The Lumix DMC-TS1 is the first shockproof and waterproof point and shoot digital camera from Panasonic. It has been really well received and while it has fewer features than its competitors, it certainly makes up for it in its looks and performance. Designed to survive falls from heights of up to 5 feet and drowning into water up to 10 feet deep, this camera actually does not look anything like a rugged camera. It is actually quite good looking. Plus it has great it has some great features like a wide-angle lens and HD video capture.

However, it does have its issues with the picture quality, which is not very sharp. You will also have to pay the premium for the rugged body. So is the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS1 worth buying? Continue to the other side to find out.

While most other rugged cameras manage to scream out pretty loud about their ruggedness, this camera is more subtle and classy. It chooses to hide this fact under a brushed metal casing with all the elegance of a non-rugged camera. To the casual onlooker, only the four screws at the corners will give away this camera’s true nature.

It is available in different colors like green, orange and dark silver. The lens is a 28mm equivalent wide-angle lens, which is protected by a clear plastic that can be easily cleaned. The power button is on the top and needs some effort before it yields. There is a spring-loaded slider that covers the 4.6x optical zoom and also textured shutter release.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS1 has one quirk though. The shutter release and the zoom control are both of the same size, making it easy to confuse the two and miss shots. But I reckon you get used to it. The rest of the controls are more or less sizeable and they are also logically arranged for intuitive control. Your thumb will be nesting against a mode-switching wheel, so you can easily switch in and out of camera modes. However, this also means that there can be accidental presses and missed shots.

Downwards from the dial are the standard controls for playing back and recording video. There are the usual directional keys for navigation and the menu button sits in the middle of them. The UI within the camera is more or less self-explanatory and does not need a manual read to be explained. There is a Q button on the lower right corner that launches a vertical bar that has all the shooting-mode context settings. The menu button also doubles as controls for the flash, exposure, macro and timer.

The TS1 is actually very similar to another model from the same line – the FP8. It is not rugged and hence costs less. You might want to check that out if you do not think you will be dropping or dousing your camera anytime soon. The shooting options are not all that customizable and are mainly geared towards ordinary users that just want to shoot pictures on auto mode. There is this one mode called Normal Picture where you can get to tweak different functions like color effects, white balance, light metering, ISO and also exposure. There is also the option of using Panasonic’s Intelligent ISO and limiting the shutter speeds to only ISO 400, 800 and 1600. You can also set the minimum shutter speed between 1 second and 1/25^th of a second.

The TS1 has 27 scene modes and comes with 3 of them on the mode wheel – beach & surf, snow and sports. If you cannot be bothered about this either, you can simply use the intelligent Auto or the iA mode that promises to take care of everything for you including scene mode selecting and image repair for correcting things like blurs. If you turn the dial all the way to the end, you will get to the clipboard. This feature uses a 40MB internal memory for the storage and instant recall of low-resolution images. Panasonic says this feature can be used as a cache for important pictures like maps and public transport timetables, etc. This feature can also make use of the wide-angle lens.

As you read at the beginning, the TS1 has HD video capabilities and also has dedicated buttons for recording video. It can record video in 720p resolution, which is not true HD (1080p) but is hi-res nonetheless. The video format is the AVCHD Lite format. The optical zoom is fully functional during video recording.

The TS1 is a fairly fast point and shoot and is one of the faster ones amongst the rugged cameras group. Start up to ready for shot takes about 1.2-1.5 seconds according to testers, shot-to-shot is pegged at around 1.9 seconds and it increases to 2.3 seconds with the flash on. Testers also report some shutter lag ranging from 0.5 to 1.2 seconds depending on the lighting condition, which can be a really big problem.

Given its class, the testers report that the picture quality is quite good. There is a problem with the sharpness of the photos but that is probably because of the extra cover in front of the lens and not an inherent fault of the camera itself. There are the usual noise issues and the higher you go on the ISO, the more noise you get. On the lower ISO 200 to 400, the photos are found to be decent and between ISO 800 and 1600 they are just about okay for the web. The auto white balance is not good for indoors shoots because it turns the shots yellow.

Barrel distortion is absent when your push the lens to its 28mm equivalent widest but there is some pincushion distortion when you take it to its longest position. Testers have reported the test shots being free of purple fringing. Color capture and exposure are reported to be decent.

At $400, the Lumix DMC-TS1 is on the expensive side for its class but you get a great looking pocket camera that can easily rough it out with you for the extra premium.

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The saying that goes “good things come in small packages” does not always hold true you see. Take Chihuahuas for example. You can take one up as a pet if you want to tear out your hair in frustration. Or you can gift one to your enemy. Likewise, compact digital cameras are always heartbreakingly underpowered and lack luster. They do not do much and they certainly are not powerful.

