Low Price Panasonic Lumix TZ8 Digital Camera – Black (12.1MP, 12x Optical Zoom) 2.7 inch LCD – On Sale
List Price: £299.00
05
Feb 2012
UK Sell Panasonic Lumix TZ8 Digital Camera – Black (12.1MP, 12x Optical Zoom) 2.7 inch LCD In Stock
Panasonic Lumix TZ8, great all-rounder,
After quite a few years, the time had come to replace our old Lumix DMC-FX3.
I fancied something with a decent zoom, HD video, wider angle lens & some control over shutter speeds etc… but also something that would give great point & shoot results in some kind of auto mode.
Prior to my Lumix FX3 I’d owned a Samsung & a Fujifilm, neither of which I particularly liked using, or the images produced. The old Lumix had done us well over it’s years, so I had no problems considering another from that line.
But things move on, so first I spoke to the salesman @ our local Jessops to advise that I was possibly looking for a TZ10 (which they didn’t stock) & asked for valid alternatives.
The suggestions were the Canon SX210 & the Nikon S8000. I was allowed to play with both & take test pictures inside & outside the store.
The Canon seemed to tick all the features & from what I saw during my play, the zoom was very strong. But for a Camera of that price, it just felt cheap & the image stabilization seemed to be struggling with my shaky hand on anything above 9x or 10x (salesman assured me that IS was turned on??). I just didn’t warm to it.
The Nikon actually felt good in my hand, although it’s looks are a talking point. Not quite as strong in the zoom dept, but it felt rugged & would stand up to an accidental drop no worries. Didn’t seem to have problems with my shaky hand either.
On the verge of buying the Nikon, a frank & honest discussion with the salesman led to him telling me that the Lumix TZ range was pretty much the market leader. He wasn’t sure if he’d personally pay an extra £100+ for a TZ10 over the Nikon S8000, but if they were the same price, he’d find it hard to argue against the Panasonic.
So, I decided to go home & see if I could buy a TZ10 for S8000 money on the net. I couldn’t. But when I looked further in to the TZ range I realised that I did not need a TZ10. I had no requirement for GPS tagging & the additional burden on the battery that it brings & was very unlikely to be making video recordings of 30mins in 1 scene. The TZ8 would produce the same images for me & was in the S8000 price territory.
I’ve now had the TZ8 a few weeks, and the images produced are fantastic in my opinion. I am struggling to find a negative to say about it. Image quality has been great on indoor or outdoor shots, light or dark, from centre to edge. Very easy to use, whether in full auto or manual mode.
For video, the documentation advises that a Class 6 SDHC card is required. I read on here about 1 or 2 people complaining about video capture due to having the card that Amazon recommend (class 2 Sandisk). I purchased a Kingston 16Gb class 4 SDHC card & have had no issues whatsover with write speeds on video capture.
If I were to really try and pick negatives… then I’d say that if capturing video on full optical zoom during motion/panning, the stabilization software can seem to get a bit confused & produces a jitter-like effect. So I find that keeping movement/panning video capture at around 9x zoom or lower eliminates this jitter.
The lens movement could be a little bit quicker, but, these are just minor points to what I feel is a great all-round camera.
Very glad I made this purchase.
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|So far so excellent!,
I’ve had this camera for a couple of weeks now, and have not yet fully explored everything, but thought I’d start a review and then update it at a later date, once I really know the camera.
What I was looking for
I wanted a replacement for my Sony DSC H9 which was beginning to fail me. I have an SLR but like to have a smaller camera for the times I don’t want to lug a dead weight around with me. I was looking for good image quality, big zoom, manual controls and something that I could put in my pocket rather than carry round my neck.
The ones I didn’t buy
I read several reviews and was tempted by the following, but:
TZ7 – Controls poorly designed, no manual settings.
TZ10 – More expensive and has GPS which eats up battery power and apparently has to be switched off every time you switch the camera on if you don’t want it!
Both of the above have a better LCD screen and better movie options, but this wasn’t a concern for me.
Canon Powershot SX200 – Annoying pop-up flash, no histogram, possibly poorer image quality (depending on which review you read).
What I like about the TZ8
Very nice to handle: quite small, solidly built, pleasing design. The on/off switch moves sideways, rather than being a button, so you won’t switch the camera on or off by mistake. I like the record/review switch on the back, too.
Image quality excellent, pictures remain sharp unless you really wobble when taking pictures. Macro shots also sharp and detailed. The high sensitiviy mode produced very natural colours in incandescent light, which can be a problem with some cameras.
Massive zoom seems to work well, even the boosted e-zoom.
What I haven’t yet established
There are lots of different options when it comes to auto functions, including an endless array of scene modes. I’m not convinced these make a lot of difference, though for example the the “pinhole” option does obviously alter the image quite a lot. The “intelligent auto” does seem to work well; for example identifying a macro or landscape shot by itself. Is the resulting image better than if you leave the camera on “P”? I don’t know yet.
Small things that annoy me
If you want to use intelligent auto and shoot at 3:2 aspect ratio, you have to use the full 11+ megapixels, unlike all the other modes which allow you to do this at around 5 MP.
The zoom lever is a tad over-eager, though I’m learning to use it very gently so the camera doesn’t immediately launch into 12x zoom.
The printed instructions supplied with the camera are very sparing indeed. The full manual is a pdf file on a CD, which is very irritating.
A replacement battery costs over £30 as third party manufacturers haven’t cracked the code yet. Really mean of Panasonic.
***UPDATE 20/04/10
Discovered that my Sandisk 8GB SDHC doesn’t work for movie mode – seems it’s not fast enough, so will only record a few seconds before being overwhelmed. Can’t see this mentioned in the manual, Panasonic should make it clear what type of memory is required.***
Features I would have liked
RAW capability
Optical viewfinder
Remote control
All in all this is proving to be a great camera which I would recommend to anyone looking at the same criteria as me.
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|Short & Quick,
I’m an awful photographer, however I’ve just return from a trip to China and so many people have commented on how professional my photos look!
This camera does all the hard work! To keep it short & quick:
- Pocket size
- Simple to use
- Great design/layout/screen size
- Loads of extra features
- Fantastic battery life – I only charged it twice over 4 weeks!
- Simple to move photos on PC
The only thing I regret is not buying it from Amazon as I paid slightly more. I also personally prefer the black (Panasonic Lumix TZ8 Digital Camera (12.1MP, 12x Optical Zoom) 2.7 inch LCD – Black) as I think it has a slightly more professional look.
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