IT'S NOT OFTEN WE review a compact camera on Illustrated Photography magazine, we mostly opt for DSLRs, but every once in a while, a compact comes along that gets us all excited, and we throw the rulebook out the window.

The Panasonic TZ5 is such a camera.

Make no mistake, this is not a compact aimed at professional photographers, or even so complicated that none but the most avid amateur will be able to use it. Quite the opposite, in fact.

The TZ5 is a point-and-shoot in the true sense of the word, it requires no photographic knowledge, nor any specialized skills on the part of the photographer.

In fact, there is very little scope for overriding the manual features whatsoever. You can’t select the shutter speed or the aperture, and you are bound to basic controls like turning the flash on and off or zooming the lens in and out.

But the great thing about this camera, the thing that got us gushing, is how well the camera’s auto exposure performs in the toughest of situations.

In what the company calls “Intelligent Auto” mode, the camera utilises scene and face detection technology to allow it to deliver an accurate exposure no matter what the subject.

It uses technology that allows it to recognise faces by there shape and color and a very intelligent exposure matrix to establish exactly what type of scene it is looking at.

Having identified the scene, the camera then adjusts not only the aperture and shutter speed, but also the flash strength and ISO sensitivity, allowing it to deliver astoundingly good exposures under a variety of conditions,

When we first read about the exposure system, we were, to say the least, a little sceptical. We have, in the Illustrated Photography magazine’s offices, heard such claims before.

But then we put it to the test, and boy, does it deliver. Forget about faces which are underexposed due to very strong backlighting, Forget about under saturated highlights, this camera, gets it spot on every time. We even tried to trick it, by intentionally photographing a landscape as a silhouette, thinking it would turn on the flash, but lo and behold, it gave us exactly what we asked for.

Ten times optical zoom

Another nice feature on this product, is that it has a ten times optical zoom.

The lens extends from 28mm, all the way up to 280mm. That is a heck of a long way. Just look at the two images on the left, one shot at the widest zoom, and one at the longest.

But at 280mm you are more than likely to generate a bit of camera shake, I hear you say? No problem. Just turn on the Image Stabalization mode, and results are as sharp as if you had the camera mounted on a tripod.

Type of lens and sharpness...

Other handy features

We like the fact that the TZ5 has a maximum ISO of 1600. Most other compacts are still, quite literally stuck in the dark ages, with a maximum of 800. This allows the TZ5 to take pictures without flash in much darker surroundings than many of its rivals.

The big three inch screen is also perfect for taking and reviewing pictures, and the resolution of this screen has been supped up over previous versions, thought the higher detail is only visible when you review images, not when you are taking them.

The camera has a full 9.1 megapixels, which will allow you to blow pictures up to poster size before you see any pixilation.

This is also the first camera we have seen which shoots video in the High Definition format. This is very impressive, and we are even considering shooting our home videos on this little baby from now on.

Panansonic TZ5 – The perfect travel camera

With all these features combined, you will be hard pressed to find a better quality compact, with more desirable features for the casual traveller.

The ten times optical zoom will allow you to get pictures which would normally be well out of reach of compacts, on other brands you would have to buy a hybrid to get the same type of zooming power.

The HD video will also come in handy on travels, and the fact that the camera takes the widely available SD format memory cards means that you will be able to buy more cards in the most remote of places.

Overall, we like this camera, and will be putting one in our own camera bag when we next head of to Sri Lanka.