Panasonic TS1 (FT1) Review
by migs
I traded in my Panasonic TZ5 for the TS1. Originally I bought the TZ5 as my “party cam” to go along with my Sigma DP2 (compact travel cam) and Canon 5dmkII (money maker cam). Though the TZ5 is a gem of a camera, I felt like I needed something a little more chic and pocketable. This is where the TS1 comes in.
It’s chic by my standards… metallic orange is pretty damn sic and the form factor allows for a perfect fit in my pockets. The TS1 markets itself as a rugged compact, something you can take with you swimming, hiking, snowboarding, etc. At first, I was a little reluctant about getting it because my first rugged camera (by Olympus) took some really horrible images. Really, really awful if I’m being honest.
The TS1 actually holds it’s own resulting in images almost identical to that of the TZ5. That’s pretty amazing for an underwater, shock proof, small bodied digital camera. The color output isn’t as nice as the TZ5, but I’ll take it for everything else that it is. Keep in mind, I’m not at all being technical with these compacts. I’m already happy with my DP2 IQ, so what I need from these cameras is just something I can take with me any and everywhere.
The reason I’m not comparing this to the DP2 is because that is in a league of it’s own, but I have owned a Leica D-Lux3, Panasonic LX3 and Canon G10 so I think I know my compacts pretty well. With that said, I’m really happy with the quality and performance of the TS1 regardless if it’s just shy of those other compacts in the image department. Definitely can hold it’s own though.
What I found most pleasing about this camera is the HD recording capabilities. I’m already happy that I can take this thing to the beach or pool, but the fact that it records really great video is HD is more than icing on the cake. It’s another damn cake. AVCHD lite allows you to record 7 times the amount of footage than motion jpeg. That means with my 8gb sd card, I can record over 58 minutes of HD footage in AVCHD lite and about 8 minutes in motion jpeg. The draw back at this moment is getting your AVCHD files onto a computer. For macs, you’d need a specific program to grab them off the memory card, whereas with motion jpegs (.mov) it’s a drag and drop transfer.
If you are lucky enough to own iMovie 09, which I do, it’s been updated to handle these files pretty well. I’m no video editor, so all I really need to do is convert the file from the memory card into a .mov and iMovie 09 does that well. Converting it, in it’s original size, triples the size of the actual file – which you don’t realize till after you buy the camera (I guess it’s marketing tactics). So it’s almost like you capture the raw file on your camera, and it develops in a program later to it’s full size. I guess that’s the idiot way of explaining it in a non videographer kinda way. Regardless, once you figure out a way to get it on to your computer, the quality is quite amazing.
See below:
Comments
Just some advice about iMovie ‘09 and file sizes – if you just want to convert the movie and export an edited or Mac-viewable .mov or .avi or .mp4, then the file size should be similar to the original. You can choose compression settings to get it down to a size you like.
The original files that iMovie stores are very large because they’re uncompressed (or at least, losslessly compressed) and therefore hold a lot of video data. Once you convert the movies and you’re pretty sure you won’t be editing them/combining them/re-encoding them much, you can delete the originals out of iMovie to save space.
TS1’s a great cam! I love the HD video as well. Nice review.
Thanks for the info! Makes complete sense.