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Anybody else having image quality problems with the Lumix TZ10? (1 Viewer)

jimmyg

jimmyg

Good game boys, good game!
Just bought a Lumix TZ10 (rrp over £300) but I'm really quite disappointed with the image quality :-C. They're really very fuzzy, and when you zoom in digitally (even just to 4x) the picture starts to look more like a painting! To be quite honest my old 4MP Nikon Coolpix 4500 was in a different league. Alright, it was a great camera, but considering that the TZ10 has 12MP and a Leica lens I was expecting it to be miles better than it is. I've fiddled with the settings but can't seem to make much of a difference, and the problem persists even in good light. I noticed that several of the reviews on Amazon tell a similar story, so wondered whether anybody has found a solution? If not and you're not finding the same problem, could you possibly let me know the settings you're using?

Thanks so much.
 
I bought the TZ8, which I think uses the same processor as TZ10 a couple of months ago. See attached 2 images I took while in Sarawak recently using maximum digital magnification. I'm really pleased with the quality from such a small camera. I think the Woodsand was taken with full automatic setting whilst the Eagle Owl juv was with aperture priority setting due to lighting conditions.

John
 

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Forget digital zoom, turn it off ! You can get the same effect by cropping on your computer.
I have no experience of this Panasonic but I did own one of the earlier versions and , for the money , it produced some great shots.
I would imagine that your problem for fuzzy images might be camera shake.The more MP's the more difficult to get a sharp image unless you have an high shutter speed or a rock steady platform.
 
rioja said:
Forget digital zoom, turn it off ! You can get the same effect by cropping on your computer.
I have no experience of this Panasonic but I did own one of the earlier versions and , for the money , it produced some great shots.
I would imagine that your problem for fuzzy images might be camera shake.The more MP's the more difficult to get a sharp image unless you have an high shutter speed or a rock steady platform.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion, but sadly it's not to do with camera shake. It's not really a blurry image that is the problem, more a sort of grainy effect like you get from using a camera with low MP's such as a phone camera.
 
jimmyg said:
Thanks for the suggestion, but sadly it's not to do with camera shake. It's not really a blurry image that is the problem, more a sort of grainy effect like you get from using a camera with low MP's such as a phone camera.
Click to expand...
If you are using the auto programme setting in low light it may be choosing an ISO that is beyond it's capabilities.
My DSLR has settings far beyond anything I would use because the result is grainy.
Try a manual setting and set the ISO to different numbers and find out what the camera can and can't do.
cheers
Dave
 
rioja said:
If you are using the auto programme setting in low light it may be choosing an ISO that is beyond it's capabilities.
My DSLR has settings far beyond anything I would use because the result is grainy.
Try a manual setting and set the ISO to different numbers and find out what the camera can and can't do.
cheers
Dave
Click to expand...

Thanks again, but I already tried that and the results are pretty rubbish even at ISO80 :-C
 
I don't know how to view the exif data, but hopefully you'll be able to get to it if I upload the photos. First, I think this Blue Tit demonstrates the problem well. Had to crop it to upload it here, but you can clearly see how poorly defined the picture is.
 

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Here are a few compressed photos of my garden wall taken at different ISO's (see filenames) with the same photo at 12x optical zoom. ISO1600 was too big to upload even when compressed but I could probably compress it a bit more if necessary. Sorry about the darkness of some of the photos, I'm sure you can adjust brightness if you need to though. They all have the sharpness problem. Hope this helps.
 

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You paid £300 where did you pay that you can get around 200 free case and £30 back, l have no probs mine nice and crisp clear
 
rick ward said:
You paid £300 where did you pay that you can get around 200 free case and £30 back, l have no probs mine nice and crisp clear
Click to expand...

Thanks Rick. Nope, its RRP £300 but I got it for just over £200 from Amazon and I've already got a case, but thanks for the tip. Would you mind posting a few of your photos for comparison please? What settings do you use?
 
Blue Tit pic

From the exif we have ISO400, F4.9, 1/60"

1/60" for a 400mm focal length equivalent is going to test the stabiliser!

I also see from the exif that you have Sharpness set to Normal whereas in the pictures of the wall it's set to Hard. I think that Hard is the better set for Sharpness.

I'm afraid I don't have a TZ10 to look at and try out a few settings but on my Panasonic FZ100 I always use aperture priority then up the ISO (but never above ISO400) to get enough shutter speed and then hope the bird doesn't move :)
 
pdwinter said:
From the exif we have ISO400, F4.9, 1/60"

1/60" for a 400mm focal length equivalent is going to test the stabiliser!

I also see from the exif that you have Sharpness set to Normal whereas in the pictures of the wall it's set to Hard. I think that Hard is the better set for Sharpness.

I'm afraid I don't have a TZ10 to look at and try out a few settings but on my Panasonic FZ100 I always use aperture priority then up the ISO (but never above ISO400) to get enough shutter speed and then hope the bird doesn't move :)
Click to expand...

I fiddled with the settings after the Blue Tit but had forgotten what they were. Hard sharpness did seem to make a bit of difference I think, but it's still not great. I agree with your verdict that blurriness would be unsurprising on that photo, but at the same time the picture quality isn't what I usually associate with camera shake. I've just taken another photo (of a blanket) to illustrate what I've been trying to get across. I've been using a macro setting, and my hands were resting so there was virtually no camera shake, yet the threads still don't come out sharply defined. This isn't the result I'd have had using my old Coolpix, and the TZ10 is supposed to be about the best compact on the market.
 

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hi jimmy ive a tz10 and put a few pictures on the gallery they are not a patch on other folks images,i cant really comment as i am a proper point and shoot amatuer,wish i could get the detail of some of the lads on here.cheers frankie
 
I dont know about this camera but can you set the compression level for Jpegs?
Sorry if this is a daft question but have you checked that the quality settings are set to thier maximum. To me the picture of the Blue Tit looks as though its ben taken at a low resolution and or with a very high compression ratio for Jpegs.
Rgds
Andrew
 
AndrewA said:
I dont know about this camera but can you set the compression level for Jpegs?
Sorry if this is a daft question but have you checked that the quality settings are set to thier maximum. To me the picture of the Blue Tit looks as though its ben taken at a low resolution and or with a very high compression ratio for Jpegs.
Rgds
Andrew
Click to expand...

The TZ10 only has two quality settings and I realised that I had somehow switched to the lower one with which the Blue Tit was taken, but the very fact that I didn't realise it'd changed is a cause for concern! As I've said before, my old 4MP Coolpix would have produced a much better result, and even on a the Lumix's low quality setting it wouldn't be as low as 4MP.

I searched the user manual PDF for "compression" and it didn't return anything, so I'm not sure that you can change it. Thanks for the suggestion though.
 
James the compression level will probably be something along the lines of fine and super fine for Jpeg compression.
Rgds
Andrew
 
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