The FZ7 features a LEICA DC VARIO-ELMARIT Lens with a remarkable 12x optical zoom, equivalent to a 35 to 430mm lens on a 35mm film camera. A film camera with an optical zoom this powerful would be so big and heavy, you couldn't handle it with one hand. The FZ7, on the other hand, is small, lightweight and easy to handle. It also has Panasonic's Extended Optical Zoom. While causing minimal deterioration by using the center part of the high-resolution CCD, this function magnifies the image to give you total zoom power of 17.5x - roughly equivalent to a huge 1680mm lens on a 35mm camera.