Today's wandering ended up taking me around the University of Toronto grounds. The D300 was at home so it was pocketcam time with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3.
It's a good little camera but it has some shortcomings. This shot of a gauge through a safety cage came out very soft in the colors.
While the optics of the Lumix are made by Leica and are very good, the software lets the camera down too often. Anything over ISO 400 is very noisy, and the in-camera noise reduction and sharpening is too aggressive so shots like this with a lot of smooth color end up a bit soft but overly sharpened at the edges.
If only this lens was on a Canon G9 body, then I'd be beating down the doors to get one.
But while the little Lumix struggles with strong colors, it can capture tones and lighting very nicely, as evidenced in this shot.
After just a small amount of processing in Lightroom, this shot just sings now. Another strength of the DMC-TZ3 is that it's fast, so this is one of several shots in a sequence after a rapid power-on. When you're never sure what is going to happen and where a fast starter and shooter is a good friend to have. As a little bonus here is a link to download the Lightroom preset I used to create this look for you to use too.
While I'm happy with the Lumix overall, I don't think I would buy the same camera again, nor recommend it to others. In the $300 to $350 price bracket there are some other nicer cameras that are probably better all-rounders than this unit and have more manual controls.
