A 12x zoom, a very wide-angle lens that starts at 25 mm combined with a faultless build quality and top-quality lenses: Panasonic's Lumix DMC-TZ6 hopes to give you all of that but for a more friendly price than its much-loved older brother, the DMC-TZ7.  The two models share the same frame, but this new version cuts back on some of the more expensive features.

Handling

The TZ6 certainly won't be new territory for anybody used to Panasonic's TZ range.  They're well-built, and easy to hold, despite their bulk.  The interface is clear and simple, with the manufacturer's usual 'quick menu' giving direct access to the majority of settings.  Just like on the TZ7, though, the mode selection wheel is infuriatingly loose and tends to end up changing if you carry the camera around in your pocket.


The screen's vital statistics--6.9 cm and 230, 000 pixels--are entirely standard.  More noteworthy, though, is the unfortunate fact that it's a TN screen.  Regular readers of our LCD monitor tests will know that that means appalling vertical viewing angles, with a screen that fades to black when you look at it from below and to white when you look down from above.  Apart from this problem, the camera is well thought-out, with easy to use features and a restrained interface.

It's reasonably responsive, with about two and a half seconds to power it up and a pretty snappy autofocus that takes less than a second, even in low light.  The waiting time between two successive photos is just over two seconds, making the TZ6, like the TZ7 before it, a fast camera that's a treat to use.

Image Quality

Given that the TZ7 is now a reference is this part of the market, we were expecting some very good results.  We were hardly disappointed with sharp images across the whole frame at low sensitivites.  The TZ7 does slightly better, but the gap between the two is very small.


Things get complicated at higher sensitivities, and it's obvious that the change in image processing software (the Venus Engine HD is used on the TZ7 but the Venus Engine V on the TZ6) doesn't just affect video.  Even at 800 ISO, the former does noticeably better.  The TZ6 manages to capture fewer details, and is also prone to leave traces of its demosaicing in dark areas of the image.  None of this is dreadful, though, and at 800 ISO it's perfectly possible to make decent 4'' x 6'' or even 8'' x 12'' prints.  At 1600 ISO, though the difference is obvious and photos taken on the TZ6 are hard to use.


The TZ6 sticks to the VGA video format at 30 fps, saving the video in M-JPEG format, rather than the AVCHD 720p HD used by the TZ7.  The quality isn't bad, and you can use the optical zoom while recording.  It moves gently enough to allow you to produce smooth transitions.

Sound is only recorded in mono, with rather average quality for a compact camera that's a long way behind the excellent stereo of the TZ7.  If video is really important for you, you're better off with the more advanced model.