scenery and Macro - and switches to the appropriate Scene mode.

Outstanding Performance thanks to new Ultra High-Speed AF
Committed to ensuring seamless operation for stress-free photography, Panasonic is not one to rest on its laurels. In order to respond to the foremost desire of all photographers – to catch every possible shooting opportunity – Panasonic went back to the basis and developed an industry-leading, ultra high-speed AF that is twice as fast as its sister model the DMC-SZ3. If this wasn’t enough, Panasonic also dramatically shortened the start up time too.

To realize the ultra high-speed AF, a number of re-engineering and further improvements are made including the adaptation of higher-speed actuator, the optimization of algorithms and the parallelization of software processing element. The result is ultra high speed yet accurate AF performance for users to enjoy the airy shooting that has experienced never before. Panasonic also replaced its linear program processing with parallel processing to achieve an ultra high-speed start-up of 1.1 second.

The Quick AF system helps keep focus on the subject while the camera is in recording mode even before pressing the shutter button halfway. This improves the chances of getting the shot because the focus is always near the subject and AF time is minimized. The user can activate all of these useful, convenient shooting-assist functions by simply selecting iA mode.

The Venus Engine V
In image processing, luminance noise and chromatic noise are reduced separately before and after signal processing. This is further refined by separating noise two-dimensionally into high-frequency and low-frequency noise. The circuits then effectively reduce only the low-frequency noise to minimize the unwanted noise and help produce beautiful, sharp still and motion images.

This multi-task image-processing engine has a super-fast response time. The shutter release time lag is as short as approx. 0.007 seconds, making it easy to capture sudden, spur-of-the-moment photo opportunities. In burst shooting mode, the ZR1 can snap approx. 2.3 shots per second at 12.1-megapixel full resolution*5. In High-speed Burst shooting mode, it fires off an incredible approx. 10 shots per second*6 and the Flash Burst mode makes it possible to take consecutive shots with continuous emissions of the flash*7.

In addition to its outstanding performance, the high performance engine is also more energy efficient to extend the battery life up to 330 shots (CIPA) per a single charge.

Coming back on the Panasonic ZR1: 25-200mm zoom, 720p video and Power O.I.S.

The 4 main assets of the Panasonic Lumix ZR1

THE OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

OUR ANALYSIS :

Panasonic, the demagogy of market research scores a bull's-eye

The Lumix ZR1: brilliant pupil

What about image quality ?

Review of the Panasonic ZR1

Main features of the Lumix ZR1