Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3K 7.2MP Digital Camera with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black)
by Panasonic
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Category: Digital Camera
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Digital Photo Product Details
Manufacturer: PanasonicRelease Date: 2007-03-26
Model: DMC-TZ3-K
Color: Black
Product features:
- 7.2-megapixel CCD captures enough detail for photo-quality 15 x 20-inch prints
- 10x image-stabilized optical zoom; 3.0-inch LCD display
- Intelligent ISO Control (I.I.C.) reduces image blur from subject movement and low light
- Records full-size movies in wide-aspect VGA (848 x 480) at 30 frames per second
- Stores images on SD/SDHC/MMC memory cards
- SanDisk 4GB SDHC card
- Adobe Photoshop CS5 Upgrade [Old Version]
- Serif PhotoPlus X3
- Adobe Photoshop CS4 Upgrade [OLD VERSION]
- Aperture 3
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3K 7.2MP Digital Camera with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black)
Customer Review: Does this camera deserve the lens?
Summary: 4 Stars
Every digital camera seems to have one or two items that need improvement. I have discovered this camera's flaws now. This is an edited version of a previous review now that I have had more time with the camera.
I was a pro photographer at one time in my life, before the big transition to digital, so I still look for many pro features now that I have made the transition. As a setting for this review I will note what I own and how I shoot.
SHOOTING STYLE: landscapes, travel, macro, still life, documentary style portraiture. (no fast action or sports in general) I don't use a flash if at all possible.
CAMERAS I OWN: Canon PowerShot S70 & S80, Kodak P880 & Lumix DMC-TZ3 (in black)
OVERALL IMPRESSION: Excellent point & shoot for well lit scenes only. Fabulous lens, great zoom range and professional feeling camera.
PROS: Sharp lens (edge to edge & no flare or fringing) great color rendition in well lit scenes, super fast writes to SD, fabulous LCD and great build quality. The image stabilization helps a lot, although not as effective overall as I thought it would be. (This is my first IS camera) The charger and battery are super small and easy to travel with. Just looks nice too!
COMPLAINTS: I recently revised them, listed below:
1. Poor Firmware & Setting Design (poor low light exposure & metering))
2. In low light it not only meters incorrectly, but loses all color saturation and just produces POOR pictures. After sunset, put it away!
3. Honestly, just a "pain" to shoot with when you want to shoot in anything other than "idiot" mode. The lack of any customization forces you to shoot AROUND it's modes, not with them. Not a problem in well lit scenes, but low light forces many adjustments to get a properly exposed image.
Overall, the noise from the chip and the Venus III noise reduction is better than I expected, but it is there. With full frame photos you will not really notice it much. The images look sharp, good color realism and not too contrasty. BUT, if you crop in you will notice that some of that low contrast effect is the HEAVY noise reduction and overzealous file compression that result in a loss of a lot of fine detail (mostly in low light settings). (A 1GB card in my Kodak P880 at 7.1M can store 207 images, but in this camera I get 288 images! There must be some heavy handed compression to get images that much smaller on the Lumix and it shows.)
The lack of manual controls is maddening. You can't customize the auto settings in any meaningful way either. If you shoot with the standard program mode (red camera) or the auto-iso mode you can't get correct low light exposures!
EXAMPLE: I lent my camera to someone and they pointed out the poor metering. I thought they had a setting wrong but they did not. I fiddled with it for an hour and found that even though the camera can calculate the correct exposure, it WILL NOT TAKE IT in a basic simple mode! It bottoms out at a certain shutter speed to try and reduce hand shake. Great, so you get sharper underexposed images! The way around this is to shoot in the "Night Scenery" mode, but in this mode you are LOCKED into an ISO of 100. This makes no sense, since it is a "night" mode. With that low of an ASA the image stabilization is undermined and you get a better exposure, but now with hand shake! Even with a correct exposure, the noise and colors are so bad the picture looks horrible. Also, a weird glitch is that your shutter speeds beyond 1 second are doubled for some reason. (don't ask me why, but after it takes the picture it whites out the screen and then "counts-down" the same number of seconds as the exposure before it lets you take another image!)
Overall, this is sad given the AMAZING Leica lens on this camera. As another reviewer said, "Does this camera really deserve this Leica lens?" I hope a future Firmware will offer noise reduction, compression settings & lack of customizable options. Until they fix the low light failure of this camera I will limit the use to well lit scenes only, which is a huge handicap.
More Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3K 7.2MP Digital Camera with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black) reviews:
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Description of Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3K 7.2MP Digital Camera with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black)
Panasonic DMC-TZ3K digital cameraDigital Cameras
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