Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5A 9.1MP Digital Camera with 10x Wide Angle MEGA Optical Image Stabilized...

Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5A 9.1MP Digital Camera with 10x Wide Angle MEGA Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Blue) | Great Camera

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	Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5A 9.1MP Digital Camera with 10x Wide Angle MEGA Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Blue) Panasonic Panasonic, 2008 average customer review:based on 326 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Looking for a compact Ultra-Zoom camera? Buy this one!

We got this for Christmas to replace, or I guess supplement our Nikon D70S D-SLR, which is a great camera, but too bulky, cumbersome, and has too many bells and whistles for just casual photography. We were looking for a different camera that was easier to use, a lot smaller, but still had good image quality and long-telephoto capabilities without having to lug around a 2-lb 70-300mm SLR zoom lens. We settled on the Panasonic DMC-TZ5. I looked at the Canon Power Shot SX110IS (a great camera by the way) after narrowing it down, and the Panasonic won out, mostly due to it's smaller size, and the price was right. Retailers offer this camera at anywhere from $299-329. Costco sold it in a blister back for $239.

This is a great camera. The body is constructed of aluminum and sturdy plastic, so it should last a long time and hold up to mild bumps and bruises. It's not that compact, unlike some of the Olympus, Casio, Sony, Canon, and Kodak cameras out there, but then again, they don't offer a 10X zoom capability. It's small enough to fit into a purse, or a coat pocket, but don't plan on putting it into your pants pocket.

It's loaded with useful and easy-to-use features. With 10 megapixels, it's an upgrade from the TZ3 and 4 models, which had 7 and 8 megapixel CCD's. it also has an improved software package, which is designed to address a glaring problem found in the other DMC models. It will also shoot 720i high definition video (1280x720 DPI) at 30 frames per second.

Although this is what I consider to be an easy-to-use point-and-shoot camera with a lot of automatic functions, it's still got some level of manual control. On the outside, it doesn't get any simpler than this. Looking at the top of the camera, there's a function dial with only 6 positions, an on-off switch, "e-zoom" button, shutter release, and zoom rocker. On back is the 3" TFT LCD screen, a switch that changes from camera mode to photo playback, multifunction D-pad, a display and quick menu buttons.

What sold me on it was the lens. It's unusual for digital camera of this nature to have a premuim lens set. It's a 10X optical zoom wide-angle Leica DC Vario-Elmar lens, which is a step above the branded-lenses that come with most cameras. It offers 4.7-47mm (28-280mm 35-mm equivalent with an effective focal-length of F3.3-4.9) with optical image stabilization. Only Sony and Kodak include these (Some of Sony's better camera include Carl Zeiss lenses, and Kodak uses Schneider-Kreuznach lenses). These are high-end lens sets, and they make the most of the small CCD's found in compact cameras. This lens is so good, that the camera's imaging software struggles to keep up with the optics. It wouldn't be unfair to say that the camera can't make the most of the optical quality of the lens!

With the function dial in the "IA" setting, just point and shoot for very good pictures. There's some manual control in this mode, but to make the most of the camera's capabilities, it needs to be in the normal picture mode. ISO, white balance, exposure compensation, shutter speed, and flash are all adjustible, which is good, because although Panasonic has addressed the problems of the TZ4, they are still present in the TZ5. The problem is lots of noise at high ISO (above 400), and lots of sharpening and noise compensation to boot. I don't recommend using this camera at any ISO above 400 unless you're shooting in bright sunlight or under good indoor lighting. 200-400 ISO works just fine, and leaving the ISO in automatic mode helps a lot. White balance is also adjustible, but again, leaving it in automatic works fine.

At high zoom, there's the usual non-SLR ghosting and barrel distortion, but it's not as bad as in other mega-zoom cameras in my opinion. The optical image stabilization works great and is absolutely necessary for high-zoom. The LCD is broght and the resolution is excellent at 460,800 DPI.

Overall, despite the persistant noise problems, this is an excellent camera, and takes great pictures for such a small CCD. It's not a D-SLR or SLR replacement, but a good stand-by when lugging around a SLR isn't possible ror practical.

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Great Camera

This camera is great, I have no complains at the time, the quality of the pictures is awesome and the zoom I think is the best one avaliable in this type of cameras, very compact and the IA mode does the work for you.
If you are looking for something small, compact and of great quality I think this is the best choice and for a fair price.

Indoors Use the Incandescent Setting to avoid yellow tinge

Great zoom, iA mode best for outdoor pics-and it does figure out Macro mode well automatically. For indoors though with incandescent light blubs its best to use the semi-manual mode with the white balance set to the light bulb icon for incandescent lighting. Then pictures are reliably the right color. In iA mode indoor-hit or miss, many pictures have a yellow/orange tinge.
Cool feature is that you can then preload SCN1 and SCN2 with the customizations you like for say action and twilight.
The red-eye reduction flash (both modes) requires the subject to stay still till all the flashes go.
For taking pictures of cats definitely use the Slow Red-Eye reduction mode.
10X zoom is hard to hold still-but 3X in all the other point and shoots in this range is not enough-7x is just right-not too shaky and its the zoom you often need.
Does true 4:3. 3:2 (4x6 photo) and true 16:9 for that full widescreen look-and and video too.

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