Panasonic LUMIX DMC-TZ80EB-S Super Zoom Camera - Silver

I'd had a Sony HX60 for 5½ years and loved its 24-720mm zoom range. Finally the wheel on the rear stopped registering presses on one side, making it difficult to get at some settings; I had to keep rotating it to avoid the dead area. So I gave it to a grandson to use in Auto mode and replaced it. I thought about a new Sony HX but after reading the reviews had no hesitation in going for the TZ80 instead. The TZ200 is a superb camera; a friend has one I've tried, but the zoom range is limited by the 1 inch sensor and it's no match for my lovely Olympus M10 II with a much bigger sensor and 24-400mm lens. The TZ80 is much more like a direct replacement for the HX60 - much easier to slip in a small bag or jacket pocket and I have it with me often, just in case. Phones are so relentlessly wide angle I find them useless for far too many shots.The TZ80 is reasonably priced and I think the 'silver' version looks rather smart. It also has some super extras the Sony lacked. The viewfinder is small but very usable and placed so your nose doesn't keep resetting the touch focus point (if you use your right eye). At first I thought it blurry but it's good since I found the diopter adjustment wheel. The camera generally feels easy to use, with an excellent touch screen. I always default to Aperture mode and it's easy then to adjust aperture control (rear ring) and exposure compensation. ISO was hard to adjust until I reset the big lens ring to control it. Normally I set ISO to Auto but if indoors with moving subjects, eg young children, I'll set it quite high manually and the results have been good so far. In good light the results are superb. In low light they are as good as you can expect from a camera with a relatively small sensor.A real star feature for me is the 4K (8 megapixel) still photo burst mode. It's easy to trigger (Fn1) and will take 30 still images a second for up to 15 minutes then let you scroll through and choose good ones. Using my HX60 at the football, I took so many shots with no sign of the ball. The TZ80 seems to have much less shutter lag, the EVF really helps and the burst mode will be brilliant for exciting passages of play, eg penalties, particularly now that our team, Brentford has got to the Premiership after 70+ years in lower divisions. And the 24-720mm zoom will cover everything.So anyone wanting a super zoom range in a small camera should put the TZ80 at the top of their 'check it out' list.

What a terrific camera. I don't know how I managed without WiFi before. I assumed the WiFi was to copy photos to the cloud (which it does) but you can also copy single or multiple photos to any PC on the network. I use this to back up the photos I want to keep. So much easier than removing the SD Card from the camera and pushing it into the PC. The best thing though, is that the camera can be a hotspot. Set it into Hotspot mode and log your mobile phone onto it rather than your home network. Don't worry, the phone will revert to the previous network when you close the camera. You need to install a Panasonic App, "Image App", available for Android and iPhone. Once the phone is connected to the camera's SSID, run the app on your phone and be prepared to be blown away! The phone becomes a remote control for the camera, no need for the camera's timer any more. You get the camera's view on your phone, you can change most settings from your phone e.g. zoom, flash mode etc. Other than remote control, the app allows you to copy files from the camera to the phone thus you can be out and about and with very little effort take some photos and email them to your friends. Obviously you must email set up on your phone! The app provides basic image editing including creating a collage from selected photos. I like this facility. The camera does 4K in both stills and video but I haven't tried that yet. What I have tried it taking panorama shots. Set it tp panorama mode and press the shutter as you swivel round. I horizontal line on the screen tells you whether you are going straight. It won't let you go crooked, it says Do it again or some such. The resultant picture is truly amazing. I've produced panorama shots before but it always involved loading several images into e.g. Photoshop Elements and producing the panoramic image from there. This little gem does it all for you. Final Note: I don't usually do reviews on Amazon, but this camera is such fun (as Miranda's mum would say) that I just HAD to put pen to paper as it were. Thanks for listening. Morris aged 65 and a quarter.

It's a good camera but in my opinion it's overpriced and a bit difficult to use. Picture quality is excellent.

I bought this after reading a review for a later model saying that it was a good camera for taking video.I make art videos on YouTube. I'm filming small items close up and have struggled with focus/autofocus but this works so well. It's light and small, it's not a problem to have it between me and my work because I can see round it more easily than the bigger camera I was using. The footage is great quality, sharp, in focus.I haven't figured out how to use the WiFi yet.There's one issue, if Im filming and the battery dies and turns the camera off because of low battery, it won't save that piece of footage. I have extra batteries and a charger but this happens a little more often than I like. Also you can't change the battery and memory card while the camera is on a tripod, you have to unscrew it to access the battery compartment

• This camera is light to carry round• Extremely compact to fit in pocket• The photo quality using 4K is FANTASTIC• The post focus is a GREAT feature..just snap away and sort out what you want to focus on after• EXTREMELY well made• The features on this camera are AMAZING and EASY to use