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| Brand: Panasonic
Category: Photography
Buy New: Too low to display
New (35)
Avg. Customer Rating:  160 reviews
Sales Rank: 82
Color: Blue
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-TZ5A
Model: DMC-TZ5A
UPC: 037988987672
EAN: 0037988987672
ASIN: B0011Z6D9U
Release Date: March 7, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Simply put, an outstanding camera! August 15, 2008
3 out of 3 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-sets 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 the side by side comparisons on photo quality I've read. 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.
- 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!
 You (and your kids) deserve a better camera than this one August 14, 2008
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
After reviewing my first set of prints, I decided to return this camera. I really wanted to love this camera. Compact body (fits in pocket nicely), 10X zoom, and intelligent auto focus. What's not to love? However, the picture quality and color were only so-so, and were especially worse in low light and indoor shots. Intelligent auto focus did not seem to work particularly well for me and was inconsistent (I could shoot the same shot multiple times and get different results). The deal breaker for me: Long first shot delay...which means you will miss a shot of your kids if it needs to be taken quicky (ex. kid on swing or kid petting animal). Also, many of the zoom shots were difficult to focus. A big dissapointment for me.
It's The Lens... August 13, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Back before digital cameras, I had a 35mm and a bunch of lenses. I have the 55mm that came with the camera, a 35mm wide angle and a 150mm telephoto. Later on, I got a 28mm to 60mm wide angle zoom and a few years after that, I got a 135mm to 230mm telephoto zoom. I had a whole bag full os lenses. It took a while to get anything on film because it took minutes to ponder the shot, get all the hardware assembled and take it. Then, that was pretty much state of the art in amature photography...
During the digital age, I had a few Sony Mavika cameras that were horrible cameras, but had a long zoom lense on them. They were big and heavy and shot 1.3mp to 2.0mp shots. I then got a little Cannon that was a great little pocket camera but only had a 3X zoom and didn't do it. I then got a Kodak that had a 10X zoom, but it didn't have anything close to a wide angle. I still have most of that hardware and all of it put together cannot hold a candle to this new Panasonic TZ5K.
This one little Panasonic pocket camera does everything that all that bag of expensive 35mm hardware, and all those digital cameras, do and much more. I have never seen another camera, especially one that you can put in your pocket, that has such a high quality 28mm wide angle with a 10X zoom to 280mm.
It has amazing features that I have never seen on a camera before, but this is the first camera I have purhased one in a couple of years. I especially like the ability to add a 5 sec. voice clip along with the picture so you can remember what the shot was all about. Some of the reviews I have read say it has issues with some of the quality standards, but all I see is wonderful pictures...
For a full range, take every picture you will probably want, and still fit in your pocket, this is the only camera I have found that works.
Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5A August 12, 2008
As a Home Inspector, I really like this Lumix camera. I only hope it lasts longer then the TZ1 (1.5 yrs old)before it just froze up, and then when I pulled the battery and reinserted it the TZ1 would not turn on ever again.
Wonderful camera August 12, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I did extensive research before purchasing a digital camera. I wanted a well-known brand with all the features that I could possibly get at a reasonable price. This camera satisfied that exactly. While it is pricier than some of the other new cameras coming into play recently, you certainly get what you pay for. I was much impressed at the tremendous zoom power that this camera offers. I took a few sample photos in my backyard just to test out the camera and play around a bit. I was truly amazed that I could zoom in and see every fiber/hair on some of the plants in my yard. The clear, distinct picture taken certainly looked professional grade, and the clarity of the picture was unbelievable. The pictures taken were so crystal clear that they almost didn't look real! I am very impressed with the performance of this camera and look forward to preserving all of my memories in beautifully captured pictures.
On a side note, one thing that kind of stinks about the camera is while it provides a large digital screen to view the pictures, it is so large that there really isn't very much space around it to put your fingers to hold the camera, so it always seems that I am touching the screen and leaving fingerprints all over it (and I have TINY sized hands, too). Easy fix, I can simply wipe off the fingerprints, but it can get annoying at times having to do it so often.
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