After six weeks of intensely working with the ZS100 daily, I've become much better acquainted especially with the feature set and 4K video. Its still image quality is never going to be anything beyond slightly soft. Too bad. The gadgety interface, compact form and 10X zoom are all nice, but it's only going to turn out to be a family travels camera that occasionally comes out for family event candids and video. After its six week sabbatical, my DSLR came out and proved almost stunningly better for image quality, and quite faster and simpler to work with.
Thanks for your post & opinion. These things are of course subjective.
My own opinion of the ZS/TZ echoes yours in terms of all you say but my opinions are somewhat less harsh and I think that for general use it's far more useful than you suggest. Perhaps I'm a bit less of a perfectionist and a little more realistic about my expectations than you.
The TZ100 has far better IQ than the 1/2.3 TZ's, not noticeably, when viewed on screen and with images captured in Mediterranean lighting conditions, but when viewed over a large range of diverse lighting conditions. I think it reasonable to state that vast numbers of the regular contributors to this forum, possibly even a majority are smitten by the small sensor TZ's (and FZ's) and many use them as their only camera. I did myself for a time. I had a slow progression from compacts via bridge cameras in to dslrs, maintaining at dslr level for several years followed by my eventually tiring of carrying a brick appendage around.
Yes the TZ100 lens has a propensity to softness (and arguably QC problems too) but the default settings are lousy and it's achieving what it does at the cutting edge of optical and computational photography, hence its lack of competition in the marketplace. Dialling down the NR completely and upping contrast and sharpness a little transform the jpeg output massively.
Your final statement has caused me a wry smile. Did you really expect the ZS100 to get a anywhere close in IQ to a behemoth of a DSLR containing a much bigger sensor and with a huge piece of rather less complex glass in front of it to gather the light? Surely not?
One has to keep some perspective about cameras, as we all keep saying on these forums. They all have compromises, however time and the advancement of technology are slowly diluting those, with the TZ100 (and now 200) at the forefront of that shift.
Finally,(said tongue in cheek), good luck putting your dslr, complete with 25-250 zoom lens in your jacket pocket and still appearing respectably smart on a day out. If you ever manage to whip it out for a grab shot, I'm sure you'll capture a much better image than with the TZ/ZS100 you left on the shelf at home for practical reasons.
The last two words in the sentence above sum up the TZ100 from my perspective.
Dave
