Bestseller Panasonic Lumix TZ20 Digital Camera – Black (14.1MP MOS, 16x Optical Zoom) 3 inch Touchscreen LCD – Review
- Super Zoom Digital Camera
- 16x Optical Zoom LEICA DC Lens
- 3D Photo Shooting Capability
- 3″ Intuitive Touch-Screen
- Megapixels: 14.1
List Price: £369.99
#1 by MICEWalker on September 5, 2011 - 4:18 am
Using the TZ-20,
I bought this item with a certain amount of trepidation in view of some of the reviews online, but I wanted that Leica zoom lens. I need not have worried. The camera is superb in almost every respect. The pictures I get are clear, sharp, colourful and lend themselves easily to printing at A4 (I haven’t tried larger as my printer is limited to A4!)without any sign of problems. The zoom range is fantastic for such a small camera and the wide-angle is wider than on most other cameras. The image stabilizer is really useful in windy conditions when you are trying to do a handheld shot standing still, the images are pinsharp. The exposure control for bracketing is really useful, so is the autofocus tracking. Time from switch on to first picture take is very quick and when you press the shutter button it takes the picture, you don’t have to wait! I have also tried the movie option and that is good in HD mode and has taken some great clips of model railways in darkish halls at the shows. If you want a downside – the GPS facility, whilst useful is a trifle slow; so you need to give it time to find location before taking a shot – no problem with landscapes, but less useful if you need to make a quick snap. In short BUY IT, in my opinion it is fabulous for a compact camera.
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|#2 by Zivos on September 5, 2011 - 4:54 am
Impressive set of features but shockingly poor image quality in low light,
Since I bought my first Lumix TZ3 exactly 3 years ago I’ve became a Lumix fan. Hence, I was very excited when the TZ20 came out on March 2011 as I felt it was the right time to upgrade to this new and promising model. I had high expectations from this model and actually it ticked all boxes but one – Image quality. Acknowledging the speedy startup, fast auto focus, Wide 24mm angle, super zoom and HD video this camera still fails when it comes to Image quality which is the most important feature on a compact camera. Taking pictures in direct sunlight is a joy as photo’s are crisp and colours are good (as they should be on a premium compact camera). Any other scenario where ISO is above 100 (be it a cloudy day, evening or indoors) the camera shows excessive noise and image quality is generally terrible. I wouldn’t recommend this camera to anyone who actually needs a camera which could provide good outputs in versatile scenarios. I’m currently looking at the Sony HX9 and Nikon S9100 which shares many of the TZ20 features but might perform better in low light.
Update: I have just concluded my testing on the Nikon S9100 and the Sony HX9 and found my match…
The two great features of the Nikon are the optical zoom (18x ) and the special effects. The image stabilizer is useless when using the zoon to its full length (Video capturing). Image quality is slightly better in low light than the Panasonic but still a bit disappointing when one acknowledges that this is Nikon’s flagship camera. In all other aspects it was inferior to the Sony and the Panasonic.
The Sony is undoubtedly the winner this time round. Same specs as the TZ20 but superior image quality comparing to the other two. I’ve took pictures and videos in low light with and without zoom – what a difference. For example, I’ve took it to the Summer Solstice in Stonehenge this week and was able to produce crisp images at the crack of dawn without using a flash – hats off for Sony. I was also very impressed by the Intelligent Sweep Panorama feature – very useful when trying to capture landscape or big crowds in the landscape (Stonehenge again …) .Video quality is better than the Panasonic – especially indoors or during night-shot. Battery run time was also very good. The only area where I felt the Panasonic was superior to the Sony was around Macro. Although sharing the same minimal focal length of 24mm, the Panasonic was able to focus on objects a bit closer than the Sony – disappointing but not a showbreaker for me.
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|#3 by Night Reader "caty" on September 5, 2011 - 5:20 am
Fantastic Camera 5******,
My husband has the TZ5 Model of this camera and i thought that was great but i wanted the newer version. Wow Wow Wow!!!!!! It is brilliant. The photos are superb quality (my daughter wants one because of this reason). There is so many extras on this fab camera, HD, Video GPS and so much more. I would reccomend this camera to anyone and everyone. I love it. It is the best camera i have ever had and although the price seems high i think it is worth every penny. Best Camera Ever!!!!
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