Panasonic TZ1 | sample images
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7 and
8
 |
|
 |
|
|
Details at a glance
Megapixels: 6
Optical Zoom: 3x
Digital Zoom: 4x
LCD: 3 inches
Storage: SD/MMC
We clicked with
10x Leica lens, Sturdiness of camera body, Image Stabilisation
Shots in the dark
Quality of sensor, Noise, Placement of tripod connection
Links
More Panasonic information
www.panasonic.co.uk
Price Comparison:
Panasonic Lumix TZ1
|
 |
|
The TZ1 is a hard camera to pigeon-hole into one category. It's a high zoom camera like a bridge camera but doesn't have the large and chunky body like others in that family. At the same time you can hardly call the TZ1 a compact, being a bit too wide and long. Even Panasonic seem a bit unsure about what to class the camera, putting it in a new one of its own - “Travel Zoom”. But whatever you call it, the TZ1 is the smallest 10x zoom still camera available.
Features
As if having a 10x optical zoom lens (courtesy of Leica) isn't enough, this can be bumped up to 12.5x without any noticeable deterioration in quality and with the 4x digital zoom it can go up to 50x. The 12.5x extension is known as Extra Zoom and works by reducing the megapixels used when you take a photo, the maximum being 5MP in 4:3 mode. The camera can shoot in three ratios, 4:3, 3:2 and 16:9, which are usual for a bridge but aren't commonly seen in compacts. This gives you the ability to shoot in film format or widescreen, but because of the shape of the sensor not all the pixels will be used - 16:9 shooting in 3.5 megapixels without EZ.
Image Stabilisation is an area that Panasonic has always made one of their top concerns, and the lens features its latest technology. While most cameras at this level put their image stabilisation on the sensor, Panasonic has put it on the lens. The Optical Image Stabiliser system records any movement and shifts the lens component closest to the sensor to make up for it, so that images stay clear. There are two forms of this, Type 1 being constant and Type II turning on when the shutter is pressed. Both work as well as each other but Type I helps with picture composition while being more battery-draining. A very nice touch is the on-camera demonstration which shows how it works, which is handy for new users even though it is a bit over the top in showing how much camera shake there is.
Handling
As I've already suggested, the size of the camera sits uncomfortably between the bridge and compact, being too long and wide to be put in a pocket. This is all because of the 10x lens but Panasonic haven't made it SLR sized like other Bridge cameras because the lens works on a folded-lens system instead of all the lens elements being in a line like usual. The other advantage of this is that the lens doesn't extend out very far from the body when it is in use.
The comparatively large body to other compacts does the TZ1 a lot of favours. The large handgrip on the front is suitable for any size of hand and gives you a real feeling that the camera is safe when holding it horizontally or upwards. The large button-free area on the back and the slight thumb grip backs up this feeling a lot, and the all-metal body and just-right weight shows the camera's toughness.
The button layout is well-thought out with everything accessible with the right-hand. The zoom slider is set around the shutter-button so you can use both with the same finger and the 4-way, display and delete buttons are low enough on the back so you don't accidentally brush them when shooting.
Image quality
As already mentioned, the TZ1 has the Venus Engine III as its image processor. Colours are quite vibrant, although the yellows can look a bit garish - you can change the saturation easily in-camera to fix this. Noise is higher than we would expect - even at ISO 80 there is visible noise in the shadows and once you get over ISO 200 you can really forget about printing large pictures. The Venus engine's “High Sensitivity” mode helps a little but this is prone to produce smearing where the noise used to be - it would be much better if the sensor produced less noise for it to deal with. Metering works quite well on the whole, even on tricky scenes, but backlighting can trick it into over-exposure making the pictures appear misty.
Being a Leica lens, the quality of the lens is quite high - photos taken with the TZ1 can come out very sharp (see the cobweb on photo 2 above). It suffers a little from fringing, not so bad that it is unusable but very high contrast subjects can give a noticeable purple halo. Backlit photos can be affected by “misty” areas because of flare, unfortunately the camera doesn't come with a lens hood to cut down on this. Overall it looks like the lens outclasses the sensor which is a
shame - with a quality sensor these could be excellent pictures.
Shooting
The TZ1 isn't the fastest camera out there, but it still has a quick turn-on speed because of the short distance the lens has to extend. Shot to shot time is only a few seconds even at the highest resolution and there is a burst mode that can take photos every 1.5 seconds based on the focus you set at the start of the burst. Unlimited photos can be taken with this mode although this and the shot-shot time is based on the capacity and speed of your memory card.
The camera has an amazing amount of different modes and scenes. As you'd expect the camera has Program, Macro and Movie modes, but it also has a Simple Mode which has a cut-down feature set so that you can concentrate more on the act of framing the shot than setting exposure or white balance. All these modes are selectable from a select wheel and are quite obvious, except for the simple mode which has the logo of a heart (slightly ironic since love is never simple…).
There are 19 different scenes available, which cover most types of photo but there are a lot of crossover, there doesn't seem to be any need to have separate “Candle-light”, “Fireworks” and “Starry sky” scenes or two “Baby” scenes. A very vague explanation of each scene is available on camera and if you are intending to use them I'd suggest you read the manual first. On the mode dial there are two extra modes available “Scn1” and “Scn2” and these store the last used scene for easy selection, although the scenes aren't remembered when you turn off the camera.
What's not to like
The camera's body is made of either tough-plastic or metal and gives the impression that build quality is good, everywhere except the battery/memory card cover which is spring-hinged and flies open so fast that it seems like it'll break pretty quickly. This would be passable if it wasn't for the latch which is very easy to knock open by accident, thankfully both the memory card and battery are held in.
The placement of the tripod connection is a bit odd. Instead of being in the middle of the bottom of the camera, it is right off to the left edge. On larger tripods this would not be that much of an issue (although it would look a bit strange) but on smaller tripods then the weight of the camera would make it unusable.
Another niggle concerns the lens cap, which is a good accessory and comes in the box. The camera will warn you if the lens cap is left on, which can spare you some blushes, but sometimes the camera will get confused if you quickly go to the Wide end of the zoom and will think you have the lens on - requiring you to reset the camera.
Camera specification
| Mega-pixels: | 5 |
Photo: | JPEG |
| Optical Z: | 10x |
RAW: | No |
| Digital Z: | 4x |
Aperture: | f/2.8-4.2 |
| LCD: | 2.5 inch |
Focal L: | equiv. 35-350mm |
| Dimensions: | 112 x 58.1 x 40.2 |
Shutter: | 15 sec to 1/1500 |
| Weight: | 262g |
Exposure: | ISO 80 to 1600 |
| Storage: | SD/MMC |
Movie: | 640x480@30fps |
| Internal: | |
Battery: | Li-ion |
| Interface: | USB 2.0, AV |
PictBridge: | Yes |
