New to both the TZ80 / ZS60 and TZ100 / ZS100 is 4k Live Cropping which exploits the resolution of a 4k frame to provide a digital pan and zoom feature at 1080p resolution. You specify the start and end of the clip by tapping the screen to position a 1920×1080 sized frame. You can also set the overall time of the clip to either 40 or 20 seconds. The degree of zoom is limited to the full 4k frame at the wide end to the 1920×1080 frame at the ‘zoomed-in’ end to maintain quality. It’s a neat feature which, once again, makes innovative use of the camera’s 4k resolution to make life easier, particularly if you need a super-smooth panning shot, but don’t have a suitable tripod. You can see what the results look like in my video sample below. Panasonic has added some interesting technology to its superzoom segment of the market, and it's interesting to see that the Lumix DMC-TZ80 now represents the more affordable of the company's duo of new travel compacts. the ZS50 has less megapixels, which usually means - with small sensor cameras - less noise in lower light. have you worked with full HD videos? 4k videos are bigger and take more computing power to process. they do look better if you watch on a larger HD TV, but for many people i suspect they're just a selling point. As you can see from the 100 percent crops below, with stabilisation enabled I was able to get shake-free shots with the TZ80 / ZS60 at shutter speeds down to 1/25 – nearly five stops slower than conventional wisdom dictates is safe.

All, Slideshow, Filtering Play (Picture Only, Video Only, 4K PHOTO, Post Focus, Category Selection, Favorite), Calendar The important point is that no amount of JPG PP will be able to undo the JPG NR degradation finer details. Any further PP NR to reduce JPG noise/ artifacts will further degrade fine details. Normal: Wide 50 cm - infinity / Tele 200 cm - infinity/AF Macro / MF / Intelligent Auto / Motion Picture: Wide 3 cm - infinity / Tele 200 cm - infinity Once your phone or tablet is connected to the TZ90 / ZS70, you can remote control it, browse the images direct from the memory card, copy them onto the handset and if desired send them onto various storage or sharing services. You can also set the app to make a GPS log for subsequent syncing and tagging, create a snap movie, or photo collage.Axis HYBRID O.I.S. +*/* 5-Axis compensation works in video recording except for 4K video or high-speed video recording. Maximum time to record High Speed motion pictures continuously with [MP4] in [VGA] is 3 minutes 44 seconds. On the Lumix TZ90 / ZS70 you can record in PASM exposure modes, selected either from the video menu or by tapping the exposure mode icon in the top left of the screen when the mode dial is in the movie position. During recording you can change the exposure setting including, depending on the mode, aperture, shutter speed, ISO sensitivity and exposure compensation. While you can use the camera’s physical controls to alter the settings the touch screen provides a slide out panel allowing you to do so silently. You can also tap the screen to pull focus during recording, or of course use the lens control ring. There’s also focus peaking and zebra patterns to help with focus and exposure.

