Introduction

Ease of Use

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25 is very similar to its predecessor, the DMC-TZ18, in terms of its design, with the most notable difference being the introduction of a one-touch Movie Record button. At first glance the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25 strikes you as being a little large, elongated and bulky, but it's virtually the same size and weight as the previous TZ25 model. You then have to remind yourself that Panasonic have somehow fitted in a 16x zoom lens, equivalent to 24-384mm on a 35mm camera, which provides a very versatile focal range that will cover every subject from ultra-wide angle landscapes to close-up action shots. Even when set to 384mm, the lens doesn't extend too far from the front of the TZ25, making it look to all intents and purposes like a "normal" compact camera. This helps to make the DMC-TZ25 great for candid moments, as people assume that you're using just a standard point and shoot with a much more limited range. To help avoid unwanted flare and ghosting, the lens now has a special Nano Surface coating.

The 24mm focal length provides an entirely new wide angle of view that can only increase your creativity. You won't want to go back to a "standard" 35mm zoom, or even a 28mm one, after using the 24mm lens on the DMC-TZ25 - 4mm at the wide-angle end really does make a big difference. The 16x zoom lens makes this one of the most versatile compacts in terms of focal range, especially as it is coupled with Panasonic's excellent POWER O.I.S system, which helps to ensure that the majority of photos taken in good light are sharp. The TZ25's lens isn't particularly fast at either the wide-angle setting, with a maximum aperture of f/3.3, or the telephoto setting, with a maximum aperture of f/5.9, but given the focal range on offer, we feel this is a compromise worth making.

The DMC-TZ25 is a well-built camera with a high quality metal body. The design is dominated by the 16x lens on the front and the large 3 inch LCD screen on the rear. There is no optical viewfinder, which does make the camera a little harder to keep steady at the telephoto end of the zoom than holding it up to your eye. There is only a shiny, smooth handgrip on the front of the TZ25 and a small textured area on the rear, although it does have a slight curve to aid grip. The TZ25 actually has a 12.8 megapixel sensor, but only uses 12.1 megapixels so that it can offer four different aspect ratios - 4:3, 3:2, 16:9 or 1:1 - without having to change the angle of view. The Multi Aspect mode takes an image in all four aspect ratios simultaneously and lets you choose the best one. The DMC-TZ25 is well-made overall, although we still don't like the cover for the battery compartment and SD card slot, which feels a little insubstantial and is locked using a cheap plastic switch.

Despite the inclusion of a full range of manual shooting modes, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25 is not overly complex in terms of the number of external controls that it has. The majority of the 14 controls are clearly labeled and common to most cameras, with the Q.Menu and iA shooting mode being specific to Panasonic and requiring a quick read of the user guide. There's a traditional dial on the top of the TZ25 which has a positive action and lets you select the various shooting and scene modes. This dial is a typical feature of SLR cameras, and enables you to quickly change between the various modes. Interestingly there are two Custom modes available, C1 and C2, which can be used to provide quick access to different settings and allow some customization of the camera setup, very handy if you often use the camera for different subjects or situations.

The DMC-TZ25 joins the handful of Panasonic compacts to offer advanced controls over exposure, with full manual (M), aperture-priority (A) and shutter-priority (S) modes on offer, which will instantly appeal to the more experienced photographer. The range of apertures on offer is rather limited by the lens (F3.3 - 6.3 at 24mm and F5.9 - 6.3 at 384mm), but the ability to choose from 60 - 1/4000th second shutter speeds and set both the aperture and shutter speed if you wish opens up a lot of creative potential. Sadly there's still no support for the RAW file format, which would really have been the icing on the cake for serious photographers looking for a backup-pocket camera to their DSLR.

Front	Rear

The DMC-TZ25 also features an improved version of Panasonic's now well-established Intelligent Auto Mode. Panasonic have tried to make things as easy as possible for the complete beginner by providing this shooting mode, which allows you to point and shoot the camera without having to worry about choosing the right mode or settings. Intelligent Auto Mode automatically determines a number of key criteria when taking a picture, including selecting the most appropriate scene mode and ISO speed, and turning face detection (up to 15 faces), image stabilization and quick auto-focus on. Intelligent Exposure increases the exposure only in the under-exposed areas of the image, and Digital Red-eye automatically detects and removes red-eye. Intelligent Exposure can also be turned on in the Normal Picture mode (but strangely not Digital Red-eye).

