3D shooting, 1080p video, powerful zooms and ruggedness, enter the new Panasonic compacts

Panasonic announced four new cameras to join the eightsome from CES. This time, it’s all about HD video, 3D photos, zoom, touchscreens, geo-tagging and even some ruggedness.

Meet the four new models – the Panasonic TZ20 (ZS10 in the US), TZ18 (ZS8 in the US), FX77 (FX78 in the US) and the FT3 (TS3 in the US)…

The TZ20 and TZ18 share most of the specs – a 14.1MP sensor and an ultra wide-angle 24mm Leica lens with 16x zoom (that’s 1mm wider than the 25mm of the previous generation compacts). The two feature a new 3” 460K dot touchscreen, which allows for the proprietary Touch Zoom, Touch Auto Focus (AF), Touch Shutter, and Touch Playback features.

Panasonic LUMIX TZ20 (ZS10)

The LUMIX TZ20 (ZS10) can record 1920×1080 50i videos (60i in the US) in AVCHD format with Dolby Digital Stereo sound. We don’t see the Lite moniker next to the AVCHD name this time. As traditional for Panasonic compacts, the 16x zoom is available during video recording.

The iA mode features face detection, Intelligent Scene Selector, tracking autofocus plus, and there’s a built-in GPS receiver for geo-tagging the images. The new camera also has the new Panasonic 3D Photo mode, which creates a 3D stereoscopic image that can viewed on a Panasonic VIERA 3D HDTV.

The LUMIX TZ20 is touted as having a new auto-focus system (Sonic Speed AF) that allows it to focus up to 49% faster than the highly popular Panasonic LUMIX TZ10 (ZS7 in the US) compact.

The new high-speed Burst mode can optionally use the electronic shutter instead of the mechanical one, capturing the whopping 60 frames per second in 3.5MP resolution.

The LUMIX TZ18 (ZS8) is a toned down version of this monster of a compact with video recording set at 720p Motion JPEG format (bummer!) and no GPS (could save some battery and weight). So despite the name, it’s actually positioned lower feature-wise than the TZ10 in Panasonic portfolio.

Panasonic LUMIX TZ18 (ZS8)

The LUMIX FX77 (FX78) offers a 24mm Leica lens with 5x zoom coupled with a 12.1MP sensor. Similarly to the ZS10, it features 1080 AVCHD video capture with the Dolby Digital Stereo sound. It can also shoot the same 3D photos as the ZS10.

The FX77 is touch driven too, thanks to its 3.5” 16:9 touchscreen. Touch focus, face detection, tracking AF, GPS geo-tagging and Intelligent Scene Selector along with other goodies are also crammed inside the FX77.

Panasonic LUMIX FX77 (FX78)

The fourth camera, the LUMIX FT3 (TS3), is a regular Chuck Norris of cameras – it can survive 2m drops, swim 12m under water, survive temperatures of -10 degrees Celsius and its dustproof to boot.

Aside from the GPS (which can name the landmark you’re shooting in over 200 countries thanks to the internal database), the FT3 packs a compass, an altimeter and a barometer. Its main task isn’t compromised even with all those features. Here are its photography credentials – 28mm Leica lens with 4.6x zoom, 12.1MP sensor and 1080 ACVHD video recording.

Stereoscopic 3D shooting is also among its capabilities.

Panasonic LUMIX FT3 (TS3)

You can grab one of these cameras in March but pricing hasn’t been announced yet. Just make sure to write down the right model number for your region.

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