Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ6: Best camera around £200 (Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ6)

Member Name: Scotty9

Product:	Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ6
Date:	15/07/09 (360 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great photos, 12x optical zoom, brilliant software

Disadvantages: A wee bit heavy for a true compact

I haven't been using this camera long so from the outset I cannot talk about reliability or robustness.

I originally looked at the TZ7 model which is the top of the range however I decided I could not justify the extra cost, heck this camera is regarded as one of the best compacts around anyway!

Upon opening the box the first thing I noticed was the camera is quite heavy and a bit larger than a typical compact, however, this is due to the absolutely fantastic 12x optical zoom and to be honest the camera is very small relative to housing such good zooom capabilities.

The camera has 6 different mode settings, automatic, manual, MS, scene, movie and clipboard. The automatic mode uses the onboard software to intelligently decide the optimal settings for the picture and boy does it work! It takes an absolutely fantastic photo! The manual options are available should you wish to fully customise the settings, I tend not to bother with this unless setting is up for continuous burst shot with super fast shutter speed. The MS mode is just the same as the preselected scenes however you can customise them the way you wish. The automatic mode also has face recognition software to emphasise the focussing on the target within a photo and also has clever software that defines the most important features of the foreground and background to take focus sharply and take a simply stunning photo.

The TZ6 also has a very powerful flash, powerful enough to light up and indoor room for a good photograph. The software sets the white balance well (assuming automatic mode) and you end up with no photos that are too bright!

The movie recording is of extremely good quality in my opinion for a compact digi camera! It's not camcorder clear but it is very good and allows 15 minutes of recording at a time.

I am using the camera with a 8GB SDHC card and would recommend the SDHC technology as it is faster. This card can hold a whopping 1350ish photos when empty and a fair whack of movie recording! With this class 2 card the time taken for the camera to store data to it is incredibly fast, there's almost no delay.

I have not used the software that came with the camera as I just stick the SD card in the laptop and copy photos this way. Included in the box is a battery charger and a cable to connect to a television as well as the neccessary rather large manual, I'm still working my way through this!

This camera is in my opinion one of the best digital cameras around the £200 price bracket.

Summary: A fantastic camera that you definitely can't go wrong in buying

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