Thin Lens Highlights New Panasonic Camera

Panasonic's latest ultra compact digital camera pushes the limits of zoom lenses even farther than Panasonic has in the past.

Panasonic has included a 0.3mm thin aspherical lens with its Lumix DMC-ZR1 digital camera, which gives this model an 8X optical zoom range of 25-200mm. The DMC-ZR1 offers 12.1 megapixels of resolution and a quick start-up time of 1.1 seconds.

Panasonic is offering the DMC-ZR1 in four colors: Black, blue, red, and silver. Panasonic recently began selling the Lumix DMC-ZR1 with an MSRP of about $280, although you might be able to find it for a little less.