Customer Reviews: Read 118 more reviews...
 Great point & shoot camera, best for the money July 24, 2008
I have had this camera for two days now and will update with my more formal review once I've had more time to absorb it all. I will make a few comments right away though because I have discovered a few things about it that I didn't see mentioned in other reviews and might be helpful to those making a decision.
Just the significant details for now:
1. Since image quality drops off quickly at ISO settings over 200 I was glad to find that it had a way to specify a max ISO in the auto ISO mode, but unfortunately the lowest option is 400, which it chooses for nearly all indoor shots. Also, some modes ignore this setting so even though you may think you'll always be under 400, you won't in certain scene modes.
2. I can not understand why they do this in the first place, and it's even more frustrating to not be able to turn it off or choose some options in this 'feature': This camera subdivides your photos into separate folders of pictures and as far as I can tell there's no way around it. After shooting about 300 pics, the memory card has several separate folders of pictures: 100_PANA (containing pics 1-100 which are titled 100001 through 100100), 101_PANA (containing pics 101-200, but now they're renamed with 101000 through 101100, etc so that you don't even end up with sequential picture numbers. Even worse, after the first 100 pics these numbers do not correspond to the numbers used to identify them on the camera screen in play mode. Therefore, if you are keeping notes on your photographs as you take them, the numbering that the files have on the SD card will be difficult to match up to the numbers you've been tracking off the camera screen. I can not imagine why they think everyone would want this (or anyone for that matter). I could almost understand if they separated them by date or some other criterion, but by arbitrary lots of 100 pics? And changing the numbering sequence? That's just dumb. With other cameras I have always just had them all in the same folder, that way I don't have to go switching around looking for the photos, they're all in the same place ready to go, and sequentially numbered withoput gaps. I really hate having them all split up in different places.
3. Battery life seems to be quite good on my initial encounter. I have shot over 300 pics and the battery indicator still reads full. Perhaps that means that it will suddenly decline leaving me with little warning, but 300 pics is pretty good anyway. One note, the battery does not come charged, so be prepared to spend two hours reading the manual while your battery charges before you can use the camera. Sorry folks, you can't bring it home from the store and start using it right away.
4. Amazon's price on this camera fluctuates on a daily basis, both up and down. Since I started looking last week the price started at $270, went up to $296, and is now back to $284. I have no idea why, but if today's price is closer to $300 you might consider waiting a day or two to see if it gets better.
That's the four main points I wanted to share at the moment. I will be back with a more comprehensive review after a few thousand shots.
A brief background on my purchase... I initially started this quest to find the most compact camera with the most SLR-style features I could get. The natural choice for that pursuit is the Canon G9 which was the front runner until I played with this TZ5. It handled simple point & shoot operations so much better than the canon while inside the store that I was swayed to consider this Panasonic more seriously. The downside is that it offers virtually no SLR-like features. My first constraint was a portable, pocketable camera which both of these models fit, but the panasonic moreso. I wanted point and shoot performance with the option to get more creative when I want. Since embracing the digital revolutoin eight years ago I haven't even touched my film SLR again, not once. But I miss the manual control so much. In the end the point and shoot won me over, I think the Canon is not quite there yet to be what I want for manual control. It's a little clumsier in terms of user interface, and it's gone after way too many megapixels at the cost of low light capability.
As I mentioned earlier, more to come after more experience with this camera.
 I love this camera July 23, 2008
I took this camera on a five-country European trip in July and took about 1,000 photos with it. The photos come out just great in IA mode. Press down and the camera makes its first assumption on what it is you're focusing, if that's not correct, release and try again. Face recognition works great, too. And most important to me was that it takes great photos in low light without a flash. I had the flash off for all my shots. I got the camera in blue which is done in a powder-type of coating. I didn't care for that at first, but now I like it because it makes the camera a little grippier and it looks great.
Two things that could need fixing:
1. When taking a movie, the zoom makes a noice when zooming in and out.
2. When reviewing your photos, holding down the advance button should fast-forward you through the photos. It only does one at a time. When you have 4 or 8 gig cards, that can be a lot of clicking through.
Overall though, I love this camera and would buy it again.
not bad July 22, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Pros-
easy to see on/off switch
physical switch to move to review pictures from taking pictures
great optical zoom
very good pictures
easy computer hook up
big LCD screen
easy to understand settings
seems sturdy
fast zoom button
Cons-
microphone placed where hand would naturally go
a bit heavy and large
not much in manual choices
overall a good camera and one I would recomend.
Very Versatile Camera - Fragile Protective Lens Cover July 21, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I'm loving my Panasonic DMC-TZ5. I agree with others about the fine versatility and daylight image quality. Unfortunately the TZ5 uses the same automatic lens cover mechanism as the DMC-TZ3. This is a too fragile mechanism. Like other TZ3 owners, eventually my TZ3 lens cover failed to fully open/close. I'm hoping I get at least a couple years out of the TZ5 before any failures. Fingers crossed.
 Extremely disappointing image quality July 21, 2008
0 out of 6 found this review helpful
I read the reviews of this camera on the various digital camera sites. While they all mentioned a high level of noise, they still recommended it. So I bought it. How bad could the noise be?
The answer is "very bad". I wasn't expecting miracles from a compact camera. But... indoors, outdoors, low light, bright light, flash, no flash, zoom, no zoom... the images coming out of this camera were decidedly, noticeably subpar.
I loved the build quality, zoom, features, size, weight, and styling. I really wanted to like this camera. But I had to return it. I bought a PowerShot G9 instead, which I am very happy with.
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