Click to take a QTVR tour of the DC3000

The small and lightweight Panasonic PV-DC3000 "ipalm" is the world's first SD-compatible digital camera. It features a 2x optical (32-64mm 35mm equivalent) / 3x digital zoom lens and a 3.3 million pixel CCD imager that produces 2,048 x 1,536 still images in JPEG (super fine, fine or normal compresion) or uncompressed TIFF mode. Advanced recording features include 5-second audio "notes" to go along with your pictures, Time-Lapse recording from once a minute to once every 24 hours. and up to 12 seconds of QuickTime format video with sound.

The iPalm was made to be extremely user-friendly and has a button on the back to let you quickly download all camera images to the computer via the USB cable. Simply push the button and it automatically launches the PC software and receives the images and puts them into an album for you. There is also another button for Easy "e"Mail attachments.

The built-in SD card slot lets you record high-quality digital images onto an SD memory card (optional) or a MultiMediaCard (included). SD memory cards combine high storage capacity, rapid data transfer, and flexibility -- all in a card no larger than a postage stamp.

On the back is a 1.5-inch TFT color LCD. It can serve as the viewfinder, picture review, menu and data display.  The backlight is adjustable via the setup menu. The optical viewfinder saves battery power but only shows ~87% of the area captured.

The 4-way jog switch in the upper right controls the zoom lens, the playback volume of the speaker and is used to navigate the menus and select pictures in Play mode.

The MENU button brings up the onscreen menu, see the next page for the available record and play mode menus.

Recording mode is selected by pressing the MODE button, choices are:

• Super Fine 2048 x 1536 (~950KB)
• Fine 2048 x 1536 (~450KB)
• Normal 1024 x 768 (~175KB)
• Zoom 2X 1024 x 768 (~175KB)
• Zoom 3X 640 x 480 (~65KB)
• Movie Mode w/sound 320 x 240 (12 sec clips ~1.5MB)
• Burst Mode 1024 x 768
• TIFF 2048 x 1536 (9MB)

There are 3 buttons on the back (All, Page and Mail) that are used to quickly send images from the camera to the computer via the USB cable when in Play mode. These buttons do double duty and also function as the Mode, Flash and Audio control when in record mode.

The DISPLAY button controls the color LCD (on/off) and also toggles the mode options in Play mode. The DELETE button lets you quickly erase pictures while in Play mode.

The PV-DC3000 ipalm digital camera is equipped with 2x optical 6.5-13mm (32-64mm 35mm equivalent) zoom lens with a 2x and 3x digital zoom (in VGA mode) feature.

I/O ports include a dual-purpose USB and A / V port and DC INput for optional AC adapter. The A / V cable carries both video and audio to your television set for playback.

On the bottom is the card slot for the MultiMediaCard or Secure Digital flash memory card. Panasonic includes a 16MB MMC card.

Transfer digital images directly to your PC with the touch of a single button. Simply connect the ipalm to your PC with the USB cable, and press the "ALL" button on the back of the camera. Your images will automatically be transferred to your computer.

Powered by four AA size batteries, high-capacity NiMH type highly recommended.

For size comparison here is the Nikon Coolpix 950 and the Panasonic iPalm.