Last year, Panasonic released the Lumix DMC-TZ1. The chunky little 5-megapixel camera contained a 10x zoom lens that let it fit snugly into the compact, high-zoom snapshot camera niche. It didn't exactly wow us, and we gave the camera a less than spectacular rating. Now Panasonic has released the Lumix £250 DMC-TZ3, taking the TZ1's basic design and improving nearly every aspect of it.
Design
The DMC-TZ3 looks almost identical to the DMC-TZ1, sharing its predecessor's chunky 230g frame, its prominent lens, the tasteful gold-and-silver Leica accent, and a straightforward, minimalist control scheme.
We readily accessed the camera's buttons with just our right hand for one-handed shooting, though they were a little smaller than we would have liked. If you're not careful, you may end up hitting the wrong button, especially when using the four-way multicontroller.
Features
Much like the DMC-TZ1, the DMC-TZ3's lens remains the camera's most notable feature. The camera's 28mm-to-280mm-equivalent, f/3.3-to-f/4.6, 10x optical, Leica zoom lens can handle both wide and close-up shots, a distinct improvement over its predecessor. Most high-zoom cameras, including the TZ1, use 35mm or narrower lenses, so the TZ3's 28mm wide-angle lens gives it a definite edge when pulling back to take a shot. Panasonic included its Mega OIS optical image stabilisation on the TZ3, a vital inclusion for any high-zoom camera.
The DMC-TZ3 also uses a 76mm (3-inch) LCD screen, notably larger than the DMC-TZ1's 64mm (2.5-inch) display. The camera misses one minor feature its little brother had: the TZ3 doesn't have the TZ1's nifty stop-motion Flip Animation movie mode. Beyond this minor omission, however, the TZ3 either retains or improves upon all of the TZ1's features. Unfortunately, like its predecessor, the TZ3 also lacks any significant manual exposure controls.
Performance
The DMC-TZ3 performed admirably in our tests. The camera's shutter lagged only 0.6 seconds for our high-contrast target and 1.3 seconds in low-contrast conditions. We waited a mere 1.3 seconds between shots, and that wait increased to 2.4 seconds with the onboard flash enabled. Burst mode took five shots in just less than 2 seconds for a satisfying rate of 2.5 shots per second.
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
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Typical shot-to-shot time | |
Time to first shot | |
Shutter lag (typical) |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
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User reviews2
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sthgloshi 10 September 2009
Good: A tough little camera takes the knocks of my job and still comes back smiling
Bad: Top settings dial easily moved, unexplained blurring of photos sometimes, battery life
Comment: I am a Surveyor and use a camera daily for 3 or 4 surveys. I needed high optical zoom, wide angle, high resolution capbility in a small pocket size unit.
The spec of this unit was the best on the market at the time 2 years ago when I bought it, although it has been upstaged by other models it is still my preferred camera.
I have kicked the stuffing out of it quite literally by dropping it numerous times onto hard floors and several times from a height of at least 2.5m onto carpeted floors, and still it keeps going.
On average I am taking 150 photos per day sometomes 6 days per week, over two years thta's an amazing 3,000 photos (ish) per month.
I have bought a new one as backup due to my scratching the lens.
I cannot rate this highly enough, if you need a tough workhorse of a camera consider this!!
George123 5 April 2009
Good: Good photo quality, compact, robust, simple to use, good optical zoom
Bad: photos sometimes blurred
Comment: What I need is a good workhorse that I can slip in my pocket and take lots of clear and detailed digital photographs on construction sites. This works well (generally) . I've now had it for a couple of years
It's reasonably tough, it slips in the pocket, it gets good detail, and it's pretty well foolproof.
The main drawback I have found is that the photographs tend to be a little blurry at times, sometimes this seems to be due to the automatic focusing,and sometimes to handshake. I do miss the traditional viewfinder I had on my previous Pentax Optio, it is much easier to hold the camera still against one's face. That said, the display screen is excellent.
One further quibble, the control wheel that sets the specific function rotates rather easily, and sometimes slips off the setting. It should be just a little firmer so that it stays where it is wanted.
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