Panasonic TZ1 as travel cam?

I am seriously considering replacing my Olympus C-765 with the panasonic TZ1. However, I find it interesting that the TZ1 is billed as a "travel" camera. I always prefered a camera with a 28mm lens as a travel camera to capture more of a scene in one picture.

You do have a point; however, with the availablilty of good pano stitching programs, a TZ-1 can go as wide as you wish.

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I tried the panorama feature on my oly c-765, and it takes some practice and it is a little cumbersome. It is not as easy as pointing the camera at Big Ben, snapping one picture, and moving on.

Of course it all depends upon one's individual preferences. I generally interpret the phrase "travel cam" to mean one that crams a lot into a small package and that typically also makes some compromises in image quality to achieve compactness.

This description seems to fit the TZ1 very well. I think it's a great outdoor camera (if used in "natural" mode instead of "standard" or "vivid") but it's noisier than I'd like. I'm taking mine with me on a (mostly work) trip to Boston for week and will see how it does.

If your travel includes a lot of opportunities for indoor photography, then it might not be a good choice for you.

My review:

http://bellman.cs.duke.edu/~parr/tz1/

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Ron Parr
Digital Photography FAQ: http://www.cs.duke.edu/~parr/photography/faq.html
Gallery: http://www.pbase.com/parr/

You will find that as a travel camera you will use the long end of the TZ1 a lot. 35mm is a compromise to get to 10X in a small camera.

Most of the small point and shoot cameras with 28mm at the wide end are only 3 or 4X zooms. I use a wideangle converter on mine but even without that I would still choose the TZ1 as an ideal travel camera.

As a “travel” camera, I meant a camera to use while traveling on a vacation. I was very interested by the comments regarding the indoor picture quality of the TZ1, because the biggest problem I have with the c-765 is bad indoor quality. I know it has been discussed on many threads, but perhaps the best option is the R4, with a 28mm to about 7x optical zoom. But, I read the quality of pictures from that camera can be noisy.

The TZ1 is a great "travel" camera, because it enables a wide number of subjects to be tackled, by always being available. I find that the wide angle question is dealt with by taking however many shots are needed, then processing using ArcSoft Panorama Maker. It is a superb piece of software, and comes on the supplied CD.

Just have a look at the quality, and variety, of the pictures posted on this forum by TZ1 users. My "other" camera is a Konica Minolta A2, and I can see it being used less and less. It is a superb camera, but cannot compete in the portabiity/usability stakes with the TZ1.

I have only had mine since the end of May, and have posted some pics here

http://www.pbase.com/dlporter/tz1

The fact that they are mostly travel pictures are purely because I wanted a camera to take with me on my last holiday, that I could carry in a pocket of my shorts. I now take it with me virtually all of the time, including to work. From the shots we see on the forum it looks as if the TZ1 is allowing many others to do the same.

Cheers

Don

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Made from 3 handheld shots, stitched with Panorama Maker from Arcsoft:



I've never seemed to need "Panorama assist" features; I simply remember to make sure I'm allowing about a 20% overlap between panels I shoot. All of the panos I've made with the TZ1 have gone together easily with no iterations needed to re-adjust stitching points.
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Just cruisin' ...



EffZeeOneVeeTwo, EffZeeThirty, Tizzy (who captured the Eagle)

I love my little Tizzy! I left the D70 and lens collection at home for a weekend wedding down in St Petersburg ... no regrets. It is the ideal small travel companion.

There are some shortcomings.... but would like to hear what others think!

Better sensor.... noise performance at low and hi ISO.
Wider ... even at the cost of reducing the long end?
A and S modes?
RAW?

Thumb ergonomics.... I keep hitting the Menu/Set button and four way switch as my thumb slides down.

If you wanted to bend the ear of the director of technology at Panasonic, what would you set as a reasonable priority list for improving the TZ1.

'tis the Power of TZ!

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Marabou Muddler

I am coming into this late but have a question before I buy the TZ1. I do use my panorama assist mode on canon A70. The mode locks the exposure and also gives some windowing/overlap display. Does the TZ1 have a similar mode? I am mostly wondering how the TZ1 locks the exposure settings over multiple photos. The overlap display can be worked around so is not too important.

Thanks

Martin

Another thing, TZ1 has a 16:9 formt. I am sure it would work almost as good as a 28mm setting as it takes images in a widescreen format. I LOVE my tizzy, and I wouldnt want to trade it in for anything (unless TZ2 is out with same specs, but less noise sensor). The tz1 is a fabulous travel camera as it can take great photos in such a small compact camera packed with features

Aleasha.
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Ravynne's Gallery
http://ravynne.zoto.com/galleries
Enjoy life to the fullest

16:9 mode will not increase the field of view which will be limited by the lense. This mode will simply crop in the photo in height.