Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3S 7.2MP Digital Camera with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Silver)

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.

I owned the first generation DMC-TZ1. The DMC-TZ3 has some welcome improvements; wider angle, automatic lens cover, maybe 25% faster shot-to-shot. In particular, the wider angle is a really useful feature.

The camera's strength is in its versatile, daylight shooting. It does best with lots of light. Indoors, the flash coverage is just ok. Shot-to-shot flash recycle time is sometimes a pokey 4 seconds. Digital picture noise is noticeable with lesser light.

Setup Tips:
1. Use 3x2 ratio if you primarily print 6x4 photos.
2. Use vivid mode as normal mode looks washed out.

Update: 28-May-2007 The flimsy automatic lens cover has broken. I'm able to keep it stuck in the open position. Rather disappointing. The rest of the camera seems pretty durable though.

Update: 12-Jun-2007 The automatic lens cover has somehow fully healed itself. Over the course of two weeks of frequent use, it began to progressively return to its proper open and closed positions.

Update: 15-July-2007 The automatic lens cover has again failed. Unfortunately permanently. I've upgraded to a DMC-TZ5. It has the same lens cover mechanism -- fingers crossed.

First, I'm very picky. I carry a camera in my pocket at all times. I've been using a Canon SD400 for 2 years and an SD110 for 4 years before that. I got tired of waiting for Canon to add more zoom since 3x is not that useful. Well, the wait is over and I've left Canon. I wasn't sure but I got a 30-day money-back guarantee so I figured why not. Trust me it's not going back.

This camera has 10x optical zoom plus optical image stabilization. It has wonderful clarity and lots of controls and scene modes. Macro and movie modes are very important to me. I like to take macro shots and I've used my camera in place of a video camera for years. The macro mode is great and the movie mode is excellent. I can do a 10x zoom and get great clips. One issue is you can't zoom while shooting movies. Canon does let you zoom while shooting movies, but their picture quality goes down hill.

Another key for me is size. I carry a camera in my pocket all the time so size is important. While the TZ3 is a bit larger than the Canon SD line it still fits nicely.

This camera starts with a 28mm wide-angle lens too. This extends my creative range. The Leica lens has great clarity too. The Lithium battery lasts a good long time and the camera has a battery meter so you can see how you are doing. With my Canon I never knew until the red battery warning light went on.

One complaint is that the controls are almost perfect, but not quite. I am a serious amatuer photographer and I like control. The camera has a fast setting change mode but one control is missing from that menu - exposure mode. To go from center-spot exposure, to average, or to center weighted you have to bring up the main settings menu and the setting is buried in the middle. Oh, well. Not a huge issue.

It has a nice exposure bracket feature that's easy to set when you're not sure what exposure would be best.

The 3 inch screen is amazingly clear and the camera has a 'bright' mode which really helps in bright sun.

Tips: I usually shoot at -2/3 (have for a long time) to get more contrast and dynamic range. I also tend to shoot in 'vivid' mode for more saturation, but I've found that 'natural' mode is pretty good. Unlike another reviewer who said 'natural' was washed out.

I promptly took my new camera on vacation to Costa Rica and took close to 1000 photos and video clips on a 2GB card. I was very pleased. What more can I say? Sorry Canon. I couldn't wait any longer. 10X rules!

(P.S. I also finally decided to fully test Google's Picasa and I must say I like it a lot. At first it seemed odd, but I got over that. I no longer have to load up Photoshop to tweak my shots. I can fix the shadows, fill-flash, and hightlight to get full dynamic range and strong contrast with just a couple clicks. I can also tweak the color temperature and saturation easily too. Oh, and how about the 'straighten' tool? It's incredibly handy and it automatically zooms in to crop off the black edges. I haven't used photoshop in over a month now. PLUS you then just select the shots and upload them to Google with no limit on the number of shots or the sizes or any of those annoying limits like on Flickr. Plus the Google viewer shows the shots at the largest size the viewer's screen can handle. Plus you can easily zip through the shots with just the left and right arrows. There are so many reasons to love it. Of course, I would like more. I wish I could control the page layout for albums and set the background color for an album. It would also be nice to be able to organize the albums into groups or categories. I'll bet they add that ability eventually. You can check out some of my shots on Picasaweb. I'll put up an album of the most amazing shots there too at http://picasaweb.google.com/daniel.endy )

If only the Lumix TZ3 had the instant reactions of a much more expensive Nikon or Canon DSLR, it would be the perfect pocket camera, a worthy successor to the Leica M3, M4 or M6. As it is, the TZ3 comes really close to being the perfect digital pocket camera.

The lens is the biggest part of the story: 28mm - 280mm (35mm equivalent), a full 10x zoom that doesn't extend more than 2 inches from the body. The 28mm capability makes a huge difference. I just spent the weekend with my sweetheart and five of her sisters. From a few feet away, I could capture the whole group - a substantial change from using the 35mm equivalent focal length of most other cameras. At the telephoto end, the 280mm definitely doesn't have the reach of the 350mm of the TZ1. Too bad one can't have it all. By using a smaller portion of the sensor, you can create higher effective optical zoom extensions, with a commensurate loss of quality, though this is not as bad as with digital zoom.

