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 enlarge | Brand: Panasonic
Category: Photography
List Price: $349.95
Buy New: $226.95
You Save: $123.00 (35%)
New (42)
Avg. Customer Rating:  290 reviews
Color: Black
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Floppy Disk Drive: None
Includes Software: Yes
Optical Zoom: 10
Digital Zoom: 4
Connectivity: AV
Display Size: 3
Maximum Focal Length: 47
Minimum Focal Length: 4.7
Maximum Resolution: 9.1
Has Red Eye Reduction: Yes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 2.3 x 1.4 x 4.1
MPN: DMC-TZ5K
Model: DMC-TZ5K
UPC: 037988987665
EAN: 0037988987665
Release Date: March 7, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 Simply put, an outstanding camera! August 15, 2008
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
I wanted to get a camera that was closer to a DLSR in quality and features, but that wasn't bulky. I wanted to get a camera that I could not only use casually at home and around town, but also on vacation where I tend to take a greater variety of camera shots. The TZ5 checked all the boxes and then some!
Other reviews compare it to the Canon sd870is and other cameras so I won't go into that here. Here's how I see it:
Pros:
- The lens and 10x optical zoom. Simply fantastic. I know, you may think you don't need the zoom. And I agree, for the most part, you probably don't. I'm certainly no professional photographer, but I thought about it, and those occassions when I do need more than your standard 3-4x zoom actually comes up more often than I would have thought - whether video taping an at bat for a baseball game or taking a close up photo from a moderate distance. And since I bought it, I have wound up using the zoom far more than I would have expected. Particularly in the 5-8x range for a variety of shots. This is key since many other comparable cameras only have zoom up to 4x.
- The wide angle! This is my first wide angle camera and boy does it make a difference from your standard point and shoot! I won't go back. It's more than just getting more into a shot, in many cases, its the difference between getting a shot framed properly or not. Getting the whole background or building or whatever into the shot or not.
- Pre-set camera modes are great. The TZ5 has 15+ pre-set camera modes that really are great for different environments. What's even better is that you can set two of those modes into the dial at top for quick access. This way, you don't have to keep adjusting the mode for each shot. For instance, at night, I pre-set the dial at top to "candle light" and "night portrait" and can quickly take shots that way.
- Great picture quality. I've read various commentary on the superiority of the Canon picture. I haven't done side by side comparisons but what I can say is that I've taken a lot of photos and am very satisfied. And anyways, I'm skeptical of some of these side by side comparisons on photo quality. So much of a photo is the setting, light, etc that you shouldn't be using the "standard auto setting" to get the best picture regardless. I doubt those comparisons adjusted each camera appropriately for each shot.
- Crisp, large 3" LCD screen. This is one of the primary differences between the TZ4 (comes with 2.5" screen) and TZ5.
- Long exposure shots are really, really cool. This camera takes amazing low light, night time shots. The exposure is 15 or 30 seconds but literally (if you don't move for that long), you can get AMAZING night time shots without a flash and with really cool light effects.
- Very cool "burst shooting". This is indespensible for action or fast moving shots. You can do normal burst shooting of any camera setting at about 2.5-3 pics/second and you can do it continuously! You can also do a high-burst at 6 pics/second at 2 megapixel quality. I got great shots diving off a boat in mid-air with this.
- For the lens and quality it's relatively compact. While its bigger than your standard compact point and shoot, its still small enough to fit in your pocket. Its about the size of an old school ipod, though thicker, and its way better than slugging around a DSLR. And the design is ergonomic.
And now some Cons:
- HD video recording. The quality of the HD picture on playback is great. But there are two shortcomings with this feature. 1) Sound quality is as you would expect for a camera. So its sort of like HD picture/low tech camera sound. It won't replace your HD camcorder, but its certainly good enough for casual recordings. 2) Takes up a ton of memory. I got a 16GB card and that will record about 30min of HD video. Not a lot if you want to take a lot of pics as well on a vaca. I just wind up taking normal non-HD videos, which works fine.
- Auto zoom on video recording is annoying. You need to turn the feature off when taking video, otherwise your video will be in and out of focus as you zoom. But the ability to zoom WHILE taking video is a differentiator for this camera vs. others. Also, some of the features still a work in progress. For instance, the auto face detect works some times, but not others.
