Panasonic Lumix TZ10 Digital Camera 3.0 inch LCD – Black
Posted by Notcot on Apr 6, 2010 in Photography |
- 12.1 Megapixel & LEICA DC Lens
- HD Movie in AVCHD Lite
- 12x Optical Zoom
- Travel Mode with GPS
- Megapixels: 12.1
3 CommentsReply |
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Good points
Fantastic sharp pics
Fantasatic sharp motion pics in AVCHD LITE
The iA function does all the hard work for you, and it really works.
All the scene modes work and do what they are ment to. (some cameras dont seem to make much difference)
The starry sky mode is brilliant. (must use a tripod though)
Really easy menu to follow.
Battery lasts longer than I thought, some of the reveiws I have read did not give it much of a good rating, but i have had the GPS mode off and not tried it yet.
The Manual mode lets you change Aperture and shutter speed etc, but unless you know what you are doing with them there is not much point.
The 12x optical zoom is very good.
Build quality is excellent.
The software provided does a good job.
Bad points
Hard to keep your fingers away from the AF light on the front corner.
The AVCHD “LITE” (different to standard AVCHD)video files are not recognised by the older editing programs, I have had to upgrade my “Corel videostudio 12″ to corel videostudio pro x3.
Quite annoying that the price will rapidly drop in a few months, so if you can wait,you will save a few quid.
Fantastic bit of kit
UPDATE
You do get a slight clicking sound when you are zooming on video mode, and you can clearly hear it in playback.
When playing back the HD AVCHD movie clip on a large TV screen, you do get slight blocking, but still very good.
When you order a new battery, (which you will) make sure the model number of the battery ends with the letter E, IF NOT IT WILL NOT WORK.
Rating: 4 / 5
I bought this camera as an upgrade from a Nikon Coolpix P3 (about 3-4 years old I think).
First impressions were great… build quality is great, 3″ screen is excellent and shows the images crystal clear, the zoom is great too and I found the menu very easy to use.
I also took this camera away with me on a recent trip to Chamonix so was able to really put the camera to the test… and this is when I started to notice a few flaws.
Lens flare is a nightmare… obviously being at the top of the mountains and in bright sunglight this was a constant problem – practically every photo taken in direct sunglight had lens flare. I never ever had this problem with my Nikon – i could point it straight at the sun and 99% of images taken had no lens flare at all. So this was really annoying.
GPS drains the battery really really fast… the battery lasted about 3 hours with GPS activated. When the GPS is activated it drains the battery even when the camera is switched off. So a good way around this is I suppose would be to activate the GPS when you need it and then deactivate it again before switching your camera off. I actually didn’t bother using the GPS at all in the end as the battery drain really put me off (and this was one of the features I was most excited about)!
Photo in low light isn’t very good at all – and I even bought a tripod and used the timer so there was no camera shake at all. The photos looked fine on the camera screen but when uploaded to the PC they were actually quite fuzzy.
And finally, again when taking the pictures in sunlight most of the photos were etiher underexposed or overexposed.
I guess in summary I just found the camera really hit and miss… I’d say only about 30% of the images I took with this camera were good enough to make me go “wow” – the rest of the photos I was really disappointed with. Every time I uploaded the photos to the laptop whilst away, I just truly wished I had my Nikon with me. I just didn’t get it… some photos were perfect and crystal clear yet others lacked details and clarity.
I did take most of my photos using the IA mode (Intelligent Auto) so maybe I need to play with the scene settings a bit more and also learn how to use the manual settings for aperture and shutter speed etc.
However, I would like to add that the photos that did make me go “wow” have encouraged me enough to persevere with this camera… but I will be keeping my Nikon with me as a back-up!
Rating: 3 / 5
This camera is wonderful, delivered much later than expected. Unless you are going to be on the doorstep to receive delivery don’t use FIRST CLASS POST. No signature was required so it was left on the post desk with lose post in a carton with AMAZON printed all over it in a multi tenure mill, not a good idea, for this sort of money a bit more security might be good.
Rating: 5 / 5