Digital Home Thoughts: Digital Photography Review Rounds Up 13 Travel Zoom Cameras

"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."

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 talking about just a while back. Good to see some competition among the manufacturers!