Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ60 ( 18.9 MP,30 x Optical Zoom,3 -inch LCD )

Product Information

Despite a bright display and an anti-reflective coating, the 3in, 920,000-dot screen struggled in the extremely bright sunlight of the Mojave Desert, and it was awkward to compose images. In more subdued daylight the screen was fine, with good colours and a pleasing level of contrast. Panasonic Lumix TZ60: Build and handling In other cases where the landmark doesn’t exist in the database at all, you can create a new name for it using manual text entry. I did this for the church which was mistakenly displaying the name of a nearby tourist information centre instead – see below. This process is the same as the TZ40 / ZS30 before it. So far, so similar to the TZ40 / ZS30, but the new TZ60 / ZS40 does have a notable difference when it comes to its GPS implementation. The on-screen mapping, first introduced on the TZ40 / ZS30, is no longer present on the new model. It’s strange to see Panasonic removing features on the new version, but to be honest it’s a sensible decision if it allows the camera to reach a lower price point. Trying to choose between the TZ60 and TZ70? Read the What Digital Camera Panasonic Lumix TZ70 vs Panasonic Lumix TZ60 comparison Like its shape and size, the TZ80 / ZS60’s control layout owes a lot to its predecessor. About the only difference is the addition of a creative video mode position on the mode dial – for which one of the two custom positions is sacrificed. That’s not so important as there are now more programmable function buttons than before – four in all compared with two on the earlier TZ70 / ZS50, and of course the touch screen provides more opportunities for configuring settings.

One feature I found useful was the focus-peaking mode, which highlights any edges that are in focus or which are nearing their optimum point. The base of the lens acts as a focus ring in manual mode, and when engaged, MF assist helps with focusing by showing a 5x or 10x enlargement. Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ60 review – Noise, resolution and sensitivity While the TZ60’s predecessor – the TZ40 – featured a reasonable 20x optical zoom, the new model increases the zoom by some 50% and now sports a 30x optic. The lens is a Leica DC Vario-Elmar unit and covers a focal range of 24-720mm in 35mm equivalent terms. Both these features, along with a 30x optical zoom and Wi-Fi connectivity, really improve what is already an excellent series of travel cameras, but I’m sure the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ60 will also attract a few admiring glances from enthusiast photographers. I always take my shots in the best quality mode, which on the TZ60 / ZS40 was with it set to 18 Megapixels / 4:3 / RAW+Fine compression, and most of the JPEGs worked out around 7Mb and the RAW files about 21MB. To be fair, the approach is not dissimilar to the way most other manufacturers implement direct uploads, but to me it makes more sense to just use Wifi to copy the image from the camera to a more capable device and upload from there instead.

Sample Images

What I couldn’t have done without is the touch screen, so all credit to Panasonic for re-introducing it on this model as well as the higher end TZ100 / ZS100. You can simply tap the screen to position the AF area in single area mode. In 49 Area mode it’s used to position the 9×9 grid of AF points within the overall 7×7 area matrix that covers the entire screen. And when you’re in Face detect mode you can select which eye you want to focus on by tapping it. What this doesn’t illustrate though is how useful the stabilisation is when composing with the TZ80 / ZS60 at maximum zoom. Even when using faster shutter speeds where stabilisation might not be necessary, the stabilisation keeps things nice and steady, allowing you to compose and frame your shot, something that’s almost impossibly difficult at full zoom without it. The shot of the Robin above, for example, could have been achieved without stabilisation at a much higher sensitivity setting than the 80 ISO that stabilisation made possible, but I doubt I would have been able to frame it up. I should point out that the Canon PowerShot SX720 HS also has very capable stabilisation plus it benefits from Canon’s Frame Assist feature which helps locate your subject and keep it in the frame when zoomed in. To help combat camera shake, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ60 has an anti-shake system, on this model the POWER O.I.S. variety. Turn it on and the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ60 automatically compensates for camera shake, which is a slight blurring of the image that typically occurs at slow shutter speeds when the camera is hand held. When shooting video, the 5-axis HYBRID O.I.S.+ is automatically added to the POWER O.I.S. system, which effectively compensates for the camera's five types of movement – horizontal, vertical, axis of rotation, vertical rotation and horizontal rotation. 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.

