Great 6x zoom; ISO 400 looks like oil painting, colors less pleasing than other brands
Written: May 08 '05 (Updated Aug 14 '07)
Product Rating:
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Shutter Lag
Pros: 6x zoom, image stabilization, AA batteries, small size, good battery life.
Cons: I didn't like the colors as much as other brands. Stabilization only 1-2 stops effective.
The Bottom Line: OK travel camera, but default colors are too saturated, details obliterated at high ISO. Stabilization works less effectively than larger digicams. Sold it to get Ricoh Caplio R3.
tcchou71's Full Review: Panasonic Lumix® DMC-LZ2 Digital Camera
I wanted a pocketable camera with image stabilization and a lot of zoom, but this camera was slightly disappointing. While the 6x zoom is very nice, the image stabilization benefits are partly negated by the heavy noise reduction at higher ISO. Hence, indoors, you have to use low ISO levels, and not even NeatImage can restore the details that are wiped out by the camera's heavy noise reduction. In addition, the LZ2's default colors are sometimes a bit too cool for my taste (though this is adjustable with some effort). Another gripe is that the scene modes don't allow any manual adjustments whatsoever, e.g. you can't change the white balance or color tone in ANY scene mode.
I finally sold the LZ2, and bought the Ricoh Caplio R3 instead. Though the Ricoh has some quirks of its own, it avoids all the problems I had with the Panasonic. You can see my Ricoh R3 review here:
Because epinions doesn't allow embedded images, I also posted a photo-enhanced version of my R3 review on my personal webpage:
http://www.geocities.com/tom_jhou/ricoh_r3.html
If you are still interested in the LZ2, then keep reading:
The first thing I noticed when I got the Panasonic LZ2 is that the default color settings are oversaturated and cartoonish for my tastes. Fortunately, this is easily fixed by turning down the saturation. Still, colors just didn't seem as nice as Canon, Sony, Kodak, or Ricoh cameras I've used. To my eye, the Panasonic's colors seemed cooler than the others, while also producing overly bright greens, while other cameras tend to enhance reds and blues, presumably to get better warmer skin tones and deeper blue skies. Technically, the Panasonic might actually be more accurate than the other brands, but aesthetically, I prefer most other brands to the LZ2. I have owned other Panasonic digicams (e.g. the TZ1) and this seems to be a general theme with Panasonic cameras.
The image stabilization does work, and seems to give about 1.5 stops of improvement, which is a bit on the weak side. So despite the stabilizer, the LZ2 still struggles in low light, just not as much as most cameras that have no stabilization at all.
I prefer cameras that can shoot wide angle views. This camera's widest focal length is 37mm, which is not very wide.
The LZ2's images lose a lot of detail at ISO 200 and above. Images at ISO 400 have the worst of both worlds - high noise AND low detail, and can't be printed much larger than 4"x6". In contrast, the Ricoh R3 I now use has less aggressive in-camera noise-reduction, leaving images somewhat noisy, but with details preserved. Noise-reducing software like NeatImage or Noise Ninja can remove noise, but can't restore lost details. Hence, the R3's images look MUCH better than the Panasonic's once processed through NeatImage.
If you can live with the LZ2's shortcomings, you'll be happy with this camera's zoom range. But if you are bothered by them, you might want to look at the Ricoh Caplio models (the latest is the R5), which have an even bigger zoom range (7x zoom, going from 28-200mm), smaller size, less destructive noise-reduction, better color rendition, and a true 28mm wide-angle.
Most disappointingly, Panasonic's successors to this camera, the LZ3 and LZ5, suffer from many of the same shortcomings as the LZ2, except for the improved movie mode.
Here are the detailed pros and cons:
PROS:
1. 6x optical zoom. The zoom is the main attraction of this camera, along with the image stabilization that helps keep it useful in marginal light. When this camera was first released, these were unique features in a pocket-sized camera, but now there are other options, such as Panasonic's own TZ1, and Ricoh's Caplio R3 and R4.
2. Good low-light focus, even without AF assist lamp. The autofocus is suprisingly accurate in dim light, and fails only when the lighting is really weak, or if you try to use full zoom in dim light.
3. Startup speed. The LCD screen starts operating within about 1.5 seconds of startup, which I consider reasonably fast. Though the shutter won't be ready for another second or two, you can start framing very quickly, and the camera is almost always ready by the time I'm done framing.
4. Pocketability. This used to be the only camera with a long zoom that fit into a pocket, but now we have the similarly sized Panasonic TZ1, and the even smaller Ricoh R3 and R4.
5. Very good battery life, and very good battery level indicators. I got a phenomenal 550 photos with a pair of rechargeable NiMH batteries. The battery indicator goes down in 4 stages (full, half, low, and warning) so you have plenty of advance notice before the batteries go dead.
CONS:
1. Color problems. As I noted above, once you turn down the overly high color saturation, the Panasonic may actually be more accurate than the other brands, but I prefer the other brands' slight enhancements of red and blue colors, which simply look more appealing to my eye. Panasonic's more recent cameras have started to mimic the behavior of the other brands, but the LZ2 still handles colors the old way.
The LZ2's tungsten white balance preset is miscalibrated. To get acceptable photos under tungsten lighting, I have to set a "custom" white balance, as the preset is rather yellow.
2. The dumb scene modes. While the scene modes are useful, they override almost all manual settings. For example, you can't use ANY manual color setting (e.g. white balance or saturation) in ANY scene mode. If you want to take a "portrait" photo under incandescent indoor light, using your custom white balance, and "natural" color saturation, you're out of luck.
3. Crummy movie mode. Not only is the resolution low (320x240), but compression artifacts are high, and the brightness does not gain up in low light, so indoor movies may fade into blackness.
4. While most digicams have noise at high ISO, Panasonic is unique in that it's aggressive (yet ineffective) noise-reduction wipes away considerable detail at ISO 200 and 400.
5. Occasional focus errors. I would say about one shot in 20 is misfocused for no apparent reason. It is more common when fully zoomed, although I've noticed it even when I was only partially zoomed out. These errors can occur even in good daylight.
In the end, I sold this camera, due to its color issues, ggressive noise-reduction, and lack of wide angle. I now have a Ricoh Caplio R3, which solves all of these problems.
Other reviews
I have tried several cameras in my quest for the perfect travel digicam. You can see my reviews at the links below, which are sorted in order of my preferences:
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