Performance
Performance turns out to be this camera's Achilles' heel. By
the numbers, it's slow -- nothing egregious, but overall more
sluggish than its competitors and about the same as the TZ3. It took about 2.4 seconds for the TZ5 to wake up and shoot. Time to
focus and snap under optimal conditions ran about 0.7 seconds, while
that ran 1 second in lower-contrast circumstances. It required 2.1
seconds to shoot 2 sequential shots, which bumped to 2.5 seconds with
the flash enabled.
The TZ5 has two burst shooting modes, a standard and Free, which adjusts white balance and exposure between shots. The standard, faster mode is fixed to a 3-shot maximum at highest quality and tested out at 2fps. We didn't test Free, which can shoot until the card fills, because it's slow enough that the buffer never becomes the bottleneck. The battery is rated at about 300 photos, a reasonable figure for its class.
The TZ5's large LCD remains viewable in bright sunlight and Panasonic has a specific setting that improves viewability when holding the camera off-angle, above your head. However, in addition to modest test performance, we frequently found the TZ5's autofocus behaviour slowing us down.
With point-and-shoot models, we try to prefocus as frequently as possible since that speeds up shooting. For whatever reason, either a twitchy forefinger or odd shutter behavior, the TZ5 often insisted on refocusing just before shooting even after we'd prefocused. It wasn't just a minor tweak -- occasionally, it would hunt the entire focus range again. Every now and then it shot without locking focus at all.
In addition, the TZ5 delivers very nice movies -- provided you don't put your fingers over the microphone -- in both the wide-aspect 1,280x720 pixels and VGA modes. Connecting directly to an HDTV to view the 16:9 recordings requires an optional, proprietary component video cable. Plus, unlike many competitors, it can zoom while recording over its entire range.
It
records QuickTime movies with a 2GB maximum on clip size;
clips run about 11 minutes per gigabyte for the HD clips and 28 minutes
per gigabyte for VGA. Panasonic recommends a 10MB/sec or faster SD
card for movie capture.
Overall, despite excessive image noise on certain types of shots, the TZ5 produces very pleasing photos with which most shooters will be happy. Even in bright, contrasty light exposures look good, colours appear saturated and relatively accurate and when it focuses correctly, the TZ5 produces sharp photos.
Conclusion
You may be better off saving £50 and sticking with the cheaper TZ4. Still, as far as truly
compact superzooms go, these two are pretty much your only options and
the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5 acquits itself well.
Additional editing by Shannon Doubleday
Android App 
RSS Feeds 
iPhone App 
Newsletters
User reviews4
Add your review
ignota 31 July 2009
Good: great travel camera
Bad: n/a
Comment: Great piece of travel kit. My TZ5 has been everywhere with me, thousands of miles giving great pictures in demanding conditions. I don't see this wonderful camera just through the anorakist prism. Yes it has a great zoom facility; and a superb HD video capability; a Leica wide angle lens etc. Importantly, the TZ5
has proved itself a rugged travel companion for me and given great service in awful weather and good , and come back with wonderful pictures!
cajon 10 October 2008
Good: Solid, good handling camera with a bright big screen and 28mm Leica lens. Control layout.
Bad: Nothing really. Slight barrel distortion at 28mm if I'm picky.
Comment: I bought a TZ5 after spending hours on this site reading endless reviews of various manufacturers digital compacts. I wanted a 'snapshot camera' to compliment my Nikon D80s and whittled it down to a shortlist of four or five.
The Panasonic won on handling, (others like the Ixus 860IS I tried were more like trying to take pictures with a wet bar of soap), picture quality, which is excellent from the Leica optic and its 28mm widest angle lens, (which is still too rarely found in compacts), and solid build quality. The camera feels good in the hand and doesn't take an age to set up or alter.
The two mode settings on the control dial are a godsend, I had mine on 'sport' and 'soft skin' as well as 'normal' for my grandson and was delighted with the crisp, well saturated results.
The retailer in London had discounted the camera and threw in a Sandisk 4GB SDHC card on top for a third of the usual price so I got myself what I considered to be a considerable bargain for a shade over two hundred quid.
In your review you criticise the startup time but I was honestly surprised how quickly my camera came to life, focused, and grabbed the first shot. I was expecting the Panasonic to be slow and fussy, but it isn't. I easily captured several photos of my three year old grandson in succession at play and believe me he doesn't stay in one place for very long!
I'm delighted with my TZ5, it's ideal for me anyway. I'd recommenend one of these little machines to anybody considering a compact, it's a good performer, well built, well designed, and great value for money.
dave56 10 October 2008
Good: Compact considering the size of the zoom, Picture quality
Bad: auto focus in low light
Comment: Great camera the Zoom is excellent , picture quality is very good .The problem with the auto focus in low light has been improved greatly by the firmware update which I recently downloaded.
The camera has plenty of features which are useful.
I was nearly put of this camera by some reviews on the internet, but decided to go into a local retailer and check it out after spending 45 mins checking it out I decide it was for me after all.
I can only say that I am delighted with this camera and the zoom is excellent, I have always wanted a decent zoom camera but was not prepared to carry around an SLR heavy weight . This camera is light in weight compact and easy to use.
See all 4 user reviews