Panasonic DMC-TZ4 Digital Camera - Love It!

I received this camera a few weeks ago and I am absolutely thrilled with it. This is coming from a person who was loyal to only Fuji Finepix cameras in the past, and I've owned several Fuji's among others. My last camera was a Fuji S700 - one of those huge DSLR-style cameras – needless to say I got tired of the huge size of the S700 so I decided to venture out of the box and try a different brand.

I believe the Panasonic DMC-TZ4 is an excellent choice for those people who want a point & shoot-sized camera that can still provide you with good optical zooming capability. Don't be tempted by the more expensive TZ5 model unless you need HIGH DEF video capability, and just 1 extra megapixel (9 MP vs. 8 MP). At 8 MP, the TZ4 has plenty of capability to provide high quality shots. The Leica lens is able to produce the equivalent of a 28mm focal length (wide-angle by conventional camera terms), and it has 10X OPTICAL zoom. I know of very few compact point & shoot cameras that can match this at this price point.

The ISO speeds on this camera range from 100 to 1600, exceptional speed range for a compact digital.

The 2.5" LCD is very bright and easy on the eyes. It can also be used in various situations easily - for instance if you are at a parade taking pictures and you need to get the camera up over the crowd in front of you, there is a quick-access button in the lower right-hand corner of the back of the camera, where you can easily see the LCD when you hold it up over your head. In all settings in bright light or sun, the screen automatically gains up so the screen is much brighter and can easily be viewed in the sunlight.

The TZ4 also has face detection. It has the ability to find up to 15 faces in the exposure and select the best focus, crispness and coloring for the subject. I have no idea how the face detection works – my first thought was that it had something to do with searching for the pupils of the subject(s) eyes. However, I recently took a picture of some software I was listing on my auction, and the software had a woman’s face on the front. The face detection works for a picture of a face, too, so that rules out my idea of working by sensing the pupils.

My reasons for loving this camera:

1. It's 8.1 MP and has a Leica 10X optical zoom glass lens. Leica manufactures some of the best lenses in the world.

2. It's made in JAPAN - not China!

3. It's fairly heavy for a compact point & shoot as a majority of this camera is made of METAL, not plastic.

4. Best of all, it's not really a 10X optical zoom. If you shoot in any resolution from 6 MP or under you can take the OPTICAL zoom all the way up to 15.9 OPTICAL!

And it takes fabulous pictures. I have always had a shaky hand when taking pictures, and I have not had one blurry picture yet, even when taking pictures of my cats - and they never hold still. The Intelligent Auto Focus focuses on the subject(s) constantly even if they are moving.

Pictures of people turn out to be very natural in skin color. And if you don’t like the natural color when set on Standard, you can always go into the set-up menu and change the coloring to Natural. Besides Standard and Natural, you have the options of Vivid Color, Cool, Warm, Black & White, and Sepia tones.

On the dial on top of the camera, there are two different Scene Modes: SCN 1 and SCN 2. In each of these you have your choice of: Portrait, Soft Skin, Scenery, Sports, Night Portrait, Night Scenery, Self-Portrait, Food, Party, Candlelight, Fireworks, Starry Sky, Beach, Aerial Photo (taken from a plane), Snow, High Sensitivity, Baby 1 & 2 – where you can add names and birth dates, Underwater, Sunset, Pet, and High-Speed Burst. Two different scene modes come in handy if you happen to only use two of the above mentioned scene modes more than the others, you can just toggle back and forth between the two to save time.

It takes the best night-portrait and night-scenery shots I have ever seen. I can't wait to take this camera to the Wright Patterson AFB Museum - the last camera I took there was a Fuji A345 and most of my pictures turned out bad blurry to the low light conditions at this museum.

I also sell items on eBay, and this camera takes great macro shots for my jewelry and make-up listings.

If you have the control wheel set to iA (Intelligent Auto Focus) you don't even have to press the macro button to take a close-up--the sensor adjusts and does it automatically. In the iA mode, the sensor knows to adjust to Scenery, Portrait, Macro, Night Portrait, or Night Scenery mode. You do not need to make any settings changes yourself.

