Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ30 - Long Range View

Introduction

As the cameras on mobile phones start to sport more advanced optics and cram more megapixels in their sensors, digital compact cameras not only need to outdo the competition in terms of specifications, but also in terms of size, as well as ease of use. One of the few areas compact cameras have an advantage over cameraphones is the former's ability to pack a lens with real optical zoom. And surprisingly, despite the miniaturization trend of digital compact cameras, many manufacturers still managed to find a way to incorporate ever-increasing zoom range lenses into their cameras.

Panasonic’s super zoom compact digital cameras (fondly categorized by many simply as 'superzooms') have always been a popular choice among consumers, especially as a do-it-all travel camera. Thus, it came as no surprise when a successor to the popular DMC-TZ20 was announced earlier this year. While the TZ20 housed an impressive 16x optical zoom lens, its successor outdoes it with a 20x optical zoom lens. Is this enough to earn it a permanent spot in your travel duffel bag? Join us as we find out what other tricks this camera has up its sleeves.

Design & Handling

Panasonic has always taken the more conservative route when it comes to their camera design, and the TZ30 definitely sports a fairly mundane appearance. We are glad to find out that the body is made from metal, and thus feels durable and solid in the hand. The TZ30 also sports a grip at the front of its body, which is meant to help with holding the camera with one hand. The top plate of the camera reveals that Panasonic has decided to go with a power switch rather than a button, which we feel does help in preventing the camera from being powered on by accident when thrown in a bag. Besides the power switch, a zoom lever, video record button, and mode dial can also be found. The mode dial is placed off-center instead of the usual top right corner that many other cameras do. However, this position, as well as its small size made the mode dial awkward to use at times.

Turning the camera to its back will reveal a d-pad for navigation; and above it, a button which allows for adjustment of exposure (this allows for adjustment of aperture value and shutter speed in manual mode), and for viewing the map (you see, the TZ30 has a built-in GPS receiver) in playback mode. Right below the D-pad you have a button for toggling the display on or off, and a button to access the Quick menu. The buttons on the TZ30's rear are small, probably in part to the space the LCD touchscreen occupies. We do wish that the d-pad is larger though, as there were times we pressed the Menu button in the middle of the d-pad by accident.

And at the top right of the back plate is a switch to toggle between recording and playback mode. We really question the need for a switch instead of a playback button for if the switch is set to playback mode, pressing the shutter button does nothing and this will cause you to miss shots. And last but not least, there’s the 3-inch touchscreen. The screen is bright, providing good visibility even when we were outdoors. One convenient feature of the touchscreen is that it actually allows you to set the AF point by just touching it.

The menu system in the TZ30 is easy to navigate, especially with the aid of the Quick Menu button. It's a button Panasonic has included in their compacts that brings up a list of frequently used shooting settings such as ISO sensitivity and white balance. In our experience, once you have done the initial setup for the camera's settings, you will most likely be using the Quick Menu button more often than the Menu button.

Features & Performance

The 14.1-megapixel TZ30 features PASM modes, something advanced users will appreciate. Even if you're the point-and-shot type, it's good to know when you're ready to go on to the next level of digital photography, the semi-automatic and manual modes are already there. With the option to manually adjust shooting settings, the TZ30 offers a wealth of creative options to budding shutterbugs. The aperture value goes from f/3.3 to f/8, while shutter speed ranges from 15 seconds to 1/2000 of a second. If you like, you can save four sets of custom camera settings to the C1 and C2 modes on the mode dial.

The TZ30 sports a 20x optical zoom lens; this gives a much further reach than the TZ20's 16x zoom lens (or 480mm vs. 384mm in 35mm equivalent). The focal length at the widest end remains at 24mm, which is great for indoor shots. While the LCD boosts of a 460K-dot resolution, somehow it didn't look very sharp to us. There were a couple of times when we found ourselves not too impressed with what we were looking at on the screen, but a quick transfer of the files to our PC and then viewing the photos on a proper monitor told us a different story. In general, colors are vivid, in tune with the tastes of most point-and-shoot users. Even at its maximum 20x zoom, the image stabilization of the TZ30 did a good job of ensuring a sharp enough image. Naturally, your mileage may vary, depending on how steady you can keep your hands in the first place.

Autofocus was found to be speedy, though not as extreme as the 0.1 second that Panasonic claims its Light Speed AF is capable of. As with most cameras, AF tends to be slower at a longer zoom range. To ensure that you get the shot you wanted, we recommend using either the 5fps burst mode (that has AF tracking between exposures) or the 10fps mode (but focus is fixed). You can also shoot at 60fps, but the photos are recorded at a lower resolution. All in all, we are pretty satisfied with the performance of the TZ30. Our main gripes are that the camera tends to underexpose images slightly, and images appear a tad soft in general. The latter could be because noise reduction is at work even at low ISO settings.

In our resolution test, the camera managed to obtain a pretty impressive score of 2,200 LPH (both horizontal and vertical). Noise became more of an issue from ISO400.

Sample Photos

These are sample photographs shot with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ30. The photos have not been post-processed and are copyright to SPH Magazines. They are provided for your reference only and we ask that you do not reproduce them elsewhere. Click for the full-resolution images.

Conclusion

Despite its very small size, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ30 features a very useful 20x optical zoom lens, making it an ideal camera to bring on your travels. Controls are generally well-thought out, though we feel the mode dial is too small, and should probably have been shifted more to the right instead of being placed slightly off-center. We also feel that the buttons and d-pad on the TZ30 are too small in general, and would have provided a better user experience if only they were larger. That said, there aren't too many buttons on the TZ30 to begin with, and we reckon you'd be using the touchscreen for most of the time.

The image stabilization does its job well enough that it’s possible to get non-blurry images at the longest end of the TZ30’s zoom range. Autofocus is very quick, and the TZ30 sports PASM modes which will appeal to those who prefer to experiment with aperture values and shutter speeds to get the perfect shot. While noise only starts to become obvious at ISO 400, things get downhill pretty fast from there. While there aren't a lot of dots and speckles at low ISO settings, we found the images to still be slightly soft. A possible explanation is that noise reduction is still being applied at this level. While this may be an issue for pixel peepers, we think most casual users won't even notice it. Another gripe we have is that the 460K-dot LCD screen isn't as sharp as we'd like - this becomes more apparent when we compared it to more recent compacts that are touting 610K-dot screens.

Overall, we have no qualms recommending the TZ30 as a travel companion. It's small, packed full of features (GPS, 10fps, 1080p video recording, etc.), and is yet fairly easy to use. Yes, it's photo quality could have been better, but it's on the whole good enough for the type of users this camera is targeted at.

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