Panasonic Lumix TZ1: A Mini-Review
Okay, I started this post on Friday. Wound up working on my web site this weekend instead; long story, but at least that ball a moved a little — more in a few days.
My mother’s been wanted a new camera for a few months now; her old Sony, a tiny 3.2 megapixel point-and-shoot, was advanced at its time but is clearly outclassed today — and she wanted to take advantage of new innovations (image stabilization, especially) and a larger screen. Budget? Under $400, preferably less.
We’ve been looking for a while, but it seemed that most of the cameras with things she wanted — large zooms, especially — were too big. Then I heard about Lumix’s TZ1:
Took a while to get one; I wanted to see some reviews, and actually touch one before I went and actually recommended she buy it — but once I had, recommend I did.
One word: Wow. Only one major problem, too. In summary, a great little camera. Detail and some sample pictures after the jump.
The Lumix has it where it counts — image stabilization (O.I.S., in Panasonic terms), a whopping 10X zoom, and a 2.5” LCD in a astonishingly small package. And all for less than $400 with a 512MB high-speed card and shipping. Amazing.
It’s 5 megapixel, which isn’t huge — but is smart. Panasonic realized that more isn’t necessarily better, and this camera’s low-light performance, as I’ll cover in a second, is only “okay” (O.I.S. greatness aside). More megapixels would degrade that performance further, and for users of this camera, prints larger than 8×10 are likely to be rare anyway. (I’d name “greeting cards” as the most likely use, honestly.)
High-speed card because it’ll take two photos a second for longer than most any situation you can think of — not exactly “high speed” in SLR terms, but a very welcome addition. Well worth paying the extra few dollars for a better memory card.
Note that the TZ1 loses one convenience to the Sony; the Sony could just be plugged in to recharge. The Lumix requires you remove the battery and stick into a charger. That said, the charger itself mounts to the wall — a huge boon when traveling. (No more cords cluttering up your carry-on!) In the end, though, a mixed bag — great on the road, less so when at home. (A second battery would make this task easier, too — keep one charged, ready to go.)
In most of the situations we used it together, one of the Lumix’s headline features wasn’t used much: image stabilization. However, don’t sell it short — it makes a big difference. I shot a test image twice (which I’ve matched and overlaid a portion of), below:
It’s obvious which is “on” and which is “off” there! Here’s the original image, with the area above lighlighted:
Notice the mediocre noise performance in the close-up; low-light performance is only better, not excellent. That said, this isn’t a SLR — it’s a small camera, and this feature makes it better, not perfect. That’s not lens distortion, by the way; it’s an old house, and some of the shelves do that…;)
Outside, performance is excellent, with one major — huge — caveat: if the sun’s over your shoulder, or it’s a really bright, sunny day, the LCD that you have to rely on (there’s no viewfinder) washes out, making picture-taking a guessing game. (Or, more accurately, a point, get focus lock on something, shoot, stoop to shade, check, and try again game. Ug.)
When the LCD is shaded, it captures some great stuff:
See the rest of the (small) sample gallery on Flickr. (I’ll add more images as she sends them along to keep tabs — but the ones I’ve seen so far bode well indeed!)
In summary: a great little camera within its mission of big-zoom-in-little package. While just shy of perfect — the LCD problem is big — the performance from this small camera exceeds expectations.
Well done, Lumix!
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Posted by Giles, Tuesday, June 27, 2006, at 12:33 AM.
Posted to Flickr | Personal | Photography
