From about the early Aughties until the early Twenty-Teens, digicams actually came in a variety of types as manufacturers tried to slice the market ever finer. The TZ3 came out in 2007, a year when Panasonic alone launched over a dozen different models that could loosely be termed "pocket digicams", not counting larger bridge cameras or DSLRs.
The TZ3 was one of two "travel zooms", hence the nomenclature. Panasonic's travel zooms were pocket-size cameras with long zoom lenses ("10X" in consumer-speak, "28-280mm equivalent" if you're a shutterbug) that should allow you to do it all when you were on a trip. You could take landscapes, closeups of architectural details, or bring that scenic castle across the river closer without having to "zoom with your feet".
The TZ3 differed from its stablemate, the TZ2, in having a 7MP sensor to the 6MP one on the lesser model, as well as a 3" LCD screen versus the TZ2's 2.5" screen. They both sported the same 4.6-46mm f/3.3-4.9 MEGA O.I.S. lens, with the TZ3 having a higher MSRP at $330.
Here's a wide-ish shot of the SoBrosaurus, a frequent test subject of mine...
It was heavily overcast, and even with O.I.S. or "Optical Image Stabilization", which is Panasonic's trade name for their lens-based image stabilization, the little camera had difficulty returning a sharp image at the long end of its zoom range in that light, fighting both camera shake and Panasonic's own heavy-handed noise reduction. In retrospect, I should have set maximum ISO at 400 and taken my chances.
Colors on the little 1/2.35" CCD sensor are somewhat muted under the dim lighting...
...but pop nicely when the sun comes out.
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