AF tracking continually tracks a moving subject and keeps it in focus, without you having to hold the shutter button halfway down as on most other cameras. Face Recognition is a fun and genuinely useful feature which "remembers" up to 6 registered faces and then always prioritizes the focus and exposure for that person in future pictures - it even shows the name of the person on the LCD. Very useful for group shots where you want your loved ones to be the centre of attention. You can specify the age of the registered subject, stamp the age of the subject onto your photos, change the focus icon for a particular person, and playback only the photos that contain a certain face. The camera will even automatically switch to Baby mode if someone registered as less than 3 years old appears in the frame.

In practice the Intelligent Auto Mode system works very well, with the camera seamlessly choosing the most appropriate combination of settings for the current situation. The 7 available scene modes are Scenery, Portrait, Macro, Night Portrait, Night Scenery, Sunset or Handheld Night Shot, so obviously not all situations are covered by Intelligent Auto Mode, but it does work for the majority of the time. It makes it possible for the less experienced photographer to easily take well-exposed, sharp pictures of people, scenery and close-ups by simply pointing and shooting the camera. If you're feeling a little down, the Happy Mode boosts the color, saturation and brightness to give you a warm glow inside (but not a terribly accurate picture).

Completing the top of the camera are the Off/On switch, responsive zoom lever, tactile shutter button, two holes for the mono microphone and four for the speaker, and the one-touch Movie Record button which replaces the TZ18's E.Zoom button. The TZ25 only offers mono sound, not stereo, but used in combination with the Wind Cut menu option this makes a real difference to the sound quality in movies.

The TZ25 can record 1080i video at 1920x1080 or 1280x720 at 30/25fps in the AVCHD format or 1920x1080, 1280x720, 640x480 and 320x240 at 30/25fps in the MP4 format. AVCHD features almost double the recording time in HD quality compared with Motion JPEG, but software support is currently a bit thin on the ground. Panasonic describe it as the best mode for playing back on a HD TV direct from the camera, and MP4 best for email and playing on a computer. The TZ25's various movie options are sensibly stored in an easy to understand Motion Picture menu. Mono sound is recorded during capture, helped by the wind cut function. You can also use the zoom lens during recording and really make the most of that 24-384mm focal range. On the negative side, you'll find that the lens zooms more slowly than when shooting a still image, and if you choose continuous auto-focus, areas of the video will be blurred before becoming sharp again as the camera tries to refocus. The HDMI port allows you to connect the TZ25 to a high-def TV set, but only if you purchase the optional HDMI mini-cable.

Side	Top

New to the DMC-TZ25 is the 3D Mode option. When selected, the camera instructs you to pan 10cms from left to right, during which it takes 20 consecutive shots at high-speed, another benefit of the high-speed sensor. It then automatically selects the best 2 shots from the sequence to create a 3D image. You can only view the results on a 3D TV (the TZ25 records standard MPO files), and although it isn't as effective as images taken with Panasonic's 3D Micro Four Thirds lens or the Fujifilm 3D W3, for example, it does create quite a convincing effect which particularly suits subjects that are close-up to the camera.

Intelligent Resolution performs two main functions - it either makes a standard image look like a higher resolution one by processing the contour areas, texture areas and smooth areas individually, or it digitally boosts the zoom magnification from 16x to 32x with minimal loss of quality and no reduction in resolution. In both cases, it's easy tell which image was taken with Intelligent Resolution turned on and which ones with it turned off, particularly if viewing onscreen at 100% magnification, as our test shots on the Image Quality page show. The difference isn't quite so apparent on a print up to A3 in size, but I'm not convinced enough to recommend it except when you really need the extra reach - it undoubtedly improves on the digital zoom, but not so much that I'd regularly use it.

The Camera / Play button on the rear of the camera enables you to quickly and easily switch from shooting to playback without also changing the shooting mode. Also on the rear of the camera is the Q.Menu button which provides quick access to most of the principal controls, including ISO speed, image size, image quality and white balance (there are 9 settings in total). You can still access all of these options from the main menu system too. In addition the TZ25 also has an Exposure button, which in conjunction with the arrow keys on the navigation pad allows you to change the aperture and/or the shutter speed if you're using the A, S or M shooting modes. This two-button system isn't the most convenient, but it does avoid making the camera too cluttered.

The large 3 inch LCD screen is the only way of framing your shots, so if you have to have an optical viewfinder, look elsewhere now, but I found that the improved 460K pixel screen coped well with the majority of lighting conditions, even being nice to use in low-light. There's a clever function called High Angle, accessible from the Quick Menu, which essentially brightens the LCD screen when the camera is held over your head so that it is perfectly viewable, which is great for shooting over the heads of a crowd. The Intelligent LCD function automatically detects the current lighting conditions and boosts the LCD backlighting by up to 40% when shooting outdoors in bright sunshine, helping to keep the screen visible.

As with all current Panasonic models, the TZ25 has an anti-shake system, on this model the POWER O.I.S. variety. Turn it on and the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25 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, Active Mode is automatically added to the POWER O.I.S. system. This compensates for the extra blur that can occur when you're walking and shooting video at the same time. There are two different modes, Mode 1 is on all the time including image composition, and Mode 2 is only on when you press the shutter button. An Auto setting is also available if you're not sure which one to use. Panasonic claim that the POWER O.I.S. system is twice as effective as the older MEGA O.I.S, and while its difficult to make a direct comparison, I found that it does make a noticeable difference, as shown in the examples on the Image Quality page. You don't notice that the camera is actually doing anything different when anti-shake is turned on, just that you can use slower shutter speeds than normal and still take sharp photos. The TZ25 has a fairly respectable battery life of 260 shots.

Memory Card Slot	Battery Compartment

Panasonic also provide a High Sensitivity Mode to help combat the effects of camera shake. When this scene mode is selected, the TZ25 automatically raises the ISO speed up to a maximum of 6400 and therefore allows for a faster shutter speed. This mode allows you to handhold the camera without using the flash and get more natural results, whilst at the same time freezing subject movement more successfully. There are some obvious drawbacks with this special scene mode, principally a significant increase in noise and blurring - Panasonic state that "Pictures may appear slightly grainy due to high sensitivity". You also need to select the scene mode and therefore have some idea about when it is applicable to your subject.

The Intelligent ISO mode is the third way in which the DMC-TZ25 attempts to avoid subject blur in low-light conditions. The camera automatically sets the appropriate shutter speed AND ISO speed for the subject that you are taking pictures of. So if you're taking shots of a child indoors, the DMC-TZ25 automatically raises the ISO and in turn the shutter speed to avoid blurring the child's movement. If the subject is still, then the camera chooses a lower sensitivity and slower shutter speed. It's a clever idea that works well in practice, with the camera generally choosing an appropriate combination of shutter and ISO speed. You can also limit the maximum ISO speed that the camera can choose, which I'd strongly advise, as ISO 1600 produces very noisy images - ISO 800 is a better maximum setting.

The main menu system on the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25 has been made simpler and clearer than previous versions. Accessed by pressing the Menu/Set button in the middle of the navigation pad, there are three menu options, Record, Motion Picture and Setup. Most of the camera's main options, such as white balance, image quality, auto-focus mode and ISO speed, are accessed here. As mentioned previously, the addition of the Quick Menu button on the rear of the camera speeds up access to some of the more commonly used options. Due to the large LCD screen and restricting the number of on-screen choices to five, the various options and icons are very clear and legible. If you have never used a digital camera before, or you're upgrading from a more basic model, reading the easy-to-follow manual before you start is a good idea, especially as a few of the buttons are specific to Panasonic cameras. Thankfully Panasonic have chosen to supply it in printed format, rather than as a PDF on a CD, so you can also carry it with you for easy reference.

The start-up time from turning the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25 on to being ready to take a photo is quite quick at around 2 seconds. Zooming from the widest focal length to the longest is very slow at around 5 seconds, but focusing is very quick in good light thanks to the new Light Speed AF system (fastest focusing speed of 0.1 seconds), and the camera achieves focus most of the time indoors or in low-light situations, helped by the focus-assist lamp. Note that the camera does struggle to lock onto the subject at the tele-photo end of the lens in low-light situations. It takes about 1 second to store an image, allowing you to keep shooting as they are being recorded onto the memory card, with a delay of 0.3 seconds between images. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25 has an impressively quick Burst mode which enables you to take 10 frames per second for 4 shots with the focus fixed according to the first frame, or at 5fps or 2fps with continuous auto-focusing for up to 100 shots, impressively all at the full 12 megapixel resolution, a massive improvement on the previous TZ18 model. There's also a 60fps option at 2.5 megapixels and a 40fps option at 3 megapixels.

Once you have captured a photo, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25 has a good range of options when it comes to playing, reviewing and managing your images. You can instantly scroll through the images that you have taken, view thumbnails (up to 30 onscreen at the same time and in a special Calendar view), zoom in and out up to 16x magnification, view slideshows, delete, protect, crop, resize and copy an image. You can also select favourite images, sort images into categories, add a text stamp, add a soundclip and set the print order. Face Recognition plays back only the photos that contain a certain face. The Display button toggles detailed settings information about each picture on and off, such as the ISO rating and aperture / shutter speed, and there is a small histogram available during both shooting and playback. When taking a photo, pressing the Display button toggles between the detailed information, the detailed information plus gridlines to aid composition, and no information at all.

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this Review were taken using the 12 megapixel Fine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 5Mb.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25 produced images of good quality during the review period. The 1/2.33 inch, 12 megapixel MOS sensor used in the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25 produces noise-free images at ISO 100-200, with limited noise and colour desaturation starting to appear at ISO 400. ISO 800 exhibits quite visible noise, smearing of fine detail and colour desaturation, and ISO 1600 is even noisier, although still usable for small prints. The fastest setting of ISO 3200 is best avoided.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25 dealt very well with chromatic aberrations, with limited purple fringing effects appearing only in high contrast situations. The built-in flash worked well indoors, with no red-eye and adequate exposure. The night photograph was excellent, with the maximum shutter speed of 15 seconds allowing you to capture plenty of light. Anti-shake is a feature that works very well when hand-holding the camera in low-light conditions or when using the telephoto end of the zoom range.

Macro performance is very good, allowing you to focus as close as 3cms away from the subject. The images were a little soft straight out of the camera at the default sharpening setting and ideally require further sharpening in an application like Adobe Photoshop, or you can change the in-camera setting if you don't like the default results. The Intelligent Resolution feature either makes a standard image look sharper, albeit with some unwanted artefacts appearing, or it digitally increases the 16x optical zoom to 32x, again with a slight loss in quality. The various Creative Effects allow you to easily add a twist to your images.

Noise

There are 6 ISO settings available on the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting.

ISO 100 (100% Crop)	ISO 200 (100% Crop)
ISO 400 (100% Crop)	ISO 800 (100% Crop)
ISO 1600 (100% Crop)	ISO 3200 (100% Crop)

Sharpening

Here are two 100% Crops which have been Saved as Web - Quality 50 in Photoshop. The right-hand image has had some sharpening applied in Photoshop. The out-of-the camera images are a little soft at the default sharpening setting and benefit from some further sharpening in a program like Adobe Photoshop. You can change the in-camera sharpening level via the Picture Adjust menu option.

Original (100% Crop)	Sharpened (100% Crop)

Focal Range

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25's 16x zoom lens provides a versatile focal length of 24-384mm in 35mm terms, as demonstrated below.

24mm	384mm

File Quality

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25 has 2 different image quality settings available, with Fine being the highest quality option. Here are some 100% crops which show the quality of the various options, with the file size shown in brackets.

12M Fine (4.64Mb) (100% Crop)	12M Normal (2.93Mb) (100% Crop)

Chromatic Aberrations

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25 handled chromatic aberrations excellently during the review, with very limited purple fringing present around the edges of objects in certain high-contrast situations, as shown in the example below.

Example 1 (100% Crop)

Macro

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25 offers a Macro setting that allows you to focus on a subject that is 3cms away from the camera when the lens is set to wide-angle. The first image shows how close you can get to the subject (in this case a compact flash card). The second image is a 100% crop.

Macro Shot	100% Crop

Flash

The flash settings on the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25 are Auto, Auto/Red-eye Reduction, Forced On, Slow Sync./Red-eye Reduction, Forced Off. These shots of a white coloured wall were taken at a distance of 1.5m.

Forced Off - Wide Angle (24mm)	Forced On - Wide Angle (24mm)
Forced Off - Telephoto (384mm)	Forced On - Telephoto (384mm)

And here are some portrait shots. As you can see, neither the Flash On or the Auto/Red-eye Reduction settings caused any red-eye.

