Panasonic Lumix DMC – TZ4 Digital Camera
September 19, 2008
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ 8.1MP Digital Camera, along with the high-featured TZ5 digital camera forms the latest compact ultra zoom concepts from the Panasonic stables and this time it means nothing less than business. The Panasonic 8.1MP TZ4 has a surprising 10x optical zoom function given that it is just a bit larger than your standard compact. Although pocket sized, the latest TZ4 is feature rich. Considering Panasonic’s performance standards it is widely perceived that something definitely must have went wrong while designing the TZ4 digital camera.
Features overview
Primary features include an 8.1MP sensor and a 10x wide-angle Leica lens. If you are an advanced photographer your search should normally end with this all in-one solution. Exposure settings are fully automatic. The Intelligent Auto (iA) mode is a combination of features and settings that help you handle various shoot-conditions effectively. It has an evaluative auto-exposure setting too.
The point-and-shoot has five basic shooting modes
Intelligent auto: You get to select burst shooting, stabilization mode, image size, and LCD mode.
Normal picture: User selects burst shooting, stabilization mode, auto-focus mode, ISO, white balance, intelligent exposure and LCD mode.
Scene mode: You select any of the 22 settings for specific scenes.
Motion picture: View moving picture in 4:3 or 16:9 formats at the rate of 30,15, or 10 frames per second based on format and picture size.Clipboard: You need not take notes and can instead shoot route maps, time-tables and the like.
Video clips are recorded in a 848 x 480 wide-screen mode at 30 fps compared to the TZ5’s HD (1024 X 720). It uses an optical zoom while shooting videos which most other compact cameras do not use. The zoom moves slowly so that the camera does not pick up the sound of the zoom.
Body design
Physically, the TZ4 is the TZ3 slightly refined. In terms of style, size, and ergonomics this product offers a good output and a fine balance between compact and ultra zoom models.
Styling and build
The TZ4 is physically identical to your TZ5 and a bit heavier than the Fuji F or Canon A. The body of this device is tough and not much flexible. Doors are solid with a firm locking feel on the battery door. Mode dial snaps in position with great ease unlike plastic-feel cameras. Its build conveys a premium offering. Style conveys a sleek design, clean lines, metallic finish and minimal visual distractions. The Panasonic Lumix DMC TZ4 camera’s three-segment retractable lens dominates almost half of its body. This camera poses an ultra zoom look with its lens extended.
Ergonomics and interface
Recently Panasonic has been focussing on this aspect of rendering small ergonomic buttons to its ultra-compact models. There is adequate space, at least for a five way controller and a shooting/playback switch on the camera’s casing. Given their size, these buttons are functionally dominant. At times, though rarely, the presses fail to register on the D-pad due to a slightly heavy button feel. The interface is a variant of other Lumix cameras with a quick menu to access common parameters while shooting.
Display/Viewfinder
One major difference between the TZ4 and the feature-rich and more expensive TZ5 is the display. The TZ4 has a better mainstream TFT display of 2.5 inches diagonal size that comes studded with 230,000 pixels, unlike a high-resolution 3-inch LCD of its sibling. Not bad for a comparison. It exhibits good crispness and fluidity under different light conditions. Several display modes bear a close co-relation with the battery life. Optimum viewing angles are made possible with a high powered wide-view mode. This camera goes to 90 degrees before colour inversion. There is no need for an optical view finder. More, this camera has enough power to handle bright sunlight too.
Performance
Despite some focus issues the TZ4 is quiet pleasant to use. TZs’ lack of manual controls is what lets it down when compared to Ricoh models or the long zoom Canon G9. But if you are shooting under a variety of settings and not really concerned of artistic controls, the TZ4 offers what just what you intend.
Timings and shutter lag
At pre-focus mode, the shutter lag is .05 seconds. Speed of the AF mode is not easily predictable in this device though a Spot AF shot can be materialised at 0.5 second. The high-speed continuous mode, captures 4 full resolution frames and clears the buffer in a jiffy, 1.45 seconds with a shooting speed of 2.75 fps. The infinite continuous mode is used for burst longer than 4 frames and finishes at 2.35 fps buffers, until class 6 SD card fills.
