panasonicdmc-tz1review

Panasonic DMC-TZ1 Review

**This page will often be updated, so be sure to check back!

PLUS - Attractive design, clean layout. Conforms to hand well. Blk/Blue/Silver colors. Easy menu system. Crisp 2.5" LCD. Compact 10x zoom with IS. Fast operation! Excellent value!

MINUS - Audio recording only 8 bit, 8 Khz, Mono. Limited manual controls, esp. aperture priority. Warranty - 90 days labor. Has to boost ISO in low light to compensate for flash.

SUMMARY - While it seemed innovation in digital cameras was slowing down, Panasonic keeps driving forward. With a volume of 16 cu. inches, it is currently the second smallest ultra zoom camera (the new Kodak V610 is 0.7 inches thinner). Before that the 2005 Coolpix S4 (16.4) and 2004 Olympus C-770 (26.6) cameras held the title. Even at full zoom the lens extends out only 0.55" (14 mm). This is made possible by building most of the lens system into the length of the camera body. The camera sensor is actually located in the hand grip. I'd recommend visiting the Panasonic product website as they have good details on the design and features. Such as, quick startup (less than a second to power on), very quick focusing, above average battery life (despite a small 3.7V 1000 mAh battery), and a high sensitivity mode, mostly all improved with new Venus III engine. The battery charges up in only ~2 hours with a very small charger that has a fold down AC plug.

Very nice LCD display: 2.5" with 207K pixels. Wide horizontal viewing angle. Has a High Angle mode which works well to see the display above your head. Easy to access boost mode which helps outdoors and it does "gain" up in low-light. No reflective coating, however this did not cause a problem since the display is viewed straight on. It does have a tough scratch-resistant coating, however you may want to invest in a clear protective sheet. It should be pointed out there is no viewfinder (optical or electronic). This is a growing trend in compact and sub-compact cameras since the quality and size of LCDs have improved.

A few gripes: Given the fact it records good video, why do they have it record sound in low quality? The built-in microphone does have decent sensitivity, however you do notice a difference in sound quality compared to cameras such as the Canon S2/S3 and Olympus C-770, which record in 16 bit, 44.1 Khz, stereo. With a 2 GB card you can record ~20 minutes of high quality video. It would have been nice if Panasonic had built-in a better video codec, like MPEG4 to keep the file size down. If you're inclined, save the video to your computer and run it through an encoder such as Windows Media Encoder (free download) or QuickTime 7. You can shrink down the 20 minute video to ~150 MB without much loss in video quality. Since the camera zoom is very quiet you are allowed the ability to zoom while recording video. This is usually a limitation because the zooming noise interferes with the audio recording, so the manufacturer would disable one of those two options when shooting video. The Canon S2/S3 models are also noted for this ability. And, of course, the 848x480 (16:9) widescreen video recording looks very nice.

The lens has a focal range of 35 - 350mm. It focuses fast and zooms with a smooth, quiet operation allowing precise adjustments. The tradeoff with the design is that it does not have a wide range of aperture settings (F2.8 - F4.2 to F7.1 min), which may cause some limitations in light gathering and depth of field ability. Some other long zooms, albeit with physically larger lenses, are able to go to F3.7 at full tele. Without aperture control, it's difficult to get to the minimum setting of F7.1, unless in a very bright scene. Although when compared to other cameras in this size class, the apertures range is more than acceptable. For example, many compacts have a 3x zoom (~105 mm). Usually the maximum aperture they can get to is F5.0 or F5.6 at full zoom. The TZ-1 will be at F3.9 or F4.0 in the 105-115mm range. In regards to noise, there is minimal occurence at ISO 80/100. Even at 200 it is difficult to notice. At ISO 400 you may want to use a post-processing noise reduction program. I do feel this has improved over previous Panasonic models. The flexibility is there though to take a low light, fast moving subject shot at up to ISO 1600 with it's High Sensitivity mode. The resulting image has a sort of watercolor effect, however the image is often usable for a 4x6 print. The file size is smaller in this mode, because it "blends" out unusable pixels (a technique called pixel binning). Traditionally you simply can not capture photos in these low light, fast moving subject situations. You can open up the shutter for night shots to 1, 8, 15, 30, or even 60 seconds. The night shots I've taken have been quite impressive. The tripod mount is conveniently positioned near the bottom of the lens on the side, so it does not block access to the battery & memory card.

Of course, the camera does not mean much if it can't take good pictures. I was impressed with the overall image quality, which I'd consider very good to excellent with photos pushing towards more vibrant and colorful, albeit slightly softer.