Although there are no colour profiles available, the TZ60 does feature a wealth of filters and scene modes. In creative control mode, users can select one of 15 different filters, including sepia, cross-processing and – my favourite – dynamic monochrome. These can also be added to images post-capture using the retouch menu. Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ60 review – Viewfinder, live view, LCD and video Like the Lumix TZ40 / ZS30, LF1 and G6 before it, I was very fond of the Wifi capabilities of the Lumix TZ60 / ZS40. I enjoyed browsing through a day’s shoot on the larger screen of a tablet and once connected it was a doddle to select original images to copy over for closer examination or sharing. The remote control facility was also fun and genuinely useful, although the range could vary significantly depending on surroundings and interference. Panasonic Lumix TZ60 / ZS40 GPS Images: These images show either end of the extensive 24-720mm zoom range of the TZ60 Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ60 review – Build and handlingThe Lumix TZ80 / ZS60 has 1080p HD movie modes at 25 and 50 frames per second in PAL regions and 30 and 60 fps in NTSC regions. It also supports 4k UHD video at 25 or 30fps along with Panasonic’s 4k Photo mode – a fun way of exploiting the fact 4k video captures an 8 Megapixel image up to 30 times a second. The clever part is Panasonic equips its 4k Photo cameras with menus that let you easily capture bursts of video before scrolling through the footage and extracting the perfect frame as a JPEG image, all in-camera. You could of course frame grab from video externally, but Panasonic has made it easy to perform the whole process in-camera. Gordon’s gone into more detail about 4K Photo in his Lumix GX8 review and I’ve demonstrated it later in the review, along with the Post Focus feature. Panasonic says it has made great improvements to the autofocus in the TZ60. It claims that the AF at the 720mm (equivalent) end of the lens is as fast as that at the 420mm (equivalent) end on the TZ40, which is reassuring. Transferring from your memory is a much easier and probably a widely more preferred method, if you're computer has the capability. Most, if not all Lumix cameras will take an SD card and similarly most modern day laptops and Macs – again with the exception of a few Macbook Air's and newer Macbook Pro's, will have an SD card slot within the body of them, so connecting and accessing images, or even files, documents, anything contained on an SD card is incredibly easy. Again like Sony you can choose from panning with the camera held horizontally or vertically, but unlike Sony the TZ60 / ZS40 seems happy to capture a full 360 degree panorama if you’re able to keep turning it during the four second capture process – during which time it has to be said everybody around you will be staring.

Transferring via the USB cable provided in your kit will probably be the easiest choice for most. Almost all computers these days have USB ports, with exception to some of the more recent Apple Macbook Pro's, the reason for which most of us are still dumbfounded. First, you'll need to find where the connection port is on your camera. I should also mention the TZ60 / ZS40 can shoot RAW, providing the opportunity to make easier adjustments to things like white balance, sharpening and compression at a later point, although in my tests it offered little benefit in spatial or tonal detail. Switching to the 40fps mode saw the resolution drop to 5 Megapixels, and allowed me to capture exactly 30 frames in 0.73 seconds, corresponding to 41fps. The 60fps mode dropped the quality again to 2.5 Megapixels, but captured exactly 60 frames in 0.97 seconds, delivering 62fps. The addition of an EVF and raw shooting really transform the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ60 from a mere travel camera to one that deserves to be taken more seriously. Even the style of the DMC-TZ60 has a premium feel to it, and it will no doubt prove to be very attractive to a number of different types of users. When previewed at A4 size, images at the minimum ISO 100 sensitivity look clean with only a hint of luminance noise – if you are pixel peeping. The same can be said for images at ISO 400, but when zoomed in to 100%, many of the high-contrast lines in JPEG images start to become smudgy due to in-camera noise reduction. When previewing A4-sized JPEGs at ISO 800-1600, the luminance noise does not detract in any way from the images. However, these images do appear noticeably softer than ISO 100 images because so much detail has been lost due to heavy in-camera noise reduction.Inside the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ60 is a 1/2.3in-type (6.17×4.55mm) Live MOS sensor with a resolution of 18.1 million pixels. One feature that will no doubt widen the appeal of the TZ60, particularly among enthusiast photographers, is the fact that the camera now supports both raw and JPEG image capture. Thanks to Panasonic’s own Venus Engine processor, writing both full-resolution raw and JPEG images simultaneously isn’t too sluggish and a speed of 10fps is possible for a total of six frames in burst mode. The most important new feature of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ60 is undoubtedly the 0.2in, 200,000-dot EVF. Over the past few years, we have seen an increasing number of cameras fitted with electronic viewfinders, including Panasonic’s own Lumix DMC-LF1 that was released almost a year ago. Now the same viewfinder has been added to the TZ range, along with the welcome addition of raw shooting. Above is an example taken at the longest focal length, while below is one at the widest end at a close distance. Both illustrate the potential for shallow depth-of-field effects. Is it worth paying the extra? Only you can decide. Personally I think it’s worth it for the viewfinder and controls. Indeed for raising the bar to a degree where it reaches comfortably beyond the point-and-shoot nature of most rivals I’m awarding the TZ60 / ZS40 our Highly Recommended rating – but equally I realize if the extra features aren’t important to you, then there’s money to be saved on simpler models which share the same zoom range and image quality.