- There are not many manual adjustments you can make- primarily shutter speed/exposure and other standard features common in most point and shoot cameras. Obviously I wouldn't expect this to be as flexible as a DLSR, but just something to keep in mind.
- Camera has two automated picture shot modes (where it takes a picture by itself) and the delay is either 2 or 10 seconds. I use this mode a lot - this way everyone can get into a pic! I wish they had longer delay time and more lead up warning to when the picture is going to be taken.
In summary, I would highly recommend this camera for anyone who wants the ability to take a wide variety of high quality pics but doesn't want to lug around a big camera. The cons are far outweighed by the pros. Don't hesitate - you will love this camera!
Much better than expected, but not perfect September 8, 2008
14 out of 14 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.
 HD video April 29, 2008
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
After Nikons and Leicas, its hard to like point-and-shoots, but I got this one for the HD video capabilities in a very portable format. So far I'm pleased with the 720p results for videos of my baby. The focus is a bit on the slow side so you get some blurry passages as it tries to refocus on the move, but you can zoom while recording so its got the basics covered. The color is pretty bright and the resolution is worth the price of admission. Another downside is the seeming cap of 8min 37 seconds for each continuous video clip even though I have an 8GB card in there - not a biggie since long clips get pretty boring but you can't shoot a basketball game with this camera.
A hidden surprise was the intelligent autoexposure (iA) mode. It actually works really well. I've futzed with Canons P&S cameras in the past to get fill flash and other ways to get a decent shot - but iA mode does all that for you and the shots come out very well with no tiny menu surfing - big win. For indoor flash photography, it actually produces a few keepers here and there.
All told its not a revolutionary camera and certainly not the super-slim ultraportable camera that you'd keep on your person at all times....but HD video in your pocket! And some decent pics too.
 Good pictures in bright light, video mode defective? May 22, 2008
12 out of 23 found this review helpful
Good:
1. 28mm wide angle
2. 10x Zoom
3. Can zoom during video recording
4. Good picture quality but only in great lighting conditions
Bad
1. Poor picture quality in low light, probably due to the small sensor size?
2. Audio in video clips cuts off midway into the video clip. Puzzling.
3. A bit large to comfortably fit into a jeans pocket.
Solid P&S Performer May 27, 2008
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
My primary camera is a DSLR, but I keep a point&shoot for my wife/kids to use, as a backup camera, and for daily trips around town. I used a Canon SD700, until my kids hid it and forgot where they put it ;-}
Anyway, what I wanted is something small that can handle the beating of everyday family use and still produce great pictures. I did a fair amount of research and selected the TZ5 based on it's balance of good reviews, price, and zoom/features. After two weeks of shooting with it, here are my current impressions:
Pros:
- Image quality is great. Not as sharp as DSLR, but I think better than my prior Canon SD700. Also, colors are natural & attractive. Very pleased with the results that it captures
- The face-detection/focusing system is really really cool. I'm not a big "all auto" shooter, but the TZ5's face detection is so effective that I find myself setting the camera in "iAuto" mode most of the time.
- Good control placement, menus, and setting flexibility.
- The 10x zoom is wonderful. A good range from wide angle to telephoto, gives lots of shooting options.
Cons:
- Body is considerably larger than the Canon. While better for larger hands, the size makes the TZ5 harder to tote. The metal body feels solid, but as a result, it's heavy. Overall, the TZ5 will not fit comfortably in a pocket, so be ready for a belt case or the need to drop it into your purse.
- Shutter lag is bad - almost like it was designed in 2002! Ok, maybe it's not THAT long, but the lag is noticeable and causes missed shots.
- Battery life is pretty horrible. Using the huge zoom on the unit, I can't even get through a single 4GB card (about 600 shots). I almost never use the flash, but assume performance would be much worse. It's worth getting a 2nd battery until Panasonic makes the TZ5 more efficient.
Haven't found a perfect everyday camera yet (at any price), so there's still an opportunity for some manufacturer to meet the need! That said, this unit is pretty good and I'm happy with it. Also, LOVE the option to buy in different colors (I chose blue, and am very happy with it) - why has it taken so long for us to get more options than just black or silver??
Enjoy & happy shooting!
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