Where's the TZ1??

[louiskam]

It'll be nice with wide angle and may be 6.0m. Comment?

[Doug Lerner]

Hi Doug! Let me be the upteenth person to give you a much deserved thanks. Like everybody else, I to am waiting for this camera to become readily available. But let me for a minute play devils advocate here, and ask if there are three things you are troubled with this camera or would like to see improved or changed, what would they be? Thanks, dan in canada.

A good question!

Here are three things:

(1) The "high-sensitivity" mode indoors in low-ish room light is quite noisy. So I am still not quite sure what the best way is to take pictures of my dog indoors. If I use the high-sensitivity mode the colors look natural, but the image is quite noisy. If I use flash sometimes it looks real nice, but sometimes the flash washes him out too much. If I just use ordinary standard shooting mode without flash it may blur.

(2) I am a bit unclear on what the best white balance setting should be in different circumstances - like when is auto white balance good enough and when do I need to manually compensate. I'm not sure what could be improved, though, in the camera to help with this.

(3) They could improve the USB interface. It is quite slow. If I need to transfer 100MB using the included cable it can take 2 minutes! If I take the SD card out and stick it in the USBII card reader I already had it takes under 10 seconds to do the same transfer!

doug

[Noodlez]

What do people do wih these movies? They are obviously too large to email people.

Wow that movie looks great.
I convert my movies to xvid or sometimes gasp wmv if I need to email them.

[mynicksnix]

I wasn't going to post here as I had not planned to get a TZ1. However, it seems to be the camera I was looking for about 18mths ago, just before I went on a once in a lifetimes touring holiday of California. In the end I bought an FZ20 & have been very happy with it but did really want something smaller (FZ5 wasn't out then either before anyone posts). Anyway I have just flicked through all your last shots & I am very impressed with the vivid mode - just what my FZ20 needs. It seems to make the images just pop out without making them too garish. Now hmm wonder if I could get away with buying my wife one as a birthday present...? and then maybe trade up my FZ20 for the new Panny DSLR.....hey there's a thought. Might take a bit of grovelling though Anyway thanks to you Doug & everyone else here for making this thread such an interesting read. Its' so popular it doesn't need to be made a sticky.

Maybe the FZ7 is the camera for you. It adds some more functions (next to the vivid/standard/natural) to the Pict. Adj. menu. The TZ1 seems to have the sharpness function only. FZ7 adds contrast, saturation and noise reduction.

See: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/re...ssage=17842933

But the TZ1 is the smaller camera. And might therefore be more suitable for your wife . Furthermore, it has the zoom in movie mode, which the FZ7 lacks.

[ljubom]

I think it truly is an extended optical zoom though. From what Panasonic told me on the phone, from their ray diagrams and the technical description both at this site and the Panasonic site indicates that in that mode the actual optical focal length is longer. So the actual optical reach is truly further. It does not appear to be something done as a digital post-process or something you can duplicate in Photoshop after the fact.

Hi Doug,

It is very easy to sort this question out. You need just to take two same pictures (same object, same camera position - just use tripoid or put camera on something solid). First picture should be 10x zoom/5 MPix and second one 12.5x extended optical zoom/3 MPix. If Panasonic is really tweaking optical settings, then 2nd picture will provide more details than cropped 3 MPix part of 1st picture (the objects will be bigger, view field will be narrower).

And as I already wrote, 10x optical zoom in compact body, OIS, zoom during movies are killer features for me - I will buy one.

[berth]

Hi Doug,

It is very easy to sort this question out. You need just to take two same pictures (same object, same camera position - just use tripoid or put camera on something solid). First picture should be 10x zoom/5 MPix and second one 12.5x extended optical zoom/3 MPix. If Panasonic is really tweaking optical settings, then 2nd picture will provide more details than cropped 3 MPix part of 1st picture (the objects will be bigger, view field will be narrower).

Actually, Doug did some shots to test the chromatic aberration with the Realtor sign and a tree branch. Each scene is shot 4 times with different zooms and resolutions. But let's forget about the image dimensions:

- The 2 zoomed images (supposed to be taken at x10 and x12.5 I guess) show objects with the same size, 5Mp and 3Mp. That's the famous crop effect . For both, EXIF says focal length 52. Why not, let's be open minded

- The 2 wide images show objects of different size (x1 and x1.25 I guess). For both, EXIF says focal length 5.2 No crop effect. Between the 2 images, there is a (optical / digital / pneumatic/ else, check the right option) zoom factor of 1.25. ... I'm not yet enough open minded. Please help me...

You can download these images at Doug's:
"I put those 8 image originals into a zip file (about 14MB) and you can grab them from lerner.net/doug/Lumix20060331-1.zip to check them out if you like."

Berth

[Doug Lerner]

Actually, Doug did some shots to test the chromatic aberration with the Realtor sign and a tree branch. Each scene is shot 4 times with different zooms and resolutions. But let's forget about the image dimensions:

- The 2 zoomed images (supposed to be taken at x10 and x12.5 I guess) show objects with the same size, 5Mp and 3Mp. That's the famous crop effect . For both, EXIF says focal length 52. Why not, let's be open minded

- The 2 wide images show objects of different size (x1 and x1.25 I guess). For both, EXIF says focal length 5.2 No crop effect. Between the 2 images, there is a (optical / digital / pneumatic/ else, check the right option) zoom factor of 1.25. ... I'm not yet enough open minded. Please help me...

You can download these images at Doug's:
"I put those 8 image originals into a zip file (about 14MB) and you can grab them from lerner.net/doug/Lumix20060331-1.zip to check them out if you like."

Berth

When I examine the EXIF data here it says the focal length is 52, and the line below it says:

Focal Length In 35mm Film 438

438 / 35 = 12.5 x optical zoom, right?

doug

[bobm59]

Circuit City in Boston area now in stock (silver). I just picked mine up for $332.46. An SD card does NOT ship with the box. Thanks Doug for your great work.

[mystro544]

Also, 6ave.com claims to have received them today but they say they won't ship for 4 days for some reason.

The Panasonic Club stated Costco and B&H always get the first shipments to the USA...hmmm

[bobb2233]

Just got off the phone with Circuit City in Christiana, Del. They have the silver TZ1 in stock at $332.46 ( no sales tax in Delaware. ) Soon as I post this, I'm on my way. Thanks Doug and all the rest for helping my decision!