Customer Reviews:
 Absolutely hate this camera September 9, 2008
3 out of 14 found this review helpful
I wanted a camera that was small enough to carry for daily use (and this is), one that had a phenomenal zoom (and this one does), has a good burst feature and is easy to use.
The lag in this camera is beyond frustrating. For once I wanted a camera that was quick enough so I wouldn't miss the shots I wanted and in this department, the Lumix is no better than any other compact I've ever owned. The burst feature has severe lag prior to taking the first shot and the lag is awful between shots. And that's in burst mode! The lag between shots while not in burst mode is positively disgraceful. And by the time you are finished changing the settings, the opportunity for the shot you wanted are long gone.
The Lumix is a complete waste of money and time. For those who want a higher functioning camera, it's best to just go out and buy one. For those who want a compact camera, go get something less expensive because the extra money for the Lumix is a complete waste. Anyone want to buy a gently used camera?
Extremely disappointed September 9, 2008
4 out of 17 found this review helpful
I bought this camera as a point-and-shoot second camera. I had seen some pictures that a friend of my Dad's had taken, and they seemed good.
I handed the camera to my nephew to take pictures of my son's Eagle Court of Honor. The camera was set to Intelligent Auto, and my nephew is pretty tech savvy.
The pictures were terrible. Many were blurred beyond usability. The color was way off. The .jpgs are filled with artifacts.
This camera may take better pictures than this under different circumstances, but the intelligent auto setting was terrible for an indoor event in a large hall.
All in all, an extreme disappointment. I wish I had handed him my Canon Digital Rebel SLR.
 Great Camera September 8, 2008
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
I am still trying to figure out the features of this camera. So far, it has been a great experience
Much better than expected, but not perfect September 8, 2008
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
I assume anyone who's reading this review already has looked at the specs, so I won't regurgitate them. I did a lot of research and went through a couple of cameras (Fuji F100fd, Cannon SD770IS) before I settled on this one, and I'll explain why I settled on this one above the other two. My main criteria were:
1. Picture quality
2. Low-light performance
3. Speed (boot up, focus speed, etc.)
I first bought the Fuji F100fd because of its low-light performance. I found that although low-light performance was good, it wasn't as good as it was hyped up to be. ISO 400+ pictures were a bit grainy -- much better than my previous Canon SD450, but not near as good as I had expected. In decent light, the picture quality was superb, the best of any point-and-shoot I've used. However, the killer was speed. The focus and time-to-shoot was too slow, and by the time it actually took the picture the moment was gone most of the times. So this wasn't working for me.
Having owned two Canon Powershots before, I knew what I was getting when I swapped to a SD770-IS. Overall it's a great camera, and takes very nice pictures, almost as nice as the F100fd. The speed is superb, as expected. However, it does very poorly in low light, and you basically have to plan on using the flash all the time. My camera also did poorly in bright light, most of the pictures in sunlight were over-saturated. (The front panel of this particular camera was popping out a little, a manufacturing defect, which may have affected the light meter on the camera). Given the issues in low and bright light and the front panel problem I decided I would try something else.
I read reviews that the TZ5 pictures were noisy, so I was a little apprehensive about picture quality when I got the camera. It's somewhat true, if you zoom 16X you'll see the pictures get a little grainy. But after having some developed into prints, you can't tell at all on the prints. This would only be a problem if you needed to blow the prints up into poster size. So aside from being able to see grainyness when you blow the picture way up, the picture quality is really good.
The TZ5 did much better than expected in low light - almost as good as the F100fd. There is more noise than the F100fd, but the overall picture tone and sharpness are still excellent.
I was very happy with the speed. Almost as good as the Canons, much better than the Fuji. So this was the keeper for me.
There a lot of other things that I was very pleased with that I didn't consider before buying the camera. I'm particularly pleased with its continuous shooting mode - you can take rapid continuous shots indefinitely at about 2 photos per second. So if you're shooting kids, it's the perfect feature to make sure you catch that one split second smile. The LCD is just beautiful, it puts my laptop lcd screen to shame. It also allows you to quickly and easily change settings while in manual mode without having to navigate down a tree of menus. And the image stabilization is excellent.
There were also some things that were so-so. It's pre-set white balance is mediocre, but using a custom white balance the pictures are excellent. The face detection is ok, it doesn't work if the face is pointed a little sideways, or the face is partially obstructed. The battery life is not bad, but not fantastic. But since I don't use the flash much I've never run out of charge.
The video is pretty good, but it has its set of flaws. Although it records in 720p resolution, the quality is not as sharp as you would expect from a 720p movie. It looks equivalent a 480i video (in sharpness) from a good camcorder, so it's about as good as a decent 480i camcorder. It records in motion jpeg (quicktime .mov container), which means the video files are much larger than they would be using mp2, mp4, or h.264, and only devices that play quicktime will be able to play it right off the camera. The microphone isn't very good, so make sure you're close to the subject matter. The zoom using video is very slow, and the focus is slow (goes in and out) for a few seconds whenever the zoom changes. All that being said, it's great to have video recording - the convenience of having it my camera resulted in me not using our sony camcorder since I got the TZ5. I end up taking more video and photos now.
The one real issue with the camera is that it doesn't take good pictures when there is a bright background. With the Canon and Fuji, I would simply use the flash to make sure I didn't end up with a silhouette. And they both did a great job illuminating the subject matter at an appropriate light level. The TZ5 does a really poor job with this. You still end up with under-illuminated subject matter. I've tried a bunch of different settings and still have the issue, which is a real shame.
But overall, I'm very pleased with the camera. It's probably the best point-and-shoot that approximates the functionality of a DSLR. So this one is a keeper for me.
Lumix DMC-TZ5A September 8, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This camera is awesome! The zoom is significantly better than you find in most cameras in this class. It is a breeze to use with a simple on screen menu, beautiful color display, and a great range of shooting senario settings. The face detection technology works great too. I bought this to do my daughter's senior pictures and they came out like a professional had done them. It is amazing that so many high quality features can be packed into this small camera. I did alot of research before purchasing it and couldn't be happier with my decision. Great camera!
|
