Panasonic TZ5 Review

Posted by evilripper Published in hardware

Update
new model of panasonic tz7 available April 2009 @ around $659

tz5_in_hands

I bought this camera some time ago and in my opinion this camera is currently the best value for money. Below I list the merits and faults that I have found so far:

Advantages

10x Optical Zoom
Wide Angle 28mm
Possibility to use optical zoom in movie (a few machines have this feature)
movies in hd (1280 × 720) for 8 minutes at the most
Simple and intuitive interface
Litio Battery (recharges in 2)
Not to much big size
Panorama makerincluded in the CD

Defects

low light indoors is very poor in automatic mode (for a point and click is a problem)
sound in movies is of low quality
Battery is running out quickly if you make movies you
movies I can take up to 2GB (in HD is equivalent to 8 minutes per movie)
few manual controls
noise in images at high iso low light is not acceptable (there are post-production software to correct this problem a bit)

Interesting Links

Panasonic Tz5 Manual

Dpreview review

Dcresource review

How to update firmware (1.2 version improve focus on photo and video)

Warnings

To record video in HD the camera need SDHC memory card with guaranteed minimum speed of 6MB / s (I bought a Sandisk Ultra II and Extreme works well,but it is expensive).

Tips
To see software version press (when it is set to display photos) button E.zoom button + button macro (the one with the flower).

Software to reduce noise @ http://www.neatimage.com/
Here you can see some photos taken by me with the TZ5 http://www.flickr.com/photos/11244322@N05/tags/tz5/

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