PC Magazine has posted a review of Panasonic’s latest camera, the Lumix DMC-FZ7. It sports the same excellent Leica optics from its predecessor FZ5, together with a couple of nice upgrades such as image stabilization and joystick control.

To summarize PC Magazine and DPReview’s reviews, the FZ7 is a welcomed upgrade for FZ5 users. Value for money, small and light, great optics, fast operation, great movie mode (up to 848×480, 30fps at wide angle) and effective image stabilization are its pros. Its cons lie in bad noise at ISO sensitivities above 100 and an under-performing macro mode. It was the noise issue alone that caused the camera to miss DPReview’s Highly Recommended award by a mark.

Whenever shopping for a camera, you should always check out the photos that people has already taken with camera. Websites such as Flickr allows you to search for photos that are tagged with the camera’s model. Here are the ones for FZ7: Flickr photos tagged with ‘fz7′

Finally, it’s interesting to note that FZ7 comes in both Black (FZ7K) and Silver (FZ7S). Thumbs up to Panasonic for giving us a choice!

Get the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7 from Amazon: Black / Silver