My old Sony P200 (only 2 1/2 years old so not much) was a good camera for me but had developed some dead pixel issues that meant every picture needed cleaning up before publishing. Not that I need an excuse to upgrade gadgets but that was good enough for me to try the Panasonic TZ5. I’ve had it for over a week now so thought it was time to publish some thoughts so far.
The camera is a pretty typical point and shoot but has a couple of key features that really appealed to me. It has a 10x optical zoom which for a camera this size is very nice to have. It also shoots 720p video which while I don’t intend doing a lot of is still a plus point compared to other camera’s at this price point. It also allows you to shoot pictures in 16:9 format which is also a useful feature.
Build Quality
The camera feels good in the hand. One handed use is very comfortable and there’s a nice grip strip at the front of the camera. The zoom controls surround the shutter which makes it really quick to zoom, focus and take a picture. However there a couple of things I don’t like. Firstly the main control dial feels a bit cheap compared to the rest of the camera. It’s like a bit of plastic stuck on to the camera and doesn’t give much feedback when used. Worse is the lens cover. While it looks quite substantial if you give it a poke you realise its very flimsy indeed. A camera case or a secondary lens cover is essential which is a shame as the camera doesn’t come with one as standard. The rest of the controls are well positioned and I really like the large screen. Clarity is excellent even in daylight. One other negative - the microphone quality is shocking. I’d go as far to say useless. Thankfully thats the main negatives out of the way.
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Photo editing has arrived at Flickr. It makes use of Picnik and having a play around this morning it looks very easy to use and pretty feature rich. You can easily edit any photo, add effects, play with contrast and colours, resize and crop and also apply an ‘auto fix’.
It’s nice to have these tools online as opposed to on your computer. Not all photo’s need Aperture or Lightroom and it’s great you can do this editing from anywhere while easily saving results within Flickr. I wonder if it works on the iPhone?
Flickr added some new features over the last day or so, one of which combines my love of stats and technology. Firstly the two mundane updates. They’ve updated their Flickr mobile site (http://m.flickr.com) making it easier to type and use while adding some new options. This feature hasn’t changed in ages so it’s nice to see it getting some attention.
Also new is ‘Guest Pass’. Invite up to 50 other guests to view your friends and family pictures. A great way to invite non Flickr members to see your photo’s. The nice part of this feature is that you are in control of who gets the pass, what they can see and how long they have access for. Finally onto the geek feature.
Using Camera Finder you can see the most popular camera’s in use at Flickr and also find photo’s from actual users of the camera your thinking of buying. What better way of confirming a good review than seeing other people’s results for yourself. Whats nice is that browsing through each camera (my DSC-P200 for example) you can filter not only interesting shots but also from a range including macro, night and landscape. Great to see what each camera can be capable off in the right hands.
Flickr’s use of photo metadata is really smart - it will be interesting to see how new camera’s affect the charts over time and also what other stats and search options can be added to Flickr. Can it get better? Yes! Subsets please! While I’m alkinh photo’s, interesting post on The Truth about Digital Camera’s - comments also worth a read.
