Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5S 9MP Digital Camera with 10x Wide Angle MEGA Optical Image Stabilized Zoom
 | Average Customer Rating: Recommend Now you can fit sweeping landscapes into a single frame with the 28mm wide-angle setting. Pull in subjects from far away to capture even subtle facial expressions with the dynamic 280mm telephoto setting. Ideal for traveling, the DMC-TZ5 Lumix 9.1-megapixel digital camera combines a wide-ranging LEICA DC Vario-Elmar lens with a handy, compact body. The Extra Optical Zoom function also extends the zoom to as much as 16.9x, giving… Product details and pricing info |
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290 Customer Reviews Posted
- Nice but slow
- I am not a photographer. I was looking for a very reliable point and shoot that was compact(could fit in my pants pocket) and had more than 3x zoom. I spent a month researching the internet sites from CNET to Amazon to Bob's camera and visiting Best Buy. I have an old Minolta DiMage 4x, 4MP. Its bulk precludes taking it with me unnoticeably(geek factor), so I miss out on taking shots. I liked the Sony 150 priced at $249.00(forgot name), and would have kept it if it had more zoom. It was fast, compact and took great pictures. Then, I looked at the compact 7X by Olympus. Nice little camera, but when it came to handling, the Lumix was definitely more convenient. You can hold the Lumix in your right hand and shoot simultaneously, so I bought the Lumix for about $50.00 more than the Sony 150. It has a large LCD screen which is a must without a viewfinder (the viewfinder adds to the bulk of the camera and with a nice sized LCD it is essentially obsolete). The Lumix has lots of options. It takes great pictures, even at night with variable iso settings. I got some great shots of a fair at night with all the neon lites glowing. It has a burst feature which has been present on digital cameras for years. However, when not using the burst mode, Lumix is slow going from picture to picture in a rapid fashion. Other downside - no proprietary camera case to protect the LCD screen(film protectors come off) and beautiful zoom lens. Nonetheless, I bought it and like it and recommend it over the Olympus 7x for handling and the Sony 150 for zooming. You get what you pay for - just don't spend good money after bad. I don't think I did.
- 2008-07-25, 0 of 1 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Panasonic Lumix Digital Camera
- Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5A 9MP Digital Camera with 10x Wide Angle MEGA Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Blue)
This camera is everything I expected and hoped it would be. I'm very satisfied with this product. - 2008-07-24, 3 of 3 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- LUMIX
- You really need to know the settings and use them for different shots, or else the pictures tend to really wash out in certain areas. Also, I'm having a hard time with not having the pictures look grainy. I had a Canon before this, and I wish I stuck with that brand. What's great about the Lumix though is that it has burst mode and a great zoom. It responds very fast as well. I just wish that I could get a little bit more of a crisp look to my pictures.
- 2008-07-24, 3 of 6 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- A joy to use!
- Compact camera with a good sized LED viewer. Lots of bells & whistles but I haven't had it long enough to learn to use all of them. For the simple task of taking a quick photo, it's a breeze to use. We have also used it to take short video clips and are highly impressed with the quality. I think I'm going to love this thing.
- 2008-07-24, 2 of 2 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Great point & shoot camera, best for the money
- 4.5 stars. After about a thousand shots I have found that this camera has really held up to my expectations. It takes great photos, it's easy to convince the camera what you want it to do, and focusing is a breeze compared to most P&S cameras I've owned and tried lately. And the screen on the back is nothing short of utterly beautiful--high resolution and large size make for easy picture taking and reviewing.
Performance:
I get good sharp photos on at least 80% of attempts (and I rarely use flash so that's quite something considering some of the conditions I shoot in). I typically use the Auto mode (dial selection with the red camera icon) and move the camera around to lock the exposure with a half-press of the shutter button. For nine out of ten tourist shots this works great, and it is pretty good in macro mode as well. It's sometimes difficult to convince it to use a faster shutter speed without using one of the other (virtually indecipherable) scene modes. I really wish I could specify a minimum shutter speed so I could guarantee an un-blurred shot.
As for the special scene modes, unless you need something in there that you can't set yourself, I suggest ignoring these unless you want to memorize a ridiculous array of special conditions for each mode. The complexity of what it enables and disables in each mode is ludicrous, there are even modes that limit the image size selection for no apparent reason. For example, in Intellegent Auto mode you can use any size except 7 MP... Whatever.
User Interface:
The user interface on this camera is second to none, extremely convenient access to most settings, and very easy to use. This one has even figured out how to put the red-eye flash settings in the same place as the other flash settings (why everybody doesn't do that I can't imagine). I NEVER find myself fumbling around trying to find a setting, almost everything I need regularly is a one-button toggle, or an easy quick-menu accessible with a single button press. One downside is that the mode dial selector is easy to accidentally move while pocketing the camera so if you're not paying attention you may likely shoot some pics in an unintended mode (this is perhaps the most significant problem I've had with this camera). One really nice thing about this camera is that the power switch is an actual switch and no other buttons or actions will turn on any function of the camera. This means it doesn't turn on accidentally in your pocket and waste batteries or extend the lens unnecessarily (a flaw that has Canon owners ruining lens motors at an alarming rate).
