Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS5 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom with 2.7-Inch LCD (Silver)

by Panasonic

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 6 x 7 x 2 inches ; 2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B003966MQ8
• Item model number: DMC-ZS5S
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #141 in Camera & Photo (See Top 100 in Camera & Photo)

  #88 in

  Camera & Photo > Point & Shoot Digital Cameras

• Date first available at Amazon.com: February 20, 2010

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

The Lumix DMC-ZS5 features a 25mm ultra wide-angle^* 12x optical zoom f/3.3-4.9 Leica DC Vario-Elmar lens (35mm camera equivalent: 25-300mm). Incorporating Panasonic's advanced optical technologies, this lens system is comprised of 10 elements in 8 groups, with 2 ED (Extra Low Dispersion) lenses and 2 aspherical lenses / 3 aspherical surfaces while preserving compactness. This lens system enables a remarkable 25 to 300mm range of focal length in this compact body. The powerful zoom of the DMC-ZS5can be freely controlled even when shooting motion images. Inheriting the fine rendering and outstanding quality of the Leica Elmar lens, this easy-to-carry camera delivers beautiful images any time, any place.
_{* Converted to standard 35mm camera equivalent, at the maximum wide position.}

Lumix DMC-ZS5 Highlights

Powerful 12x Optical Zoom
The DMC-ZS5 features a powerful 12x optical zoom lens (35mm camera equivalent: 25-300mm). This gives you highly natural expressions from people and animals that you can't get close to. It is also available in movie recording with the mechanism designed to minimize the noise of auto focusing or zooming. And its slim, compact, pocket-sized body can easily go wherever you do for both everyday snapshots and traveling.

25mm Ultra Wide-angle Lens
The 25mm ultra wide-angle lens has about twice the shooting area as a standard 35mm lens. This enhances all kinds of shooting situations, like when you're photographing a group of people at an indoor party or shooting a large structure or sweeping landscape while traveling.

16x Intelligent Zoom / 23.4x Extra Optical Zoom
Thanks to the newly incorporated Intelligent Resolution technology, the Intelligent Zoom is available with the DMC-ZS5 which extends the zoom ratio by approx. 1.3x maintaining the picture quality even combining a digital zoom. This means the 12x optical can virtually extend to 16x equivalent. Furthermore, the Extra Optical Zoom function that extends zoom power to 23.4x^* by using the center part of the large CCD to bring subjects even closer.
_{*At 3-megapixel resolution or less.}


Sonic Speed AF
The Sonic Speed AF system in the DMC-ZS5 has a maximum speed of approx. 0.35 second (wide-end) / 0.41 second (tele-end) for auto focusing. It includes numerous re-engineering enhancements, including a higher-speed actuator, optimized algorithms and parallel software processing. The result is fast and accurate AF performance. You can quickly get moving subjects in focus, such as when you're shooting sports scenes.

POWER O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabilizer) Shake Detection
Just about everyone has had the experience of taking a photo at night and hoping to capture all the memories and beauty, only to be disappointed at the poor result. The POWER O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabilizer)^* nearly doubles the hand-shake correction power of conventional MEGA O.I.S. You get bright photos without blurring even from handheld shooting at slow shutter speeds. Panasonic's accumulated optical technologies, the MEGA O.I.S. has been incorporated into Lumix from the early stage of digital camera development. This helped show all digital camera users the absolute need for hand-shake compensation, and led to its prevalence throughout the industry. And now, Panasonic has worked on the low-frequency vibration hand-shake component, which is physically generated when pressing the shutter button or when shooting at night with a slow shutter speed.


_{*The POWER O.I.S. is automatically turned on in the iA Mode and can be turned on or off in the P/A/S/M Mode or some Scene Modes.}

Product Description

Panasonic DMC-ZS5 Digital Camera Features

25mm Ultra Wide-angle 12x Optical Zoom LEICA DC Lens
The DMC-ZS5 features a 25mm ultra wide-angle* 12x optical zoom f/3.3-4.9 LEICA DC VARIO-ELMAR lens (35mm camera equivalent: 25-300mm). Incorporating Panasonic's advanced optical technologies, this lens system is comprised of 10 elements in 8 groups, with 2 ED (Extra Low Dispersion) lenses and 2 aspherical lenses / 3 aspherical surfaces while preserving compactness. This lens system enables a remarkable 25 to 300mm range of focal length in this compact body. The powerful zoom of the DMC-ZS5can be freely controlled even when shooting motion images. Inheriting the fine rendering and outstanding quality of the LEICA ELMAR lens, this easy-to-carry camera delivers beautiful images any time, any place.

* Converted to standard 35mm camera equivalent, at the maximum wide position.

Powerful 12x Optical Zoom
The DMC-ZS5 features a powerful 12x optical zoom lens (35mm camera equivalent: 25-300mm). This gives you highly natural expressions from people and animals that you can't get close to. It is also available in movie recording with the mechanism designed to minimize the noise of auto focusing or zooming. And its slim, compact, pocket-sized body can easily go wherever you do for both everyday snapshots and traveling.

25mm Ultra Wide-angle Lens
The 25mm ultra wide-angle lens* has about twice the shooting area as a standard 35mm lens. This enhances all kinds of shooting situations, like when you're photographing a group of people at an indoor party or shooting a large structure or sweeping landscape while traveling.