Shutter speed/lag time is excellent on this camera. I do not own a stop-watch but I tried several times to get an accurate reading by using my normal every-day watch with a second-hand, and due to the auto-focus being constantly on, there is virtually no time lost at all between pushing the shutter release button – just estimating way less than 1 second to take the picture, and if using a flash, maybe 1.5 seconds until you are ready to take another picture. Cameras have sure come a long way in this regard. I owned a Nikon Coolpix 5600 just 3 years ago and it felt like a 15 second wait after taking a flash picture until the camera was ready to take another. That was so frustrating with the Nikon, but this Panasonic camera is almost instantly ready to take another picture. You will not miss that special shot with this camera unless it’s stored away a camera case.

A cute feature with this camera is the ability on the set-up menu to have the camera make a shutter release sound just like on the old film cameras we used to have.

I have mentioned the set-up menu several times. The set-up menu and buttons on this camera are some of the easiest I have ever used. I owned a Canon Powershot A570IS last year, and I had a hard time figuring out what the symbols meant, since there was no explanation of anything unless I looked it up in the instruction manual. The Panasonic, on the other hand, uses symbols and words so even the most techno-challenged can operate this camera. Since this camera is also on the larger side of the point & shoot cameras, there is also ample room if you have large fingers to easily navigate the buttons. After you learn the layout of the controls, it’s as easy as using a computer keyboard.

I also like that Panasonic designed this camera with a sliding on/off button on top, and a sliding review/capture button on the back of the camera in place of the usual push-type buttons. This is especially useful if you happen to carry the camera around in a backpack or purse…I just wonder how many zoom lenses have got the dreaded zoom error by accidentally being turned on inside a handbag. My trick is to always turn the review/capture button to the REVIEW setting in case the on/off button is inadvertently turned on. If the sliding switch is set to REVIEW, the lens will not zoom out.

There is only one feature I do not care for with this camera. I would like to have a date on each picture. The date CAN be added after the picture is taken by going to a setting on the tools menu. But when it adds the date to your picture, it actually adds the date to a duplicate photo and it is sized at 3 MP. So you have two photos of the same shot, for example the original which you may have taken at up to 8 MP, and you have a copy with the date which is at 3 MP. Most of the time I just add the date to each picture when I'm doing my photo-editing with Picasa 3.

This camera uses a small rectangular-shaped lithium-ion battery and the charger is included with the camera. It cannot be charged with the battery inside the camera. So far, I have been able to take 323 shots before having to recharge the battery, which is a very good indication of the great battery life.

If using a tripod with this camera, the camera does not need to be removed from the tripod if the battery needs changed. The tripod mount is on opposite side from the battery compartment. However, I do not recommend using this camera with a MINI-tripod. The weight of the camera is too great, it will tip over. It will be fine with a full-size tripod.

I have taken movies (with sound) using this camera; it records video better than the Flip Video camcorder that is currently on the market. The movies use the QuickTime format and I have easily uploaded some of them to my YouTube account. You can select on the set-up menu whether you want the 4:3 ratio screen size (similar to the older TVs, or 16:9 ratio to fit wide-screen TVs). When taking movies, you also have the option in the set-up menu to choose 30 fps or 10 fps (frames per second). Choosing 30 fps over the 10 fps will give you a higher quality video, but also use up more of the SD card space.

Speaking of SD cards, this camera accepts SD, SDHC, and MultiMedia Cards, and also comes with a small amount of built-in internal memory, enough for around 10 pictures if you have no SD card installed.

I purchased the black camera, but it's more of a dark gray shade, not a dark black. It is also available in silver.

Bottom Line: This camera works well for the beginning photographer, those who don't like hard to figure out gadgets, or the young camera user. It also has enough control settings to allow more experienced photographers to enjoy it.

NOTE: If you are looking for a high definition video camera, definitely go with the TZ5 – it is approximately $85.00 more, but the cameras are basically the same otherwise -- you will get one more megapixel with the TZ5, but in my opinion, it's not worth it.

Check out some of my pictures here - more to be added later.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/16930641@N05/#photo3062957231

Also, this is a video I made of my nephew Trevor's party - taken with this camera.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGHR7UoZt8E

I hope this review helps!