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Features

The closest point-and-shoot we think may be a competitor to the TZ15 is the Canon PowerShot SX100 IS which comes with 10x optical zoom, too. However, the 28mm wide-angle lens on the TZ15 gives it an edge over the Canon which is widest at 36mm only.

What we think may make the TZ15 a favorite among travelers is its wide-angle lens and long zoom range. Packed into a compact body, this shooter is a versatile performer on vacations, letting you capture vast expanses of landscape or closeup shots of foreign culture. You can also adjust how fast or slow you want to zoom by tweaking the amount of rotation on the zoom rocker. This is quite useful as occasionally we tend to zoom too much into our subjects.

There are three other zoom functions which we find handy. With Zoom Resume enabled, the camera will return to the last position the zoom lens was at before powering down. This is pretty handy when you are constantly shooting at a certain zoom range. A press on the E.Zoom button at the top of the camera will instantly zoom the lens to the max, while a second one will automatically downsize your image to 3 megapixels and activate Extra Optical Zoom, giving you a grand total of 16.9x optical zoom. This is achieved by concentrating only on the center of the image. A third press on the button will return the zoom lens back to wide angle.

By choosing Multi-Aspect in Scene Mode, you can snap three pictures in different aspect ratios (3:2, 4:3 and 16:9) with a press on the shutter button. This is particularly useful when you are not sure which ratio will look best for your shot.

Like its predecessor, the TZ15 sports a 3-inch LCD display on the rear. However, the display resolution is improved to 460K-pixel resolution from 230K in the TZ3. By activating the intelligent LCD, the display will automatically adjust the brightness according to the surroundings. We like the High Angle LCD mode, which lets us hold the camera above eye level and still provide a good view for framing the shot.

The shooter comes with a dual playback function which lets you view two images side-by-side on the LCD display. This is useful when we need to compare the exposure for similar images.

While conventional digital cameras are capable of capturing video at only 640 x 480 pixels, the TZ15 is also able to record clips at 720p (1,280 x 720 pixels) HD quality. Next to the TZ15, only Panasonic's FX36 and its upcoming FX520, and Samsung's NV24HD are capable of 720p HD video recording. The file size that it generates is gargantuan, chalking up a total of 90MB for a 23-second clip. So if you are planning to utilize this feature a lot, don't rely on the meager 50MB internal memory. You may want to consider investing in a high-capacity flash memory card (SD, SDHC or MMC) instead.

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