16x Intelligent Zoom / 23.4x Extra Optical Zoom
Thanks to the newly incorporated Intelligent Resolution technology, the Intelligent Zoom is available with the DMC-ZS5 which extends the zoom ratio by approx. 1.3x maintaining the picture quality even combining a digital zoom. This means the 12x optical can virtuall

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great performance and reasonable price, June 8, 2010

By	R. L. Waters - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS5 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom with 2.7-Inch LCD (Silver) (Electronics)

After a long time contemplating buying the ZS3 I finally decided to wait and see what Panasonic would have for us in the 2010 line up. And so far I'm very glad I waited.

The ZS1 and ZS3 were Panasonic's high zoom compact cameras last year, and both of them receive great reviews. I've had a chance on several occasions to play with 2 different ZS3's that belong to friends, and this was initially the camera I was going to get being very impressed with it's performance. However, by the time I was ready to buy, the new ZS5 and ZS7 (to replace ZS1 and ZS3 respectively) were on the markets. And to my surprise, the ZS5 with several upgraded features was significantly cheaper than it's predecessors.

A few things I noticed right away comparing my new ZS5 to my friend's ZS3:

-First, physically the ZS5 has a smaller screen than the ZS3. The screen however is still sharp and clear, and perfectly usable. After a few minutes I don't even notice the difference.

-The ZS5 can zoom while recording a movie, something that my friends ZS3 can not do.

-The ZS5 image stabilization is just amazing, and seems to be much better than the ZS3. Especially noticeable at the higher zooms while recording video.

-The ZS5 now has manual controls, something the ZS3 does not have. For me, even as a complete amateur, this is a huge benefit, and the single largest upgrade over the ZS3.

-The ZS5 has a one touch zoom button on the back in addition to the normal zoom control on top. This button with one press takes you from zoomed out, to full optical zoom, then full digital zoom, then returns to zoomed out. Not a big feature but something I can see being handy from time to time.

-The ZS5 no longer has the dedicated movie record button on the back, but rather an option on the selection dial on the top, similar to other cameras I have used, and what I personally prefer.

-The ZS5 has an exposure button on the back. While in manual modes pressing this button activates the directional buttons below it to act as the adjustments to your various manual settings. I think this is a clean and easy way to get control over settings and better than other setups I've seen in compact digitals with manual settings, where you often have to navigate menus to find the settings.

-Overall the ZS5 construction feels very solid, the lens action is smooth and quite, and the buttons have the high quality feel, just like the ZS3. Perhaps the main difference being the ZS5 has a slightly stiffer mode selection wheel, while the ZS3 mode selection wheel would often be moved just by removing it from your pocket.


Now to compare the ZS5 to it's bigger brother the ZS7.

From my research (not experience) the main differences are the 7 has the larger screen, on board GPS, and a slightly different image processor. For me, these first two differences actually benefit the 5 over the 7, giving it longer battery life simply because it doesn't use power on the GPS or the larger screen. The image processor might be an advantage to the 7 though, with some reviews that I have seen especially emphasizing better low light video quality on the 7. I've taken a few indoor and outdoor videos with the ZS5 and they seem very sharp and clear to me. Certainly the best I've had from a pocket digi camera, so without side by side comparison with the ZS7 it's hard to discount the 5's video quality.

Overall, this camera has exceeded my expectations in every way. I have owned 12 digital cameras, everything from ultra compact to DSLR. This camera by far has the most capability vs. portability of any camera I have owned. I've already taken about 300 pictures and several videos, color, contrast, and sharpness are all very impressive. I'm still on my first charge with an indicated 2/3 battery remaining.

The automatic mode works great and the auto focusing is the best I've seen outside of a DSLR. The focusing is so fast and accurate, combined with the quick turn on time and very short shutter lag time, this camera is the 'quickest on the draw' I have personally used.

This camera is like having my DSLR with a 25-300mm VR lens, combined with my high def video camera, all in a package I can slip in my shirt pocket. In any case I know I will have better results with my ZS5 than a DSLR or the video camera simply because I can have my ZS5 with me almost all the time, ready to get that perfect shot at a moments notice.

Amazing, and well worth the wait. 5 stars.

By the way the "Pelican 1010 Micro Case" fits this camera perfectly and makes a great water resistant/crush proof carrying case. Also highly recommended. Pelican 1010 Micro-Case (Black)

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compact, great pictures, affordable, July 12, 2010

By	Herr Zoller - See all my reviews

This review is from: Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS5 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom with 2.7-Inch LCD (Silver) (Electronics)

This product strikes a good balance between compact size and image quality. Smaller alternatives exist but this pocket-sized camera has lens quality typically found only in SLR (or near-SLR) cameras. Manual settings let you grow your photographic skills if you choose to use them and auto settings will satisfy most. Super easy to use and a great value, I would buy again.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great camera for the money, July 5, 2010

By	Lisa Hamilton - See all my reviews

This review is from: Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS5 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom with 2.7-Inch LCD (Silver) (Electronics)

The camera overall takes great photos I would have given it a 4 1/2 star if I could have. I am extremely happy! Took it on vacation and it took excellent photos for a small camera. I love that it fits into a pocket after years of lugging around Canon SLRs. I did have a photo I tried to print that could not be made into an 8X10 because of noise, 5x7 print was fine. It was a photo that had lots of varied colors and movement. Other than that 1 all the others came out as I expected. And other photos I could print to 8X10 with no problems. It took great video clips even from a moving vehicle of the ocean. It was a great buy.