The modest Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ5 tops Panasonic's midrange line of compact, 6x-zoom snapshot cameras; its 6-megapixel resolution and AU$90 are all that differentiate it from its 5-megapixel sibling, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ3. Both incorporate a 37mm to 222mm (35mm equivalent) Leica lens, optical image stabilisation, and numerous ways to control image capture, though they lack manual exposure modes. The DMC-LZ5 fares moderately well in bright environments, but poor performance and average photo quality lessen the allure of this attractively priced model.
Design
Little about its design distinguishes the fairly standard-looking Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ5 from its competitors in the crowded sub-AU$600 digital camera market. Compact but not ultra thin, the DMC-LZ5 fits easily in a coat pocket or a purse. In addition to its mundane aesthetic, its 186 gram, matte-plastic body feels cheap compared to that of metal-bodied competitors. A 2.5-inch LCD dominates the back of the camera, with no viewfinder in sight. A standard four-way-plus-OK button pad for navigating the menus and the shooting options sits next to the screen. The mode dial and the zoom rocker sit on top of the camera, along with a dedicated image-stabilisation button. Despite the numerous controls on the surface, the DMC-LZ5 buries many of its features under a menu system that's easy but tedious to use, especially when you want to shoot quickly.
Features
Panasonic loads the 6-megapixel Lumix DMC-LZ5 with useful but sometimes quirky features designed with real-world shooting situations in mind. It pairs a relatively fast (f/2.8 to f/4.5), long lens (the equivalent of 37mm to 222mm) with Panasonic's signature Mega Optical Image Stabilisation to keep telephoto shots from blurring too much. The camera has 15 scene modes, including a unique Starry Sky option that lets you choose exposure times of 15, 30, or 60 seconds for astrophotography. Oddly, that last mode forces the camera to start a self-timer with a countdown equal to the exposure time.
You can adjust the camera's white-balance settings manually or even fine-tune them, as on a digital SLR. The camera also has standard preset settings such as Automatic and Halogen, usually referred to as Incandescent or Tungsten on other cameras. Unfortunately, the camera lacks a fluorescent white-balance preset.
The DMC-LZ5's five autofocus settings include a wide five-point array and a narrow spot mode. A live histogram helps you see what an exposure will look like, though the camera's low-resolution LCD renders it relatively useless.
Panasonic incorporates other small conveniences as well, such as grid lines that it displays on the screen to aid composition and a High Angle LCD mode that brightens the screen for easier viewing in above-your-head shots. The camera also has 14MB of built-in memory, although you'll want a decent-size Secure Digital card if you want to take more than a handful of shots at a time or capture movies in 30fps VGA. The camera uses two AA batteries for easy battery swapping.
Performace
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ5 disappoints when it comes to performance. It takes three seconds to wake up and has a long shutter lag of about a second. Shooting feels even more sluggish at telephoto distances, where the autofocus takes a long time to lock on to simple targets. Panasonic claims the technology will add three stops of handheld shooting latitude, but in our tests, it delivered only about one stop. The DMC-LZ5's mediocre 2.6-second shot-to-shot time doubles to an even worse 5.2 seconds when you use the camera's built-in flash. For some odd reason, the LCD blacks out while the flash recycles.
Continuous-shooting performance fares better. The DMC-LZ5 has two burst modes: a high-speed mode that achieved 3fps in our CNET Labs tests, and a low-speed burst that tested at 1.6fps. A slower but unlimited continuous mode shoots until your memory card runs out of space.
Unfortunately, the LCD has a low resolution of 85,000 pixels, and we experienced noticeable motion trails when framing our shots.
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Typical shot-to-shot time | |
Time to first shot | |
Shutter lag (typical) |
Image quality
Image quality in good light is the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ5's strength. Well-lit shots have a very pleasing look, with natural, accurate colour rendition and very few JPEG-compression artefacts. While the camera tends to underexpose sometimes and burn out highlights other times, flesh tones are very neutral and colours seem to pop with just the right amount of contrast and saturation. Those wanting to customise the colour look can select a Vivid picture setting with increased saturation and sharpening.
The DMC-LZ5 has pretty typical lens geometry for a compact model. There's a bit of vignetting, the darkening and softening of the corners of the image frame at the wide end of the lens's range, but it's negligible at the telephoto end. There's some barrel distortion at the wide end but little pincushioning when zoomed out. However, focus falls off sharply on the left side, which aggravates the otherwise modest amount of chromatic aberration, the coloured fringing often seen around heavily backlit objects, such as bare branches against a sky. However, photos look relatively sharp overall, especially in macro shots.
Flash performance is disappointing, with indoor pictures often coming out flat and unattractive. The sensor is extremely noisy at high sensitivities, making low-light shots all but impossible. Shots at ISO 80 and 100 are tolerable, but at ISO 200, images start to show noticeable noise and softness. ISO 400 shots have excessive noise as well as image problems such as softness, lower contrast and colour shift. Extended ISO settings of 800 and 1,600 are available, but noise above ISO 400 makes them all but unusable.
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nickn7
17/03/2006, 06:58 AM
Needs an optical viewfinder.
The DMC-LZ5 is a well built camera, however, it has 2 major flaws.
1) the LCD display is practically useless for outdoor photography in
bright sunlight.
2) The lens is not a Leica and
the edges of most photos are blurred and out of focus.
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