The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ80 handled chromatic aberrations well during the review, with some purple fringing present around the edges of objects in certain high-contrast situations, as shown in the examples below. This is more of a crop than you get with the TZ80 / ZS60 where, with the same lens but a lower resolution 18 Megapixel sensor, the equivalent range is cropped to 33-990mm. Above are two photos taken from the same position with the TZ90 / ZS70 using each end of the zoom range, illustrating the range at your disposal – at one moment capturing a wide field before getting very close to distant details the next. It’s extremely flexible, and while you need to take care for camera shake at the long end, especially with the much reduced aperture, the stabilisation is excellent and there’s the option to use the viewfinder for even greater stability. Below you can see the range of the Canon PowerShot SX730 HS for comparison. As you can see, the 24mm equivalent wide-angle is the same for both models, but the longer 960mm equivalent zoom on the PowerShot SX730 HS gets you that bit closer to distant subjects.

So what does a range of 24-720mm let you capture? Above are two photos taken from the same position with the TZ80 / ZS60 using each end of the zoom range, illustrating the range at your disposal – at one moment capturing a wide field before getting very close to distant details the next. It’s extremely flexible, and while you need to take care for camera shake at the long end, especially with the much reduced aperture, the stabilisation is excellent and there’s the option to use the viewfinder for even greater stability. Like other recent Lumix models with 4k video, the TZ90 / ZS70 also supports Panasonic’s 4k Photo mode – exploiting the fact 4k video captures an 8 Megapixel image up to 30 times a second. The TZ90 / ZS70 lets you easily capture bursts of video before scrolling through the footage and extracting the perfect frame as a JPEG image, all in-camera. You could of course frame grab from video externally (and here’s the clip I filmed), but Panasonic has made it easy to perform the whole process in-camera. At the end of the 30x optical zoom, it's also possible to see some loss of detail, and again, it seems as if the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ80 can't quite match the TZ70 in terms of sharpness and clarity. Images taken at other focal lengths, such as 10x or 20x, fare better though. On the plus side, the camera's inbuilt optical image stabilisation does a good job of keeping images free from blur when using the full reach of the optical zoom.Use a card with SD Speed Class with "UHS-I Speed Class 3 (U3)" when recording motion pictures with [MP4] in [4K] or [4K PHOTO]. Although noise isn't particularly visible until fairly high up the sensitivity range - it only starts to become problematic when you reach ISO 3200, this seems to be as a result of extensive image smoothing which render those shots taken at the highest settings of ISO 1600 only really useable at small printing or sharing sizes.

It’s clear from the views above that filming in the 1080 modes captures a wider field of view, but how does the quality compare? Below are 100% crops made from the 4k footage on the left and the 1080p footage on the right. Note that the 1080p crop on the right shows a larger area with smaller detail not just because of the lower resolution of the 1080p clip, but the wider field of view. What’s interesting about this comparison is that though the detail is larger in the 4k crop on the left, there isn’t more of it, what you can see though is more noise. So though you’re getting more pixels shooting with the TZ80 / ZS60 in 4k video mode, thanks to the noise you’re not really getting more detail or better image quality.On the Lumix TZ80 / ZS60 you can record in PASM exposure modes, selected either from the video menu or by tapping the exposure mode icon in the top left of the screen when the mode dial is in the movie position. During recording you can change the exposure setting including, depending on the mode, aperture, shutter speed, ISO sensitivity and exposure compensation. While you can use the camera’s physical controls to alter the settings the touch screen provides a slide out panel allowing you to do so silently. You can also tap the screen to pull focus during recording, or of course use the lens control ring. There’s also focus peaking and zebra patterns to help with focus and exposure. i also shoot raw plus jpg. if the jpg is fine, great. if the pic is one i really like but needs some help, the raw version is there for me to process. On the top of the camera is a dial for choosing the exposure mode of the camera. Here you'll find P/A/S/M modes, as well as automatic, creative, scene, panoramic and a slot for a custom group of settings. Also on top of the camera is the shutter release, which is surrounded by the zoom switch. Zooming the lens to its full length is smooth and fluid, stopping for a brief pause before entering the digital zoom (if you have it switched on, and you're not shooting in raw format).

There’s three options: Burst (which records video while the shutter button is pressed), Burst S / S (which starts recording with one press and stops with another), and 4K Pre-burst (which keeps a rolling buffer to avoid unwieldy clips to store and go through). Mostly I used the Burst mod Below are ZS50 (1/2.3" sensor) 800 ISO JPG NR vs. RAW NR comparisons; in both comparisons left image JPG; right RAW PP with PSE14 & DeNoise (view original size). x 720 pixels, 25p (HD: MP4) (Sensor Output is 100fps)/640 x 480 pixels, 25p (VGA: MP4) (Sensor Output is 200fps)The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ80 has an 18 million pixel sensor, an increase from the 12.1 million pixel sensor of the TZ70. Other new features include a new Venus engine, Light Speed AF (autofocus) with DFD (Depth from Defocus) technology and 4K photo functions. The screen is the same size and resolution (1040k-dot), but it is now touch sensitive. Battery life has been very slightly improved, while the zoom range stays the same.