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
- The solution to my dilemma
- My dilemma: I need a camera that I can pocket, or I don't HAVE a camera. But my father is a photographer; if I bring home a less than excellent camera I will hear of it.
Indefinitely.
This is the first camera I've found to be both Excellent and pocketable.
Admittedly Dad isn't going to drop his Minolta, but he bought a TZ5 for my mother.
The TZ5 inspires envy with it's huge screen, effective zoom and compact size. Depth of field is displayed whenever the zoom is activated.
Two drawbacks: 1 No viewfinder. Only an issue in bright light. 2 A perceptible pause between hitting the shutter and taking the picture. The first is, alas, a price paid for a compact. The second, a real flaw, seems to be the nature of almost all digital cameras.
I bought this camera the week it came out. Be advised the are occasional firmware updates. You will need a SD or SDHC card to do them. They are available at http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/dsc/download/TZ4_5/index.html
On 28 October 2008 AD the firmware was version 1.2 They have versions for bith Macintosh and Windows.
Not only would I recommend it, I have.
DAB - 2008-10-28, 4 of 4 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Tecnología de Excelente Calidad
- Es bueno contar con cámaras de alta tecnología y poder tomar tus fotos con una Lumix TZ5 y verlas en tu álbum bien claras y nitidas y poder tambien seleccionar el tipo de foto desde el menú de la cámara.Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5A 9MP Digital Camera with 10x Wide Angle MEGA Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Blue)
- 2008-10-28, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Lots of small annoyances and a snotty technical support
- We received this camera as a gift, and it seemed a wonderful replacement to our poor, broken Photosmart camera. Unfortunately, the problems with this camera aren't immeadiately apparent. The problems are deep seated form-factor and software issues that become constant annoyances farther down the road.
Problems:
1) Buttons are awkwardly located, making it easy to accidentally press the wrong button.
2) Power options for extending battery life are non-existent - the camera simply runs until it dies (without much advance notice).
3) On-camera menus are not intuitive.
4) Movies are in the quicktime format - nothing plays quicktime except intrusive Apple software.
5) Pictures are NOT auto-rotated in windows. You have to use panasonic's "special" software, or otherwise rotate all pictures by hand.
6) Tech support is snotty and unhelpful.
The first problem we noticed with the camera was the awkward positioning of buttons and dials. Both of us are always pressing the wrong button by accident when trying to take a picture. With the menu and navigation buttons right next to where you place your thumb, it is easy to accidentally enable some random feature that we wouldn't otherwise ever use. For me, this problem is especially apparent when taking vertical pictures.
The second problem is the lack of power save options. When travelling, a power plug is not always available, so it is convenient to turn off power hungry features such as the display when you don't need them. Although the battery does last a long time, and the power problem could be rectified by plugging the camera in every night, it is easy to forget. With our previous camera, we could disable the screen when we had forgotten to plug in the camera so we could still take pictures all day on low power. This camera, however, doesn't have that option. Furthermore, it doesn't alert somebody to its lack of power until it has maybe 10 minutes remaining... and then off it goes (at noon on the most picturesque day of the trip).
The third problem is a minor annoyance. We are always struggling to find the right options in the menu. Maybe the features are there, or maybe they aren't... but the menus are crazy.
The fourth problem has to do with Panasonic's use of the Quicktime movie format. We really wanted a new camera so that we could take movies of our 1-year daughter. Unfortunately, all of the cute movies we've recorded are only viewable in Apple's Quicktime. They aren't convertable to any other viewer either. I don't know about other people's experience with Quicktime, but it either crashes my computer outright or hogs processing and network time, preventing other software from running. The result is that we can't watch all of these cute movies we've recorded.
The fifth problem is the auto-rotate feature. The camera has an auto-rotate, right? It is advertised as having one.... too bad they don't use it to rotate the pictures. Instead, they set some software bit in each image that is only readable by the panasonic software. If I want to show pictures to a friend, I have to either rotate everything by hand in windows beforehand, or try to navigate panasonic's clunky, poorly designed software.
Finally, the last problem is with the panasonic tech support. I've contacted them three times, and only received an answer once. And that one time (in reference to the Quicktime problems), they simply told me tough... rather than trying to help me work around the issue, or giving me any contact info from apple or...
The DMC-TZ5 camera "seems" ok at first glance, but the design and software issues associated with with the camera make the experience overwhelmingly negative in the long run. We will most likely be buying a new camera. - 2008-10-27, 2 of 16 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- A Great Point and Shoot Camera for Starters
- I've decided to purchase this camera over the Canon SD790IS and SD990. I have to say that so far so good. Although the pictures are not at par with Canon's quality, Lumix makes it up with a good design, multiple features and equipped with the Leica lens. The 10X zoom is a big plus considering that I usually like to zoom in on the subjects. I highly recommend this camera.
- 2008-10-27, 1 of 1 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- don't waste your time or money on this camera
- I have had this camera replaced 2x, both times because the lens cover stops retracting or only partially opens. The fact that the seller is willing to replace the camera is not offset by the fact that on two vacations I have suddenly been unable to take pictures. I strongly recommend looking at alternative options - I am!
- 2008-10-27, 3 of 9 people found this review helpful, Rated:
