Panasonic DMC-LZ2

Reviewed May 2005

Interface & Software

Interface

Since the Panasonic Lumix LZ2's monitor also serves as the viewfinder, it is larger than most. A side benefit is that the interface is that much more legible. In addition, the 85,000 pixel resolution of the monitor makes for larger characters which, along with the use of a black outline around letters, makes text even more legible whatever the background.

With the exception of the Simple mode's abridged menu, both the Capture menu and the Playback menu provide an access to the DMC-LZ2's Setup options:

• Battery Type: serves to let the camera know what type of battery is used to power it, either Oxyride, which are Panasonic batteries that are longer-lasting than standard alkaline batteries, or Alkaline/Ni-MH. Based on this information, the camera is then supposedly able to calculate the remaining charge of the batteries more accurately.
• Monitor: serves to adjust the brightness of the screen over ±3 steps.

• Auto Review: to decide whether or not an image is displayed post-capture (Off, 1 or 3 seconds) and whether the image is displayed full-screen or Zoomed. When Zoomed is selected the image is displayed full-screen for 1 second then zoomed to 4X so it can be inspected for sharpness. This option is not available for photos captured with the Burst mode, or Bracketing, or which have an associated audio recording.

• Power Save: sets the delay after which the camera will automatically shut down if it is unused (1, 2, 5 or 10 minutes).
• Beep: sets the volume of the beeps produced by the LZ2 during operations (Off, Low, High).
• Clock Set: serves to set the time and date on the camera.
• No. Reset: decides whether image files are named consecutively or restart at 1 when the card/memory is formatted or a blank card is used.

• Reset: Yes or No. Selecting Yes returns all camera settings to their original factory defaults.
• USB Mode: PC or PTP. Selects the USB protocol, either PC which is for use when connecting to personal computer (Mass Storage); or PTP which is intended for use when connecting the camera directly to a PictBridge compliant printer.
• Video Out (Playback mode only): NTSC or PAL. Selects the output signal of the camera.

• Scene Menu: Auto or Off. Decides whether or not the Scene menu is immediately displayed when the Mode Dial is turned to either SCN1 or SCN2.
• Language: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese or Japanese.

Software

The Canadian version of the Panasonic DMC-LZ2 reviewed here is supplied with a single disc called Lumix Digital Camera 2.2L that contains a number of programs: Panasonic SD Viewer 2.0E (for Windows only), ArcSoft PhotoImpression 5 (Windows and Macintosh), Panorama Maker 3 (Windows and Macintosh), PhotoBase 4.5 (Windows and Macintosh). Also included are Acrobat Reader to read the software manuals, and QuickTime to view the video clips captured with the camera. Finally, the disc also contains a USB driver (version 1.0) for older versions of Windows.

SD Viewer 2.0E serves to download images from the camera, organize them with keywords and print them. Photos are presented in a couple of different ways: as a contact sheet, where the thumbnail size is variable; or as thumbnails, with more or less information about the image presented on its right; or images can be filtered so that only some formats (All, Image, JPEG, TIFF, or Mov) are visible.

Unless the user has other photo editing software which can be linked to SD Viewer, any other more complex image editing relies on PhotoImpression 5 which can be installed at the same time as SD Viewer if desired.

PhotoImpression 5 allows images to be corrected for brightness, contrast, sharpness, red-eye, or colour tone, or even to add borders to an image.