It is then, quite surprising that the Panasonic Lumix should turn out to be such a gem amongst them. Sizing up at 12.1 megapixels, it is worthy addition to the award-wining Lumix series from Panasonic. The DMC-ZX1 really pushes the envelope when it comes to expectations from a compact digital camera. Read on to find out more.

The main feature that should catch your eye is the 8x optical zoom. Read that again, it says ‘optical’ and not ‘digital’. This is not digital zoom that will completely mess up your image while pretending to zoom. Which means you can actually zoom in on things without distortion and you can also pull back for a wide end. This is possible only because the DMC-ZX1 incorporates the world’s first 0.3mm aspherical lens. Without it, such a slim body would not be able to havesuch a large optical zoom capability.

This much zoom is the same as having a 25-200mm on a full-frame DSLR or a 35mm film SLR. With this, you can capture sweeping sceneries with relative ease. You can also pull back enough to capture a small room full of people.

The 2.5-inch LCD screen in the background leaves room for little else but it does provide you with enough screen real estate to let you compose your shots perfectly. Once you are done, you are only one flick of a button away from reviewing your shots. There are also 5 intelligent auto modes for shooting. These dynamic presets adjust to the situations very well and let you have sharp shots almost every time. There is also an intelligent ISO control that automatically adjusts the ISO to capture moving subjects with more clarity and to avoid motion blur.

As with most premium compacts, the DMC-ZX1 has a robust image stabilization technology within it. Without such things your shaking hands would ruin almost every picture. Panasonic chooses to call the technology Power Optical Image Stabilization (Power OIS) and it is supposed to be better than the previous version called Mega OIS. There are also the usual scene modes like sunset, fireworks, etc.

If you simply look at the Lumix, you will realize that it is actually a pretty sleek compact camera. It has an extremely slim profile, an attractive silver finish and it is also quite light. So you can easily hold it in your hand without stressing yourself over time.

The slim profile also makes the buttons really small. I am talking about slightly smaller than a dime here. That might be a problem for people with large fingers. The large LCD also does a similar thing as mentioned before. The buttons are actually so very tiny, that they remind me of the on/off button and random/orderly select button on my 2^nd generation iPod Shuffle. You are very likely to push a few buttons every time you mean to push one before you get used to it.

The DMC-ZX1 starts up quite fast – in about 1.1 seconds actually. One problem is the fact that lens protrudes out as soon as the camera comes alive and refuses to go back in till the camera is switched off. Thankfully the power saver/standby mode makes the lens collapse and you can then slip in to your pocket. Waking it up is as simple as tapping on the shutter button and with the start up time so very low, you can easily capture sudden photo opportunities.

The Venus Engine V processor works hard to reduce all the noise from your photo. The chromatic noise and the luminance are removed from the photo, which simply mean that the photos that shoot with this will be pretty good most of the time.

The lens on DMC-ZX1 is the ultra-wide Leica DC Vario-Elmar lens. There is a 4x digital zoom on top of the already large 8x zoom. The camera has a 3-megapixel mode where the optical zoom can be increased to big 15.6x. However, this is artificially managed through the 12.1 sensor on the DMC.

It also has face recognition technology with some added bells and whistles. On top of recognizing multiple faces, it now remembers frequently shot faces as well. The faces will have extra sharpness about them thanks to this and the frequently captured face will be prioritized. There is a fun mode that works in conjunction with facial recognition and it is called the ‘Transform’ mode. It can make people look skinnier or fatter. Either way, they do not look very natural and hence it can be written down as a mere gimmick.

There is continuous shooting in the burst mode. It can capture shots at 2.3FPS in burst mode. That can go up to 10fps in the 3-megapixel mode, which is close to what the professional level DSLR cameras offer. Of course, do not go expecting the same quality from the shots. Burst mode is helpful when you are trying to get a good shot at something that constantly moving like a pet or a dancer.

The auto mode is a bit problematic on the camera. Since the DMC has to use the flash for every picture and it cannot be convinced otherwise, macro is a problem. Subjects may end up really burned from being overexposed.

The scene settings are huge in number. There are 29 of these modes. Experience tells me people will use only 2 or 3 of them at a maximum. But I guess 29 looks better on paper than 2 or 3.

The image quality on the DMC is better than the other compacts in its class. The colors are very well recorded and it has good images to give you regardless of how much you have zoomed in. This is a compact that is highly recommended.

Video shot with the DMC-ZX1, featuring zoom.

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