The 7.2 Megapixel sensor provides adequate image quality.

While there are no explicit manual controls, you can get a great deal of flexibility from using the pre-determined "scenes" and the basic controls such as bracketing.

The TZ1 had a physical lens cover which was always a pain to deal with. You had to take it off. It dangled from a string and unless restrained, could wind up in the photograph. The TZ3 has an automatic lens cover: hooray! It also has a 3" display, which is great to work with. The brightness of the LCD can be adjusted to accomodate bright sunlight (works reasonably well) and unusual viewing angles (works quite well).

The TZ3 is smaller than the TZ1 which is good and bad. It is lighter, which is good. The camera fits neatly into a pocket, which is better than good. The automatic lens cap is wonderful and I suggest a screen protector for the LCD. The ergonomics of the TZ3, however, suffer with the reduction in physical size. The swelling on the right-hand side, which created a nice, hefty handgrip on the TZ1 has been slimmed down in a major way. A little more concious thought is now required when grasping the camera. It is also possible, as this large handed user quickly learned, to inadvertently place a finger in front of the flash.

In terms of responsiveness, the TZ3 seems to power on a little faster than the TZ1, but it still takes time. Shutter lag is reasonably short. But in an ideal world, shutter lag would be non-existent. If that were the case, the TZ3 would indeed be the best camera for street shooting since the Leica M6. The zoom is smooth, if a little slow. Autofocus at lower focal lengths is practically instantaneous in well lit situations and distressingly slow in poor lightings. At longer focal lengths, there does seem to be some hunting.

The battery is rated for approximately 270 shots. You will not appear foolish if you always carry a spare or two. Flash photography appears to quickly drain the battery. Also be careful if you decide to use 4GB SDHC cards: not all built-in laptop card readers will accept them. You may need a USB adapter such as the one supplied with this card: Sandisk 4GB Secure Digital SD HC Memory Card(SDSDB-4096, bulk) & BlueProton USB 2.0 Card Reader Writer (Blue).

Overall, the TZ3 is a great little camera. Even if you have a Nikon or Canon DSLR, you'll find yourself carrying the TZ3 far more often than you might expect. For everyday occasions and ordinary travel photography, this is an almost perfect camera with an extreme zoom, small size, light weight and enough settings to cover most situations. It is not, to be sure, a Nikon or Canon DSLR, but it is more than adequate for most tasks. By the way, video quality (640 x 480 at 30fps) is excellent.

A great piece of engineering by Panasonic.

Jerry

There isn't much more to say here. This is a superb little camera, definately worth a 10 on Cnet, not the 7.0 that their review gave it! They completely got it wrong with their rating because this camera definitely deserves at least an 8.0! On here, it also gets my 5 stars!

As far as the Pros go on this camera (28mm Wide Angle, 10x Optical Zoom, 3'' LCD, IS, Built-in Lens Cover), it's exactly as good as it sounds! Real life needs for real life situations for real people that loves superb photos and having the right camera to capture those moments.

On the Cons side (No manual controls, No zoom in Video Mode, Average Battery Life), those are practically the only things a more ADVANCED user would care about. Manual controls are mostly for expert photographers as white balance and exposure settings are already in this camera, so I don't know what else you need. Zooming in video mode isn't important to me since I don't particularly take much video footage. And I only say average battery life because I tend to look through the photos I already shot pretty often without using the power save on the LCD, therefore, that's particularly what drains the battery. However, you usually get @ 250-270 shots per charge, without frequent previewing.

Panasonic has basically taken the original TZ1 and made it even better. There's not much missing from this camera. As I've said, 28mm Wide Angle LEICA Lens, 10X Optical Zoom, 3" High Resolution Screen, Excellent Image Stabilization, etc. All this in a fairly compact camera. Panasonic has also improved the "noise" on higher ISO's. Low light performance is much better than on previous Panasonic models. The most important this is, the camera takes fantastic pictures.

Another thing I'm extremely impressed with is the construction and finish alone. Just holding it in your hands it screams quality and feels like a tank. I love it. It seriously feels like a $700 camera. No exaggeration. I was a little worried about it not being able to fit in my jean pockets before buying it. Women may have issues with really tight jeans but for us guys no problem. It fits fine. I seriously can't believe I can carry around a camera with a 10x zoom inside my jean pockets. Truly remarkable. The 3" screen is amazing. You can practically enjoy your pics right on screen without even printing them with the high resolution output. Image quality is great, and if you need extra sharpness and want that "Canon-like look," you could always use the camera on "Vivid Mode."

It's also not much bigger or heavier than your overpriced Sony's. Plus, on here, I found it for three hundred, with a high speed 1GB Panasonic card included. What's better than that?! The only accessory I have to buy now is just the DMW-CT3-K, the leather case specifically for this camera.

You really can't find the perfect digital camera, but this comes as close as you can get. Overall, I am extremely pleased. If you are looking for a great zoom camera in a small enough form factor, you should seriously consider the DMC-TZ3. This is the best compact camera I've ever owned.