Optics:
While I was wishing they'd focused their efforts on a wider aperture lens (for more light gathering capability) rather than the super wide and super zoom features, I must say the optical range of this camera is incredible. I took a four day trip to NYC and I was never left wanting for wider angle shots or more telephoto. I took everything from cityscapes and zoomed pics of building tops to self portraits and wide macro close-ups, there was so much flexibility--more than any lens I've ever owned (SLR included). The macro works great too, and can focus on subjects amazingly close, you can get a full-frame picture of a quarter from a half inch away. I snapped a shot of a flower's innards and didn't even realize until I got home that I'd also captured a caterpillar buried deep within the folds of the flower's petals. Incredible. One downside to the super-wide aspect though, you'll notice a significant distortion around the edges where the fisheye effect is quite apparent, especially in city-scapes with parallel buildings that appear to tilt toward each other. I was able to correct this somewhat by not zooming to the fully-wide setting.
Battery:
Battery life seems to be quite good. On first charge I shot over 300 pics and the battery indicator still read full. I was afraid that it would suddenly decline leaving me with little warning, but 300 pics is pretty good anyway. Now, after a four-day vacation snapping upwards of 250 photos a day, the longest day concluded with one of three battery bars depleted, two bars remaining. If that's a reasonable estimation of remaining power then I am suitably impressed. For reference, I use stabilizer mode 2 (on all the time), continuous focus mode OFF, and flash on maybe 5% of my pictures. I also turn it off between shots if it's going to be a minute or more.
One note for new buyers: The battery does not come pre-charged, so be prepared to spend two hours reading the manual while your battery charges before you can use the camera. Sorry folks, you can't bring it home from the store and start using it right away--but it does charge quickly.
The best thing about the battery though is the tiny little travel charger that comes with it--no clumsy cords, just a very compact block (smaller than a deck of cards and just a tad thicker) with flip-out prongs that plugs into the wall with the battery snapped in. It easily fits unnoticed in my travel kit.
*** A few significant details you may not see elsewhere: ***
1. Since image quality drops off quickly at ISO settings over 200 I was glad to find that it had a way to specify a max ISO in the auto ISO mode, but unfortunately the lowest option is 400, which it chooses for nearly all indoor shots. Also, some modes ignore this setting so even though you may think you'll always be under 400, you won't in certain scene modes. For example, many of the shots I took in 'sport' scene mode from a moving boat were shot at 800 despite having set the max to 400. This ISO limit appears to only apply to automatic mode (the dial setting with the red camera icon). Further hindering ISO control is the fact that it does not tell you what ISO your picture will be taken at, even after exposure lock with a half-press, even with maximum display info selected. It will show you the chosen aperture and shutter speed, but it doesn't reveal ISO until after the picture is taken.
2. I can not understand why they do this in the first place, and it's even more frustrating to not be able to turn it off or choose some options in this 'feature': This camera subdivides your photos into separate folders of pictures and as far as I can tell there's no way around it. If you don't ever mess around with the files on the card, it will take 999 pictures per folder. This is not a huge deal if your average outing/vacation is less than 999 pictures, but with today's unlimited file name length I would really rather keep sequentially counting file numbers limitlessly, and not use folders to break them up. I can not imagine why they think everyone would want this (or anyone for that matter). I could almost understand if they separated them by date or some other criterion. With other cameras I have always just had them all in the same folder, that way I don't have to go switching around looking for the photos, they're all in the same place.
3. Amazon's price on this camera fluctuates on a daily basis, both up and down. Since I started looking last week the price started at $270, went up to $296, and is now back to $284. I have no idea why, but if today's price is closer to $300 you might consider waiting a day or two to see if it gets better.
Those are the main points I wanted to share at the moment. I may be back with more info after a few thousand shots.
A brief background on my purchase... I initially started this quest to find the most compact camera with the most SLR-style features I could get. The natural choice for that pursuit is the Canon G9 which was the front runner until I played with this TZ5. It handled simple point & shoot operations so much better than the canon while inside the store that I was swayed to consider this Panasonic more seriously. The downside is that it offers virtually no SLR-like features. My first priority was to get a portable, pocketable camera, which both of these models fit, but the panasonic moreso. I wanted good point-and-shoot performance with the option to get more creative when I want. Since embracing the digital revolution eight years ago I haven't even touched my film SLR again, not once. But I miss the manual control so much. In the end this Panasonic P&S won me over, I think the Canon is not quite there yet to be what I want for manual control. It's a little clumsier in terms of user interface, and it's gone after way too many megapixels at the cost of low light capability.
In short, this Panasonic is a great camera, I would buy it again in a second. - 2008-07-24, 8 of 8 people found this review helpful, Rated:
