Introduction

Ease of Use

The new TZ99 has mainly been released to comply with recent EU law that stipulates that all new electronic devices have to include USB-C charging in order to help cut down on the number of different chargers/cables and therefore reduce wastage.

This is generally a good thing for the TZ99, which now offers faster charging times than previous models and the benefit of being compatible with readily available cables that can be shared between devices.

On the downside, the same EU law also mandates that chargers should not be included as standard with new cameras, so if you do want to charge the battery via the DMW-BTC12 battery charger, you will need to purchase it separately.

On the whole, the recent drive to make all devices incorporate USB Type-C charging, the TZ99 included, can only be a good thing environmentally, although having to charge the battery in-camera is obviously less convenient than using a dedicated charger.

In addition to USB-C charging, or rather in subtraction, the other main change to this new version of Panasonic's venerable travel-zoom is the removal of the electronic viewfinder that was on the previous two models.

Whilst the EVF was tiny at just 0.21-inches, dim and not that much fun to use - we found ourselves not really bothering with it, unless particularly bright sunlight made viewing subjects via the larger screen otherwise tricky - it does make the TZ99 a little trickier to use, especially at the longer end of the zoom range where holding the camera up to your eye effectively helps to stabilise it.

The lack of an EVF does arguably make more sense for the TZ99's main target audience, though, namely smart-phone users who want a more versatile focal range and the ability to zoom in on faraway subjects using a device that is still pocketable.

The third change to this 2025 iteration of the TZ-series is the welcome extension of recording times from 30 to 90 minutes for 4K video and up to 100 minutes for 1080p quality.

Otherwise, the TZ99 / ZS99 is identical to its TZ95 / D predecessors, with the same lens, image sensor, processor, external design (apart from the EVF) and control layout.

So if you can find a good quality used TZ95 or TZ95D with accessories, they will still offer exactly the same image quality and user experience as this new model despite being up to 6 years older, with the added benefit of the EVF.

Having said that, those previous models were very much in-demand second-hand, so you may still struggle to find a used one for less than the full £469.99 / $699.99 asking price of this new version.

With the lens reach starting out at a wide-angle 24mm equivalent and stretching up to 720mm at the telephoto end, the Lumix TZ99 is certainly suitable for capturing a broad range of photogenic subjects, and in particular proves a decent option for landscapes and cityscapes, as well as street photography and group portraits.

The camera itself looks relatively boxy and chunky when compared to the average mobile phone it will inevitably be competing with in today’s market – in no small part due to that generous 30x optical zoom, which retracts within the body when not in use.

The lens is encircled by a lens control ring, to which certain key settings can be pre-assigned or it more simply provides another means of adjusting the zoom/your focal range when in the intelligent iAuto setting.

Handily, to enable steadier shooting and the avoidance of blurred images, a decent sized (for a camera of this ilk) leather-effect rubberized handgrip is provided at the front, alongside an indented thumb rest at the back. This enabled us to hold the camera pretty rock steady with just the one hand.

Also compensating for camera shake is Panasonic’s on-board Power OIS optical image stabilizer. If we’ve a grumble, it’s that this isn’t perhaps a camera for shooting in very low light, especially if handheld, as we discovered on our travels, whereby the effects of camera shake are obvious despite the OIS.

The fact that the ISO range tops out at a modest selectable ISO3200 at least means that the worst effects of image noise are avoided – we’d advise shooting up to ISO1600, however and leaving it at that, if you want to avoid a noticeable softening and degradation of the image entirely. Twenty megapixels is quite a lot to cram onto a 1/2.3-inch sensor – it’s probably the most you’d want to – so inevitably something has to give.

The other features to be found on the Panasonic Lumix TZ99’s faceplate are a narrow window housing the flash that sits just below the Lumix logo. Unfortunately the flash is in a position where your forefinger can very easily obscure it when gripping the camera with the right hand – so that’s something you need to be aware of, especially when handing the camera to someone else to take your picture, as well one might when travelling. Nestled next to the lens meanwhile, where it is out of the way of stray fingertips, is a familiar AF assist /self timer lamp.

From the front of this Lumix then, the aforementioned zoom lens dominates proceedings, offering up to that generous 720mm equivalent reach at the telephoto end. In operation it takes around 3-4 seconds for the lens to glide from maximum wideangle to extreme telephoto, accompanied by an unobtrusively low mechanical buzz.

Although picture detail inevitably softens at maximum zoom, the results are still plenty sharp enough for it to prove a useful asset.

It goes without saying that the camera is responsive enough to avoid your attention ever needing to wander from the subject itself, with an AF speed given of 0.1 seconds, allied to a respectable maximum burst capture rate of 10fps in AF-S mode or 5fps in AF-C mode.

The top plate is likewise familiar and straightforward in terms of layout and operation. The shutter release button is raised and encircled by a lever for operating the zoom, so you can’t mistake what it is, next to which are two smaller nail-head sized buttons, flush to the bodywork. These are for turning the camera on or off, or commencing video recording – said function denoted by the familiar red dot.

The other prominent ‘button’ atop the Panasonic Lumix TZ95 is a shooting mode wheel, which offers just the right amount of resistance and ‘give’ to avoid nudging it accidentally, yet making it easy to turn to a wanted setting in an instant.

Here we find the familiar likes of program, auto, shutter priority and aperture priority modes, along with a very easy to use (and get pleasing results from) panoramic setting. There’s also a custom mode, a dedicated manual video mode, intelligent auto mode (iA mode) for pure point-and-shoot operation, the usual digital effects mode (with eight options selectable) plus scene / subject mode, the latter providing the usual pre-optimised settings to again enable decent results from just pointing the camera and clicking. This mode wheel nestles next to a slightly raised section that houses twin microphones for recording sound.

Moving around to the Panasonic TZ95’s backplate, in terms of composing and reviewing shots there’s now just the standard LCD screen. The 1,040K-dot resolution 3-inch LCD is of the flip up through 180° variety – so that it can be used for selfies, or when you too want to slide yourself into a group portrait – which makes itself occasionally useful. This is a travel camera after all, and you’ll undoubtedly want to record the fact that you were there too.

The screen is touch sensitive, to a degree, though as there are also plentiful physical controls ranged alongside it that provide much the same functions, we didn’t find ourselves utilising its touch sensitivity that much. 

Photo enthusiasts will also love the fact that – of course - Raw files can be captured on the TZ99 alongside, or in tandem with, JPEGs, and without any noticeable slow down too in terms of operational speed in regular single shot mode.

This being a Panasonic camera, we get the inevitable 4K photo mode to further ease the possibility of capturing the exact shot we want by being able to grab an 8 megapixel still from a 30fps sequence. Otherwise the 20 megapixel maximum resolution is probably as high as you want from a bog standard 1/2.3-inch chip – and for the most part, in available light, the images largely shine.

The other buttons on the Panasonic Lumix TZ99's back plate form the usual mix of function specific controls, plus a central pad with a scroll wheel encircling it provided to provide speedier operation. We liked the fact that the display button to its lower right calls up the compositional aid of a spirit level – ideal for helping to get horizons straight when shooting landscapes, even if bright sunshine sometimes makes it tricky to see with certainty when the thin horizontal provided positively illuminates in green.

Another very useful button is provided bottom left of the four-way control pad; this provides the superb shortcut of a quick menu when we’re in shooting mode (otherwise it doubles as the equally useful delete button when in playback). Here we can quickly scroll through the various essential shooting options and select the particular one required with a finger tap onscreen.

Choices here include picture styles – switch from standard or natural to vivid or monochrome, for example – as well as being able to select the flash mode in use (with red eye reducing options provided alongside forced flash and slow shutter sync), select video quality, or choose image aspect ratio (from the standard 4:3 to medium format apeing 1:1). 

Naturally, image quality can also be selected via this quick menu rather than having to scroll through the TZ99’s main menu screens, with the ability to capture Fine (maximum) quality JPEGS alongside uncompressed Raw files, as we did for the duration of our two-week camera evaluation period. Auto Focus can also be swapped from single shot to continuous shooting, and the camera biased towards either an impressive 49-area AF, subject tracking or face and eye detection.

Ranged around the backplate’s four way control pad itself are, from 12 o’clock on the dial and moving clockwise, various settings for adjusting exposure compensation (a generous +/- 5EV), flash settings, self timer or drive mode, plus focus settings, including auto focus, auto focus macro and manual focus, with focus peaking provided so you can check the intended sharp portion of your image is indeed sharp.

While at either side of the TZ99 are located lugs for attaching the provided wrist strap, we also get a built-in speaker on one flank for playing back audio, while the opposite side provides mini HDMI and USB-C / CHARGE ports, protected by a plastic flap raised via fingernail. As previously mentioned, there is no dedicated battery charger provided in the box with the camera – rather a USB-C lead and mains plug – which means that the battery is charged in-camera rather than outside it, as tends to be more and more the convention these days.

Battery life is a claimed 380 images per charge, which is fair and allows you to easily fill up the SD media card in use, which also slots into the base of the TZ99, particularly if shooting Raw and JPEGs in tandem.

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this review were taken using the 20.3 megapixel Fine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 7Mb.

Noise

There are 8 ISO settings available on the Panasonic Lumix TZ99. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting for both JPEG and Raw formats.

JPEG	RAW
ISO 80	ISO 80
ISO 100	ISO 100
ISO 200	ISO 200
ISO 400	ISO 400
ISO 800	ISO 800
ISO 1600	ISO 1600
ISO 3200	ISO 3200
ISO 6400	ISO 6400

Focal Range

The 30x zoom lens provides a very versatile focal length of 24-720mm in 35mm terms, as demonstrated below.

24mm

720mm

Chromatic Aberrations

The TZ99 handled chromatic aberrations well during the review, with just a little purple fringing present around the edges of objects in certain high-contrast situations, as shown in the examples below.

Macro

This camera 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.

Night

The maximum shutter speed is 30 seconds, which is great news if you're seriously interested in night photography. The shot below was taken using a shutter speed of 4 seconds at ISO 80. 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.

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Panasonic Lumix TZ99 camera, which were all taken using the 20.3 megapixel Fine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample RAW Images

The Panasonic Lumix TZ99 enables users to capture RAW and JPEG format files. We've provided some Panasonic RAW (CR2) samples for you to download (thumbnail images shown below are not 100% representative).

Sample Movies & Video

Product Images

Conclusion

We reviewed the very first TZ camera, the logically named Lumix TZ-1, way back in 2006, which at the time was the smallest digital camera in the world with a 10x zoom lens.

Fast forward almost 20 years to 2025 and the photography market is a very different place, with the almost complete absence of compact cameras in favour of ever more capable smartphones.

Whilst the 1/2.3-inch sensor of the new TZ99 now struggles to match the computational image quality from higher-end smartphones, its 30x optical zoom still surpasses most other rival devices as its price-point.

Being able to zoom from wide-angle to ultra-telephoto using a camera that can fit inside a pocket is still a compelling selling-point in 2025, one that the TZ-series has focused on throughout its long life-span.

The removal of the electronic viewfinder will particularly irk photo enthuisiasts rather than the core target audience of smartphone users who are well used to holding their camera at arms length.

Its absence is still keenly felt when using the longer focal lengths, though, especially if you're trying to use the TZ99 in low-light where the image quality challenges of the small sensor are most keenly felt.

Overall, though, it's great to see the venerable TZ-series still continuing in Paansonic's Lumix range. This is the 20th model that we've reviewed since its inception in 2006, and despite its obvious limitations it still makes perfectly good sense as a travel / holiday camera.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4
Features	3.5
Ease-of-use	4
Image quality	3.5
Value for money	3.5

Main Rivals

Listed below are some of the rivals of the Panasonic Lumix TZ99.

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Panasonic Lumix TZ99 from around the web.

Specifications

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