As can be seen from the photo right the Z3 sports quite an unusual shape which divides the camera into two distinct sections. On the right is the battery compartment which doubles as a secure grip and is also home to the shutter release, exposure/mode dial, flash and macro buttons. The main body houses the 12x lens as well as the adequate 1.5 inch LCD display, viewfinder and controls.
Underneath the LCD is the on/off pushbutton switch which is combined with a 3-position selector to switch between viewfinder, LCD and picture display modes. To the right of the LCD is the now-common 4-position cursor control with central 'enter' key. Below that are the menu, quickview and info buttons. Above the LCD, the viewfinder has a small diopter adjustment to correct for any problem with the user's eyesight.
The camera takes 4 x AA batteries (supplied) though rechargeables are to be recommended. To
me, one of the negative aspects of some of the alternative cameras I had been investigating was
their use of built-in rechargeable cells - if your battery runs flat then you do not have the
option of temporarily using ordinary batteries. As recharging a battery can take several hours
it means that your camera is useless for that period unless you purchase a second battery and
always make sure you have one fully charged. No, I think I'll stick to AA-compatible devices -
it's a lot simpler!
The menu system is quite simple to operate but sometimes the user has to search for unfamiliar set-up options as there are four different pages each of which holds five sub-settings. Many of the commonly used settings can be selected from the exposure/mode dial though any not handled by this are likely to be found from the main menu, This is just a single page and gives access to the drive mode (single, self-timer, continuous, progressive and bracketing), image size (640x480, 1280x960, 1600x1200 and 2272x1704), image quality (fine, standard, economy), Auto DSP setting and Digital Zoom setting. The exposure/mode dial handles movie mode and various exposure modes including ones designed to handle ordinary portraits, night portraits, shots into the sunset, landscapes and sporting events, the latter using fast shutter speeds in order to reduce blurring on fast-paced shots.
To enable the flash, the 'lid' behind the viewfinder must be raised and, I must admit, it is easy to forget to do this despite the indicator on the LCD showing that flash is unavailable when the lid is down. Once enabled, there are five flash modes: autoflash, autoflash with red-eye reduction, fill flash, fill flash with red-eye reduction and slow sync with red-eye reduction - actually, there is a sixth mode, which is to disable the flash!
Macro mode is simply enabled by pressing the macro button once. Pressing it a second time goes into super macro mode which enables the camera to focus as close as 1cm from the lens.
One interesting point is the colour of the case - most American reviews show a completely black case but the one I received is a black and silver affair - on reflection, I think I'd have preferred the all-black style.
