Digital Home Thoughts: Panasonic Updates Line of Point and Shoot Cameras

"Panasonic's just announced quite a handful of Lumix compact cameras, featuring both the new Venus Engine VI and Venus Engine HD II that claim to perform quicker with better noise reduction. What's more exciting is that these are all compatible with the forthcoming SDXC cards too..."

As someone who already owns as DMC-ZS3 and a DMC-TS1 (just purchased a month ago), looking at these cameras I don't see much that makes me want to rush out and buy the newer versions - which is just fine with me. Highlights? The DMC-ZS5 and DMC-ZS7, an upgrade to the ZS3 (what, is four an unlucky number?), bring GPS and a bigger and more high-resolution screen to the table - but only for the ZS7. The ZS5 seems very much like the ZS3. The TS2 - the waterproof/shockproof model - brings a bump in resolution to 14.1 megapixels...and that's about it from what I can tell.

All in all, not very impressive - I was hoping we'd see bigger sensors with more focus on image quality. The GPS on the ZS7 is pretty cool, though I think 98% of my photos are taken indoors...