First Weekend With My Panasonic TZ7

It’s strange, and I can’t quite explain it, but the camera felt different to when I had one back in August of last year. It felt better and easier to use – maybe it’s just because I’ve finally made the right camera choice for me and my feeling of comfort with the camera gave me a feeling of having a superior piece of equipment. The Intelligent Auto mode is superb and chooses the right scene option very quickly, as well as focusing almost instantly.

The first thing I did was head out into the garden to test the macro mode, something I had been looking forward to doing ever since I’d ordered the camera. Luckily my Class 6 Integral 8GB SDHC memory card arrived on Saturday morning so I knew I’d be able to snap away without any worries of running out of room. These are the first two photos which I thought were good enough to publish on this blog:

Yellow Tulip

Daisy

I’m really happy with these photos – both have been cropped down in Photoshop and the Daisy has had the ‘Auto Levels’ function applied to it, the Tulip as as it came out the camera – the Auto levels left it unchanged, must have been such a good photo!

Next was a scenery shot, taken in Hitchin opposite the Millstream Pub:

Field in Hitchin

Again, very happy with the results. On the Sunday we went for a walk around Hitchin and then to St.Albans where I took a variety of photos, the ones I am happiest with can be seen on my Flickr Photostream, but here a few I liked for a variety of reasons.

Spider

This one was taken in our back garden and although the focus isn’t the best I was really happy to get such a good shot as it was hard to get to and the spider in real life is tiny – this shows the macro mode off really well, I can only begin to imagine how good the photo could have been had I had better access and used a tripod.

Ladybird

This is another shot which was pretty hard to get to but came out really well. Thanks to more auto level applying in Photoshop the colours look a lot more natural, especially the red of the shell which was a bit orangey straight out of the camera.

Canada Goose Teeth

This one isn’t here because of image quality but because of the image quality while zooming in from a long way. This photo is at maximum resolution. Look at the teeth on the goose’s bill and then look at the next photo which is the uncropped original – this camera has pretty spectacular zoom capabilities.

Canada Goose

All in all I’m very happy with the camera and think I have made the right choice. I am keen to get out and take more photos, and to use more of the different features and shooting modes that the Panasonic TZ7 has to offer. I will of course report back here with findings and photos. As always, comments and advice are welcomed.