Lee Yuan Sheng
06-18-2010, 08:30 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/Q210grouptravelzoom/' target='_blank'>http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/Q21...rouptravelzoom/</a><br /><br /></div><p><p><em>"The so-called 'Travel Zoom' category hasn't been around long - in fact the first camera that could really lay claim to the label was the Panasonic TZ1, released in 2006. The idea of a wide zoom lens in a genuinely compact form factor (as opposed to a 'bridge' or DSLR type) has obvious mass appeal, and as a result, all of the major camera manufacturers (and a couple of the minor ones too) have been pulling out all the stops in an effort to cater for this demand. As a consequence, this group test covers a lot more cameras than the last test of this type, which we published a year ago. Since then, new wide-zoom compact lines have been introduced, from the likes of Casio and Nikon, and established ones, like Panasonic's ZS/TZ series, have matured."</em></p></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1276884791.usr15670.jpg" style="border: 0;" /></p><p>Just in time for the summer holidays, DPReview.com takes 13 cameras from this relatively new but popular category and pits them against each other. The winners of this roundup are a little surprising; for once a Panasonic or Canon camera didn't win this shoot out. I'll leave readers to find out who did, but I'm pleased that one of the cameras in the group comes from a company I was <a href="http://forums.thoughtsmedia.com/f305/casio-launches-pair-superzooms-98298.html" target="_blank">talking abou</a>t just a while back. Good to see some competition among the manufacturers!</p>