Lens and zoom
The most special feature of this camera is its 28-280mm f/3.3-4.0 Leica zoom lens. The TZ4 bears this wide angle focal length, showing a 28mm on the wide-end that no competitor of the day can match. The wide-lens of the TZ4 compliments its huge zoom range challenging any other conventional two-or-three- length DSLR setup, in the focal length department. Like most DSLR lenses with a telephoto range of 300mm the TZ4’s lens has a relatively fast f/4.9 maximum aperture at full-tele, which effectuates slow AF at the long-end of the zoom. The barrel exhibits minimal free-play and is well-built. Travel is smooth and slow permitting zoom shooting of moving objects. A button next to the shutter adheres with the easy zoom concept, moving the lens from wide-angle to full telephoto. Flexibility of the lens from a user’s aspect is not disappointing.
Auto Focus
The TZ4 offers 6 separate auto focus modes. These are face detection, AF, nine area AF, one-area high speed AF, three-area high speed AF, and spot AF. Spot mode times best within its limitations. AF performance exhibited a horrendous performance at the telephoto end of the zoom.
Flash
Colour is good and exposure is perfect in the Intelligent Auto mode. In iA the camera makes decisions on flash levels or boosting ISO speeds, choosing approximate flash exposure balance in a few cases. Modes are red-eye reduction, slow sync, and standard auto and fill options. The TZ4 takes just 6.5 seconds to recharge from a full-power flash firing. Screen does not black-out while the flash is recycling. Average recycle time with Auto ISO selected was under 2 seconds.
Image stabilization
The Panasonic uses the O.I.S optical image stabilization technology. Test results compare on par with other O.I.S enabled models. This system’s modes – continuous, single-shot, or disabled, are user selectable, using a quick menu or main menu. The TZ4 has a user adjusted minimum shutter speed compared to preset models. Default shutter speed is 1/8, a good concurrence with image stabilization system’s capabilities.
Battery
With a slightly smaller display the TZ4 promises more battery per charge than the TZ5. Panasonic claims the number to be 330 shots. Though the 330 shots mark sounds a bit exaggerated, with judicious flash use the TZ4 is obviously capable of realising 300 shots on a single charge of its lightweight 100 mAh pack. Good enough, that it has a zoom function to handle and is a larger compact.
Image quality
Image output of this device is exciting with well-balanced sharpness that captures even finely graded textures. It undoubtedly extends an opportunity for the advanced shooter to experiment with post-processing.
Exposure, processing, and colour
The new model has a vibrant current-gen Venus Engine IV processor. Colours occur reasonably natural with a bit of warmth. The image tone is found slightly more muted and natural in the TZ3, while some might state that prints of TZ4 are printable without post-processing. Of course, the TZ4’s several other colour modes too offer various image tones. Exposure handles wide-contrast scenes most of the times. TZF is accused of slight underexposure at times while it retains detail avoiding the washed out look. The iA exposure stands out of a long list of exposure options. It exposes under-exposed areas alone by detecting brightness level part by part in the picture.
White balance
The TZ4’s white balance handles a variety of settings including tungsten light. Images composed of cooler light might seem blue-green however. The custom white set mode supports no fluorescent presets.
Lens faults
The lens range barrel distortion remains under control and images exhibited no bloated look, usually experienced with wide-angle lenses in compact cameras. Pincushioning effect was visible at the long end just beyond mid-range and images showed wrinkles by full telephoto.
Sensitivity and noise
Noise reduction was more intrusive in nature at higher ISOs. While there is substantial noise reduction beyond ISO 800 the overall look is taken care of meticulously. That says the level of chroma noise at high levels is not appreciated. Although better than previous releases, considerable detail loss is experienced at ISO 1600. At ISO 1600 speeds the camera fails to pick up any low contrast details at lower sensitivity. The TZ4’s high ISO performance is not bad and the camera’s high sensitivity mode is not worth experimenting with as well.
Conclusion
Panasonic Lumix DMC – TZ4 Digital Camera with Autofocus and Face Detection certainly is an impressive camera, given consumer expectations. Action shooting may become a problem at the long end zoom. Despite image quality improvements consumers may want to consider the performance blemishes before considering the buy. But it is still a feature rich offering given the limited competition. Larger screen and the HD video capture along with the resolution aspect may call for customers to take a closer look at the TZ5 instead of the TZ4. Finally, if you can overlook these cons then what it does in terms of zoom range is not what many cameras of this size can do for you.
Related Posts
Comments
Got something to say?
