Just Posted: Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS15/TZ25 Review: Digital Photography Review

Just Posted: Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS15/TZ25 Review

Published Jun 29, 2012 | Jeff Keller

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DPR staff (2)

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louroll

In the "travel zoom" category, it would be useful to have a review of the Fuji F750 EXR/770EXR, which is briefly quoted in this review. They have been released end 2011, early 2012, and it does not appear that a DP Review was done on them, while it would be interesting to compare their features and quality with those of their pairs.

Jul 3, 2012permalink

DonInPgh

I am a fan of Jeff Keller... on the dcresource.com page. Not here. I don't come here to read Jeff's reviews. I like to compare reviews from more than one source and warming over his reviews and posting them here as "collaborated" is pretty lame and shows a lack of effort on dpreview.com's part, as well as a lack of care overall about the quality and relevance of this site. First of all the worthless filler used to compensate for the lack of reviews, now you can't even be bothered to produce reviews. There was once a day when you reviewed every interesting camera, or camera of relevance. Not anymore!

One needs look no further than Kodak to see what happens when brands start a slow decline, and from my sitting spot the dpreview.com brand is damaged from what it was a few years ago and heading downhill. What a site it was! I come here mostly for the forums these days.

Jun 30, 2012permalink

Barney Britton

Your comments are grossly unfair not only to Jeff, but to the in-house staff at dpreview. In the past, cameras like this would simply not have been reviewed. If you look at the reviews page:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews

You'll see that we've reviewed a lot of equipment in 2012, and in the next couple of weeks we'll have a review of the Nikon D3200, Fujifilm X10, followed by the new Canon EOS 650D/T4i....

Please don't insult what is a very small team of reviewers by telling us that we're not doing our jobs.

Jul 1, 2012permalink

Tee1up

In my experience there is no better photography resource on the planet. Over the last 2 years I've been able to remove more and more other links from my favorites list because of this site. Your comments are myopic and the criticism is not justified.

Jul 2, 2012permalink

Effzeeone

"Your comments are grossly unfair not only to Jeff, but to the in-house staff at dpreview. In the past, cameras like this would simply *not have been reviewed*."

That's when and why we, as users/customers, simply go to Jeff's site and give him the visit statistics, which is appropriate since it is his review, and he typically does review this type of camera.

"Please don't insult what is a very small team of reviewers by telling us that we're not doing our jobs."

It is extremely inappropriate/unprofessional to tell your customers not to provide negative feedback about your services. As customers of this site, customers of the owner's site (Amazon), and customers of any advertising on this site, we should be allowed to provide whatever feedback we want. If you don't like what you hear, then improve -- that's your job.

I'm very disappointed to see such a response from DPReview staff.

Jul 12, 2012permalink

Realll

I would like to thank DP for this review. I have TZ25 and I totally agree that it is great little camera. My pixel peeping shows that it is definitely better than TZ31 and at least as good as SX230/260 which I own too. I'm happy with my new camera and I think it has very good low-light performance ( which is very important to me). Well done Panasonic, well done DP.

Jun 30, 2012permalink

Rachotilko

My conclusion after pixelpeeping the DPR's studio shots: ZS15/TZ25 has the better overall IQ then any other Panasonic travelzooms present in the comparison (TZ8, TZ10, TZ18, TZ20, TZ30). Especially at ISO800.

Comparing with ZS3/TZ8 at ISO800, the output of ZS15/TZ25 exhibits much less sharpening halos/artefacts, much less colour bleeding and much less pronounced chroma blotches.

Jun 30, 2012permalink

Menneisyys

"Comparing with ZS3/TZ8 at ISO800, the output of ZS15/TZ25 exhibits much less sharpening halos/artefacts, much less colour bleeding and much less pronounced chroma blotches."

You meant ZS5 (TZ8), not the ZS3 (TZ7). The latter is still - along with the ZS5/ZS7 - the best of the Pana compact travelzoom ZS series, apart from its dismal AF speed, weak IS and 720p only video (also having a pretty bad H.264 encoder).

I've directly compared the ZS5 to the ZS15 at base IQ and 400 too. The ZS15 fared considerably better in both cases.

