Is the z30 camera the same as the Q10?

I was wondering whether the same camera is present in both the z30 and the q10. The reason that I ask is because I was recently on vacation with some friends and one of them has a q10. Both of us were taking pictures of the same thing with the same settings, but the resulting picture was significantly different. We were taking a picture at night, on a pier. Across the water was a ferris wheel that had changing light patters on it (so it looked really nice in the night).

On the exact same settings, the q10 took much better pictures of the ferris wheel. Even changing the various settings, I was not able to capture a good shot of the image. On the q10, my friend was able to capture the design pattern on the ferris wheel. however, on the z30, my pictures were a bit blurred out. You could see lights on the ferris wheel, but the pattern was lost. Also looked like the colours of the lights were all the same (when in fact, it was multi-coloured). I will try and get a copy of the pictures and show it side by side. But I don't understand why I wasn't able to capture as good a picture.

Any ideas why there would be this much difference?

Yes, it's the exact same camera. I have both the Z30 and Q10, and I can get some really nice shots from both. I have taken my Q10 with me on vacation and got great pics, and I even took a few pics of my kids with my Z30 and some people thought they were done professionally. I think it's just about getting the right focus at the right time.

Hmm ... I just don't get it. So we both stood in the same spot and used the exact same settings, but I wasn't able to get the same pic. So the time was the exact same and the location, but perhaps it was the focus. I don't think my friend adjusted her focus. I tried not focusing and then adjusting the focus, but just could not get it to work. Without adjusting the focus, I noticed that I was getting a really bad reflection off of the water. I would have to focus on the water to get more clarity of the ferris wheel, but then I lost the colour. I will try and get the pics up this weekend and all of you professional photographers can chime in. :) I do realize that there is some element of user error, but think there has to be more to it.

I noticed sometimes on mine, it will auto focus but it still doesn't look in focus to me on the screen, so I will touch the screen and move the focus square and release and then take the picture. Maybe that would help too.