The flash is physically small and adequate in output. Seems to have decent 4 meter coverage (not quite as good as the Oly C-770 which had a dual range pop-flash). To compensate for the somewhat limited output it will often boost the ISO to 200 (a well-lit room will keep the gain down to ~100-125). There also could be red-eye problems here (if you don't use the red-eye reducing flash mode). With Image Stabilization, you can utilize more natural light shots without resorting to the flash as often. The Party mode works well for indoor shots as it fires the flash towards the end of the exposure, resulting in more natural light along with the flash. The camera can be hand held down to 1/8 shutter speed and still take crisp pictures, which is pretty amazing! Usually 1/60 is the recommended handheld limit. And the traditional rule of thumb has been to shoot no lower than the reciprocal of the focal range. For example, at 250mm you typically should not go lower than 1/250th of a second (or the nearest shutter speed in that range). On a side note, the flash will sync at 1/30 second.

A few tweaks: I'd recommend adjusting the picture quality from "Fine" (default) to "Normal". This will compress the image down to around 1.1 MB, however I've struggled to find any loss in quality. There are three picture modes: Natural, Standard, & Vivid. Each mode progressively increases the sharpness and saturation of the image, sometimes at the expense of noise. Natural will display a smooth image with more neutral colors; Vivid will make the image sharper and colors will stand out. I was using Vivid, however it may saturate colors more than I like. I would liked to have seen separate controls for Saturation, Sharpness, and Noise - rather than blending them together in one control. There is an economy mode that will turn off the display after 15 seconds of inactivity and during flash recharge. This works well since the display instantly powers on with a touch of any button. It will also go in to a power save mode after 2 minutes (this can be changed or disabled), which basically "hibernates" the camera. To get it started back up, just press the shutter button or flip the on/off switch. Also, I'd recommend turning off the shutter and beep sounds. Finally, it's worth reading about the scene modes as they can be very useful. You can select two preset scene modes on the main dial. Find a couple that you will use most often then go in to the Setup menu (pg 4/4) and turn the "Scene Menu" to Off so it will not prompt you each time.

I'd recommend a 512 MB SD card as it is very inexpensive now. Even the supported maximum 2 GB card is around $50 (limited to 2 GB due to FAT16 file system). 2GB is probably overkill unless you need to shoot video.

With a current street price of $300, Panasonic expects to sell a lot of these. In fact, given the features and performance, it will likely take sales away from it's other models. I'd highly recommend this to both beginner and expert users. It's a camera that seems to fill all the niches.

Likes:

- Optical quality of lens system

- Quick focusing & appropriate zoom speed (speed vs. precision)

- Accurate exposures, great photos

- Effective optical image stabilization

- Great build quality, ease of use, good ergonomics

- Menu system is intuitive

- One of the best LCDs available

- Li-Ion battery (with small, quick travel charger)

- Quiet operation

- Fast start-up, minimal shutter lag

- Take anywhere camera that quickly captures the shot

Wish it had:

- Stronger, pop-up flash (w/ hot shoe?)

- Adapter for conversion lenses (e.g. 0.7x macro and 1.7 teleconverter)

- Improved sensor for better high ISO (work out a deal with Fuji?!)

- F3.7 instead of F4.2 at full zoom

- Better audio recording

- Ability to set aperture down to F7.1 for max. depth of field

Overall:

Highly Recommended

Extra tips for low light shooting:

When dealing with a low-light scene (esp. when the flash can not be used), it helps to manually increase the ISO settings (if normal auto settings are not working out). By default, it will only go up to ISO 200 when there is no flash and up to ISO 400 with the flash. I'm glad Panasonic did it this way as you are given more control over when the sensor "gains up". So if the shutter readings become too slow for the current scene, you can try bumping up to 400 or 800 in the menu to see if that gives you a faster shutter speed reading while increasing sensitivity of the sensor to capture more light. If 800 is still too dark or the subject is too blurry, then use the High Sensitivity Mode which will allow shots to be taken in dark environments while minimizing blurred subjects, at the expense of some detail. There are other methods such as shooting at wide angle instead of telephoto (if possible) to get a maximum aperture, increase EV settings, or also use the EV auto-bracketing to take 3 shots in succession w/ different exposure settings. You can also try setting the slow shutter down to 1/4 (instead of 1/8) which will allow a longer shutter, however this requires a steadier hand! Setting it to 1/4 will also enable speeds of 1/5 and 1/6 to be used. 1/4 seems to be the cutoff for me in terms of getting a stable handheld shot with a still subject (which is amazing that you can get a handheld shot at this speed!).

Recommended Accessories for TZ-1 (no affiliations):

* LowePro Rezo 50 case link (available at Best Buy, CompUSA, etc.)

* CGA-S007 Li-Ion Battery (search "CGA-S007" for 3rd party units. I'd recommend this Ebay store)

* Hidden card SD Reader link

* 512 MB through 2 GB SD Card best prices (I have a Corsair 512 MB 60x & a Corsair 2 GB 133x)

* HP Photosmart 335 Printer best prices

* Underwater housing for DMC-TZ1

* Anti-Glare or Crystal Screen protectors (FX-01 has the same LCD)

Recommended Software:

* Picasa (for organizing/editing photos)

* WinkFlash (for ordering/sharing photos)

Product Links: