Digital Trends

Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ50

September 2nd, 2008 | by David Elrich

Features and Design

This is an extremely compact 9.1-megapixel digicam, considering it has a 10x optical zoom. If you look at close competitors like the much less expensive Canon PowerShot SX110 IS ($299 USD) with similar zooms, you’ll notice they’re bulkier. That’s the reason Panasonic refers to the TZ series as Travel Zooms. It’s not the sexiest name but you get the idea. The DMC-TZ50 measures 4.07 x 2.33 x 1.44 (WHD in inches) and weighs 8.6 ounces fully loaded. The TZ50 doesn’t have the sweeping lines of a Canon Digital ELPH—in fact it’s pretty utilitarian looking and won’t win any design awards. The size of the proverbial Altoids tin, the front of the silver-bodied digicam is dominated by the Leica DC Vario-Elmarit lens. Much to my pleasure the camera starts off with a nice wide-angle focal length (28mm) and reaches 280mm for telephoto close-ups. As DT readers well know, I’m a big fan of wider angle point-and-shoots since they let you capture all your friends in group shots plus they add dramatic touches to landscapes and architectural images.

On the front you’ll find the flash, a self-timer/focus assist lamp and a few unobtrusive decals. The right side below the shutter has a nicely-designed grip with a touch of black, taking it a bit above the same-old, same-old silver-bodied digicam. The word “Wireless” is embossed in the black—was the color a hint of things to come?

The top of the TZ50 has the usual suspects—the shutter button surrounded by the wide/tele ring, power on/off, a mic, speaker and mode dial. What’s not typical is the E. Zoom button. Touch it and the camera zips through the entire focal length to 10x. Hit it again and it goes the other way. This is pretty cool as is the larger-than-normal mic. The mode dial won’t surprise anyone who has looked at a digicam recently. There’s iA for Intelligent Auto where the camera tries to figure what it’s shooting and chooses the appropriate scene mode. There’s also Easy (auto), SCN for individual scene modes, movie, Clipboard and Wi-Fi (we’ll get into Wi-Fi in the Performance and Use section). Clipboard is a cool feature—it lets you take a 2MP image of a timetable—or other text material--so you can store it in the internal memory. It worked fine on a NJ Transit timetable. 

The rear has a very nice 3-inch LCD screen rated 460K pixels. It’s definitely one of the better ones out there—it has excellent detail plus it’s simple to adjust. To the right of the monitor is the classic four-way controller with center Menu/Set button. The four points control the flash, macro modes, self-timer and exposure compensation (along some other photographic options). Underneath the controllers are Display and Quick Menu keys. On the top right is the Record/Playback switch. Pretty simple it wouldn’t take more than 5 minutes to learn—the camera portion, that is.

On the right side is a compartment for three ins and outs (DC-in, A/V-USB and Component outs). On the bottom of the Made In Japan digicam is a plastic tripod mount and a compartment for the rechargeable battery and SDHC card slot.

The Panasonic DMC-TZ50 comes with a basic kit of the camera, battery, charger, A/V and USB cables, wrist strap and CD-ROM with Photofun Studio viewer, ArcSoft MediaImpression and Panoramamaker along with a USB driver; the component video cable is optional. On the analog side, there are a pair of printed owner’s manuals—one for the camera, the other for dealing with Wi-Fi. Wishing myself luck during a visit to Wi-Fi Land, it was time to charge the camera and start shooting.

Image Courtesy of Panasonic