Around the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ80's lens is a control ring. By default it will control a certain function (i.e. aperture in aperture priority mode), but you can customise it to one of several other functions, if you prefer. The Lumix TZ90 / ZS70 charges its battery in the camera via the standard USB port. An a/c adaptor and a USB cable are included in the box, though you can use any USB Micro B cable and any suitable power source, you can’t externally power the camera while shooting. If you switch the Lumix TZ90 / ZS70 on while it’s charging an alert that tells you ‘To begin charging turn the camera off’ is displayed. You can still shoot, but the battery won’t start charging until you turn the camera off. The PowerShot SX730 HS battery can be charged in-camera over a USB connection, or externally using the supplied AC unit. But unlike Panasonic, Canon doesn’t put a USB cable in the box, so unless you have a Micro B to A type cable lying around, you’ll have to buy one if you want to charge the PowerShot SX730 HS’s battery in the camera from a laptop or other USB power source. This is the same touch-sensitive screen that’s used on the TZ100 / ZS100 and, as on the flagship Lumix travel zoom, can be used to place the AF area for focussing, meter exposure, shoot and select soft function buttons, it also allows menu selection and entering of details when making network connections. I’m very pleased to see the touch-screen return to the TZ / ZS series and it’s one of the big advantages the TZ80 / ZS60 holds over Canon’s SX720 has which has neither a touch-screen nor a viewfinder. The remote control feature shows a live image on your phone or tablet’s screen allowing you to take a photo or start or stop a video recording. If the camera’s mode dial is set to Aperture or Shutter Priority, you can remotely adjust the aperture or shutter speed respectively, and in Manual you can change both. You can drag the AF area to position it just as you would on the camera screen; at least you can if the AF mode is set to Pinpoint or 1-Area. It’s not possible to position the Custom Multi AF area group using your phone – you have to do that on the camera screen, however, this is minor omission in what is otherwise a very feature-rich app. So what does a range of 24-720mm let you capture? Above are two photos taken from the same position with the TZ80 / ZS60 using each end of the zoom range, illustrating the range at your disposal – at one moment capturing a wide field before getting very close to distant details the next. It’s extremely flexible, and while you need to take care for camera shake at the long end, especially with the much reduced aperture, the stabilisation is excellent and there’s the option to use the viewfinder for even greater stability.Actual recordable time is the time available for recording when repeating actions such as switching the power supply [ON] / [OFF], starting/stopping recording, zoom operation etc. This is essentially the same as the 25-750mm equivalent range of Canon’s earlier PowerShot SX710 HS, but with the newer PowerShot SX720 HS Canon has extended the zoom to 40x with a range in 35mm terms equivalent to 24-960mm. And although its zoom is longer, the PowerShot SX720 matches the f3.3 focal ratio of the TZ80 / ZS60 at the wide end, closing to f6.9 when fully zoomed in. The closest focusing distances with the lenses set to wide are 3cm, and 1cm respectively, allowing both to capture good macro images, although giving the Canon the edge. The TZ90 / ZS70 also includes Panoramic Shooting mode which takes a sequence of shots as you rotate the camera to capture a panoramic scene and then assembles them in-camera to a single image. You can hold the camera in portrait or landscape mode, you have to specify which in advance. There are two modes – Standard, which records about 180 degrees and Wide which will do a complete 360 degrees. If you’re a little uneven, or the subject makes it difficult to record overlapping images it will stop part way through and produce a panorama from what it has managed to capture – or you can press the shutter a second time to finish at a particular point. In Wide mode with the camera in landscape orientation the finished panorama measures 7952 x 960 pixels. All in all it’s very simple to use and produces very good results. There are two options for transferring images; Batch transfer provides a menu from which you can select options to transfer the current day’s images, or you can include the last 3, 7 or 30 days, or if you’re feeling impetuous you can opt to transfer everything. Further options allow you to restrict transferred files to just photos or videos. If you want to browse the images on the card in the camera before deciding which to transfer, then Transfer selection is the option to go for.

If you looked at links in my previous post quite easy to see. With the small max lens apertures of the ZS40 - ZS60 in less than good daylight type lighting will be needing higher ISO's at the tele focal lengths. Shooting moving subjects with the focus mode set to continuous is a bit more of a hit and miss affair though. I found the best results were achieved with the TZ80 / ZS80 set to 49 Area AF mode using the central AF area grouping. In good light the TZ80 / ZS60’s contrast detect system, aided by Depth from Defocus, can acquire and maintain focus on a moderately paced subject moving towards the camera with a better than 50% success rate. Once the light starts to fade, however, it becomes much less reliable. And you can expect the hit rate to fall pretty dramatically with faster moving and less predictable subjects like animals or football players. So to help you manage those expectations, the long zoom may let you get closer to wildlife or sports subjects, but may struggle to keep them in focus if they’re moving, especially in lower light. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ80's maximum shutter speed is 60 seconds, which is great news if you're seriously interested in night photography. The shot below was taken using a shutter speed of 4 seconds at ISO 400. The camera takes the same amount of time again to apply noise reduction, so for example at the 15 second setting the actual exposure takes 30 seconds. The flash settings on the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ80 are Auto, Auto/Red-eye Reduction, Forced On, Slow Sync./Red-eye Reduction, Forced Off. These shots of a white coloured wall were taken at a distance of 1.5m. Panasonic has increased the pixel count of the Lumix DMC-TZ80 from the TZ70's 12 million pixels. At the time of the TZ70's launch, Panasonic claimed that using 12 million pixels was a deliberate decision to get high image quality from having larger pixels.Quite a few of veteran PSE users process JPG images in PSE via the "Open in Camera RAW" option for a little extra highlight/ shadow recovery with ACR. Can see FZ1000 JPG vs RAW images HERE of example showing of the ability of RAW PP to recover highlights/ shadows. Used PSE 14 to process the FZ1000 RAW image. The TZ80 probably does in fact produce slightly inferior low-light images, but worrying about which camera is better in this regard is kinda like worrying about which spoon to bring to a knife fight. If low-light performance is a priority then you should be looking at completely different cameras.