Forced On	Forced On (100% Crop)
Auto/Red-eye Reduction	Auto/Red-eye Reduction (100% Crop)

Night

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25's maximum shutter speed is 15 seconds, which is great news if you're seriously interested in night photography. The shot below was taken using a shutter speed of 15 seconds at ISO 100. I've included a 100% crop of the image to show what the quality is like. The camera takes the same amount of time again to apply noise reduction, so for example at the 15 second setting the actual exposure takes 30 seconds.

Night Shot	Night Shot (100% Crop)

Anti Shake

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25 has an anti-shake mechanism, which allows you to take sharp photos at slower shutter speeds than other digital cameras. To test this, I took 2 handheld shots of the same subject with the same settings. The first shot was taken with anti shake turned off, the second with it turned on. Here are some 100% crops of the images to show the results. As you can see, with anti shake turned on, the images are much sharper than with anti shake turned off. This feature really does seem to make a difference and could mean capturing a successful, sharp shot or missing the opportunity altogether.

Shutter Speed / Focal Length	Anti Shake Off (100% Crop)	Anti Shake On (100% Crop)
1/3 sec / 24mm
1/4 sec / 384mm

Intelligent Resolution

The Intelligent Resolution feature either makes a standard image look like a higher resolution one by processing the contour areas, texture areas and smooth areas individually, or it digitally boosts the zoom magnification from 16x to 32x.

Resolution - Off	Resolution - On
i.Zoom Off	i.Zoom On

HDR

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25's HDR mode combines three pictures taken at different exposures to create one image with greater dynamic range than a single shot.

HDR Off	HDR On

Panorama

The Panoramic Shot mode allows you to take horizontal or vertical panoramic pictures simply by swivelling the TZ25, joining consecutively shot images together to produce a single panoramic picture.

Creative Controls

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25 has 10 different creative control options to help spice up your images.

Off	Expressive
Retro	High Key
Low Key	Sepia
Dynamic Monochrome	High Dynamic
Toy Effect	Miniature Effect
Soft Focus

Color Modes

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25 has 4 different color mode options.

Standard	Vivid
B&W	Sepia

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25 camera, which were all taken using the 12 megapixel Fine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample Movie & Video

Product Images

Front of the Camera

Front of the Camera / Lens Extended

Isometric View

Isometric View

Rear of the Camera

Rear of the Camera / Image Displayed

Rear of the Camera / Turned On

Rear of the Camera / Main Menu

Rear of the Camera / Main Menu

Rear of the Camera / Quick Menu

Top of the Camera

Bottom of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Front of the Camera

Front of the Camera

Memory Card Slot

Battery Compartment

Conclusion

The Lumix DMC-TZ25 is another appealing travel-zoom camera from Panasonic, significantly improving on last year's TZ18 model thanks largely to the 12 megapixel MOS sensor, faster burst shooting and better video recording. You should also consider the more expensive TZ30 model, which offers a 14.1-megapixel high sensitivity MOS Sensor, 20x zoom lens, GPS tracking, touch-screen LCD and a High Speed Video mode.

The TZ25 addresses some of the weaker areas of its predecessor, now featuring a 3 inch size with a more acceptable 460k resolution,a 1080i HD video mode with support for both AVCHD and MP4 formats and a dedicated Movie button, and much faster burst shooting at full 12 megapixel resolution. It also offers the same creative A, S and M shooting modes, hand-holding Intelligent Auto mode, effective anti-shake system and proven handling of its more expensive sibling.

There is one key area where the Panasonic DMC-TZ25 sadly doesn't improve on its rivals or its predecessor, namely the poorer image quality once you venture above ISO 400. Noise is apparent at ISO 400 but becomes much more obvious at ISO 800 along with excessive smearing of finer details, with the fastest speeds of ISO 1600 and 3200 being something of a last resort.

In summary the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25 is significantly cheaper than the more TZ30 model without conceding too much ground in terms of features, and it's a marked improvement on last year's TZ18 model. The range-topping TZ30 may get all the love and attention, but the more wallet friendly DMC-TZ25 is definitely worth considering if you're in the market for a pocket camera that has all the bases covered.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4
Features	4.5
Ease-of-use	4.5
Image quality	4
Value for money	4.5

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25 from around the web.

Specifications

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