8 out of 8 people found this review helpful.
S L O W to turn on but good pix
Date of Review: Jun 4, 2006
The Bottom Line: No viewfinder. Slow shutter/lag speed. Good color saturation with flash/light. Easy to use controls. Good zoom range.
Below is the ad copy you ll receive from the Panasonic website on the camera:
6x Optical Zoom in a Compact Camera
The DMC-LZ5 combines a compact, easy-to-carry size with a powerful 6x optical zoom lens - equivalent to a 37 to 222mm lens on a 35mm camera - for dynamic closeups or great shots from a distance. The Extended Optical Zoom function, which magnifies the image with minimal deterioration by using the center part of the high-resolution CCD, boosts the zoom power to 8.3x1 in 3-megapixel images.
Ok, now for my comments:
1. There is significant shutter lag. Boot up time is almost 5 seconds and it takes nearly 4 seconds to recycle which is slow for a camera of this price.
2. Uses double A batteries. They last a fairly long time but make sure you bring extras with you in case you re taking more than a few pictures. Rechargeable batteries don t last as long but they are good for the environment as well as the pocketbook. By using the Oxyride batteries, the manufacturer claims you can get about 250 shots with the camera. However, when you have the camera and LCD on, considerable battery power is used. Also, note that the zoom feature also sucks down the battery power.
3. Lens is good. There is a nice zoom to it, equivalent on a 35mm to 37 222 mm which is excellent.
4. Exposures are decent, sometimes the image lacked sharpness.
5. Color in flash and daylight are good, nicely saturated.
6. A bit heavy, weighs about 7 oz. which is a lot for a smaller camera.
7. LCD is a good size, 2.5 but will solarize when viewed at an angle. You need to look straight through it. Too bad there is no viewfinder. Using the LCD to take pictures also sucks down battery life.
8. Menu using the camera straightforward. As this is not a tiny camera, it is nice that you don t need a magnifying glass to get to buttons or to look at the screen.
9. Small amount of built in memory. You get 14mb which will give you more than a few shots stored. Don t forget to load them to the hard drive of your computer. As memory cards are so inexpensive (this one uses an SD card), get one or two to store the images.
Additional Features
There are a few more additional features to the camera. Again, you can go to their website (Panasonic.com) to read more particulars about them.
1. Taking hand movement out of the picture with MEGA optical image stabilization this feature is useful as there is NO viewfinder to this camera! People tend to get jiggly pictures when looking through the LCD. This helps to avoid this from happening.
2. High sensitivity mode helps reduce motion blur when using this feature, resolution does decrease. However, it works nicely with lower shutter speeds. You ll get acceptable 4 x 6 prints.
3. Widescreen 16:9 mode for panoramic images if you want those ultra-wide screen images, this feature is kind of cool. (It also uses up a LOT of paper).
4. 5 auto focus modes. Read the manual on this, these are some nice features to help you work with the camera and to optimize the results. They claim to have a fast reboot time, but additional time is necessary for the auto focus modes.
Bottom line:
Despite the slow boot up and lag time, the pictures are more than acceptable. The menu is user friendly and easy to learn without having to read the instruction book. Controls are nicely laid out on the back of the camera and are easy to use.
