The TZ5's noise profile is a bit hard to pin down. On one hand, there's noise at all ISOs that obscures detail; even at ISO 100, you can't read the text in the book, and the smaller numbers on the tape measure are fuzzy. More typically, at ISO 400 you can start to see the aggressive blur kick in, which is common in snapshot cameras.
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Overall, the TZ5 rendered very nice colors, just this side of oversaturated, but still subtly distinguishable (note the different shades of yellow) and relatively accurate.
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For a relatively wide angle (28mm-equivalent), 10x zoom lens, the TZ5 exhibits minimal distortion. However, it's not typical symmetical barrel distortion, so there's a bit of a funhouse-mirror sensation looking at a photo like this; it looks askew, or shot from a low angle.
Updated:Caption:CNET Reviews staffPhoto:Lori GruninDisclosure:We may get a commission from retail offers.
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Also a testament to the quality of the TZ5's lens, there's very little fringing, except on high-contrast, blown-out edges on the sides of the frame, which is quite common.
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This was shot into a dark restaurant from the sidewalk using Panasonic's Intelligent Auto mode, which does automatic scene detection to set a variety of shooting parameters (in this case, it chose ISO 640, f4.4, 1/30 sec). You can see the smeariness resulting from the high ISO setting, but overall the shot was still quite usable, because it's not that detailed.