Jun 30, 2012*permalink

Lupti

Please look for another writer than Jeff Keller. I miss the old DPreview reviews that were objective and prosy instead full of gushing praise. I have the TZ25 and it is by no means a good camera. Build quality is bad, and IQ is far from good. Look at the ISO100 samples, you will clearly see that these images look slightly smudgy due to massive NR. And you can´t change NR, sharpness, contrast or anything else in the camera, you only have the choice between standard and "vivid" look(beside Sepia and B/W). Also I think the price premium of the "bigger brother" is it worth as the TZ31 not only has longer zoom, better movie capabilites and GPS(IMHO useless) but also a slightly better IQ, however as the TZ31 also hasn´t the best IQ I would rather recommend looking for remaining stock of TZ10/ZS7 as this camera has MUCH better build quality, better IQ with adjustable settings and no rolling shutter in movie mode.

Jun 29, 2012permalink

Barney Britton

The point here is that compared to its peers the ZS15 performs very well, and as you can see from our studio comparison page, it gives slightly superior image quality across its ISO span at a pixel level than the more expensive ZS20. We're not in the business of 'gushing praise' but we have to compare a product sensibly, in the context of our expectations of its class. I think Jeff has done that.

Jun 29, 2012permalink

Lupti

Superior IQ compared to ZS20? Strangely my observations are different. I have both cameras(got them free for testing) and the ZS20 is clearly better. And there are better cameras from the competition. And no hard feelings, but the writing style is too enthusiastic, I prefer DPreviews old writing style. It isn´t even a real DPreview review, it is from another site just with some DPreview details like the chart added. Why that as DPreview has more staff than ever?

Jun 30, 2012permalink

Menneisyys

"Superior IQ compared to ZS20? Strangely my observations are different. I have both cameras(got them free for testing) and the ZS20 is clearly better."

Well, after carefully comparing the ZS20 to the ZS15 in the comparometer, I think the former is a little bit (but not much!) worse up to 1600. It's only at 3200 that the ZS20 is considerably worse. Interestingly, there is almost no difference at base ISO.

In this regard, it's way better than, say, Sony's HX9V (also offered as one of the default cameras in the comparometer), which smears away details very agressively even at base ISO - and both Pana cameras are slightly worse than the Canon 260HS at ISO 400. (The Canon delivers better resolution.)

Jun 30, 2012permalink

Realll

I don't know what kind of comparison did you make but the fact that TZ25 has better IQ even at base ISO is too obvious for my eyes... The watch, the coins and the texture details is definitely better than TZ30's. Even at ISO 100 and more visibly at all ISO above 400. Just take a brief look at the label "NI-MH" on the batteries in the left corner at ISO100-400. You sould be blind to not see the difference...

Jul 1, 2012*permalink

putomax

both videos are interlaced which is fine as it's the camera MTS output, but IMHO should have been deinterlaced (something vimeo player does not) for internet watching purposes, as once you do that IQ is completely different, positively, also smother.
thanks for the collaborative review

gashô

Jun 29, 2012permalink

Menneisyys

These files aren't technically interlaced as they're based on 30p sensor output (and not 60i/60p) - they're progressive segmented frames ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_segmented_frame ). Therefore, no deinterlacing is needed, unlike with true interlaced content.

Jun 30, 2012permalink

ARTASHES

Bit surprised from lab test shots it's isn't as good as FZ150 having less "intelligent" NR,
still it's funny to see how different are NR algorithms and amounts at highest ISOs between ZS15 and ZS20,
PS still persuaded that ZS15 uses Sony sensor cutted down with bit worse jpeg engine that FZ150 has

Jun 29, 2012*permalink

Rachotilko

Well, I think it is the lens. NR algoritms can get fooled dramaticaly by optical imperfections of the lens.

Look at ISO100 images, FZ150 is sharper in corners than the travelzooms, as expected. ZS20's *corners* are even softer.

My opinion is that travelzooms are quite nice camera category, but their transfocation ought to be limited to 25-300mm eq, as the TZ6/TZ7/TZ8 used to be.

Outside this range the inevitable optical compromises kill the concept.

Jun 30, 2012permalink

SarahAlex

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Jul 2, 2012permalink

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Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS15/TZ25 Review Jun 29, 2012	Panasonic goes that bit further with DMC-ZS20 and ZS15 travel zooms Jan 31, 2012	Canon EOS Rebel T6i Review Jun 23, 2015	Samsung Galaxy S6 / S6 Edge camera review Jun 16, 2015


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