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

Product Information

The Lumix TZ60 / ZS40, like its predecessor and rivals, is fitted with a mode dial giving access to a wealth of manual, semi and fully automatic shooting modes. Along with the usual PASM modes and Intelligent Auto, you’ll find Creative Control (with 15 filter effects), SCN (with 18 presets), two custom modes and a panorama option. There’s no movie mode on the dial as you can simply start recording in most modes by pressing the dedicated red record button. So the Lumix TZ60 / ZS40 now sports a new 30x zoom, equivalent to 24-720mm in 35mm terms, and allowing it to zoom 50% closer than its predecessor. This range matches the Sony HX50V and HX60V, and is essentially the same as the 25-750mm range delivered by the Canon SX700 HS. The focal ratios are similar too, with the Panasonic, Sony and Canon starting off at f3.3, f3.5 and f3.2 at the wide-end respectively, and ending at f6.4, f6.3 and f6.9 respectively at the long end. The closest focusing distances with the lenses set to wide are 3cm, 5cm and 1cm respectively, allowing all to capture good macro images, although giving the Canon the overall edge. With a maximum optical focal length of 720mm on a body with a minimal grip, it’s very important to have effective image stabilisation. To put the OIS system to the test on the TZ80 / ZS60, I zoomed it into its maximum 720mm equivalent focal length and took a series of photos at progressively slower shutter speeds first without stabilisation, then with, to see what it was capable of ironing-out.

Like Sony’s Cyber-shot DSC-HX50, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ60 uses a 30x zoom lens. The lens on the DMC-TZ60 is a Leica DC Vario-Elmar 4.3-129mm f/3.5-6.4 zoom, the equivalent of an incredible 24-720mm in 35mm format. Indeed, the zoom range of this lens goes from being wide to an extreme telephoto in just a couple of seconds. Of course a system which displays landmark names by location can be tripped-up by overlap or simply covering a large area. As such, you may need to move around a park, zoo or golf course before its name is revealed, while anything close to a known landmark will often display its name instead. In your hands the new model looks and feels larger, but to be fair we should now be comparing it against other 30x zooms. Sony’s Cyber-shot HX60V measures 108x64x38.3mm and 272g including battery, while Canon’s PowerShot SX700 HS measures 113x66x34.8mm and weighs 269g including battery. This makes all three 30x travel zoom rivals very similar in size and weight, although both the Panasonic and the Canon are thinner than the Sony.To put the capabilities to the test I fitted the TZ60 / ZS40 with a freshly formatted SanDisk 16GB UHS-1 SD card and timed various bursts. Starting with the 5fps mode and the quality set to 18 Megapixel Fine JPEG, I fired-off six frames in 1.37 seconds, corresponding to a speed of 4.4fps; after this initial burst the camera slowed to about 2.5fps. Moving up to the 10fps mode, again with 18 Megapixel Fine JPEG quality, I fired-off six shots in 0.44 seconds, corresponding to a speed of 13.6fps; after this burst the camera stopped recording until the buffer cleared. 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. As before, there’s a wealth of alternative image resolutions and sizes. You can shoot in the full 18 Megapixels, or at 12, 8, 5, 3 or 0.3 Megapixels in the 4:3 aspect ratio, or switch to 3:2, 16:9 or 1:1 cropped shapes instead, each with reduced resolutions. Again as before there’s also the choice of two JPEG compression levels, Fine or Standard, but new to the TZ60 / ZS40 is the chance to record RAW files, with or without a JPEG at either compression level. This is a major move for the Lumix travel zoom, and gives it with another valuable edge over the competition, at least in theory – you can see it in action in my RAW quality results. 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. 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.

You can also adjust the drive mode, exposure compensation or focus area, although strangely the ISO and White Balance buttons were always greyed-out when I used the remote control; maybe you need to use a different shooting mode to enable them. There’s also a Q.Menu button which presents a list of additional options you can remotely change including the flash mode, aspect ratio, resolution, compression, focus mode, metering mode, colour mode or movie quality. On the earlier TZ40 / ZS30 the touch-screen really came into its own for AF positioning. If you were in the single area mode you could tap where you’d like the camera to focus, and in face detection mode you could tap to select the primary subject in compositions with more than one person in them. Sadly none of this is possible with the TZ60 / ZS40 as Panasonic has removed the touch-screen to meet a lower price point. It’s something I really miss on the camera, although I should add that at least there’s now no longer any risk of accidentally touching the side of the screen while handling the camera and inadvertently moving the AF area. As it stands if you want to move the single AF area, you first need to press DISP while in the AF menu, then use the cross keys to reposition the square and the dial to change its size if also required. Both the Panasonic and Sony provide a good range of movie choices, with a 1080p 50/60 best quality HD mode, enhanced stabilisation (particularly so with the newer HX60V) and movies with filter effects. The Panasonic also offers a couple of slow motion modes. 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. You can adjust the ISO, white balance, exposure compensation or focus area, and there’s also a Q.Menu button which presents a list of additional options you can remotely change including the flash mode, aspect ratio, resolution, compression, metering mode, macro mode,photo style or movie quality.is interesting on the TZ80 / ZS60 for several reasons, not least because it’s one of the first times we’ve tested it on a camera with a small 1/2.3in sensor. The Lumix TZ80 / ZS60 starts with a sensor resolution of 4896×3672, from which it takes what appears to be a 1:1 crop to generate a 4k UHD frame. To illustrate the difference in coverage I compared actual 4k footage I filmed with the TZ80 / ZS60 against still photos when using the same lens setting and position. In the image below, the 4k coverage is indicated by the outer edge of the red frame, resulting in a not insignificant reduction in the field of view; indeed when filming 4k video, the equivalent range is cropped from 24-720mm to 33-990mm – good news at the long-end, but you lose quite a bit of coverage at the wide-end. 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. Well, that's easy. Just look for the only slot up the side of your keyboard that might look like it accommodates a relatively small, flat, card. If it isn't there, you don't have one. 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.