Auto Mode (7.5)
The automatic mode can be found on the mode dial, symbolized by a red heart. Panasonic calls it the Simple Mode. The menu options are abbreviated and even a little more colorful. When the Menu button is pressed, users can change the Picture Mode, Auto Review, Beep, or Clock Set. The Picture Mode offers options like Enlarge, 4” x 6”/10 x 15cm, or Email. The other exposure controls are not available in the Simple mode. Self-timer and flash can still be manipulated, but more elaborate controls like the image stabilization and white balance are handled automatically by the FZ5. This setup is appealing to point-and-shoot users who appreciate pure unadulterated automatic settings. Perhaps the only drawback to the Simple mode is the flash situation. Users must remember that the flash does not pop up automatically when needed; it must be manually opened. When opened in Simple mode, there are two flash options available: forced on or auto, which is probably the preferred choice of the Simple user.

Movie Mode (4.0)
Within the movie mode, the menu options change slightly to include a Motion Rate option with 10 or 30 frames per second available. Some other options remain available: White Balance, Metering Mode, AF Mode, Continuous AF, AF Trigger, AF Assist Lamp, Digital Zoom, and Color Effect.

The movie mode only has one resolution, 320 x 240 pixels, which is good for emailing and viewing on the computer, but a bit small for viewing on a full-screen television. The lack of resolution is hard to make up for, but the Lumix FZ5 tries with decent audio recording and its trademark image stabilization system. In movie mode, only Mode 1 of the stabilization system is available – and it works quite well. Unfortunately, there is no zoom available in movie mode (unlike many of the recent “ultra zoom” releases). When users are recording, a box in the corner of the LCD screen displays how much time is remaining in the memory for the movie clip. This is a nice feature to have. Movie clips can be recorded to the capacity of the memory card, which in the case of the included 16 MB card, happens to be 26 seconds when shooting at the 30 frame rate and 83 seconds at the 10 frame-per-second rate.

Drive / Burst Mode (6.5)
To set the camera to its burst mode, users must push the continuous shooting button on the top. When that is pressed several times, users can cycle through the burst options. The burst icon is accompanied by the letter H for the first mode, L for the second, and an infinity symbol for the third mode. The first burst mode is high speed; the second is low speed; the third is unlimited. Despite the different names, they all seem to shoot at the same frame rate of 2 per second (even the “unlimited” mode), with a maximum of 4 images. These were shot at the highest and finest resolutions. This rate is about average for digital cameras on the market right now. Many cameras now are beginning to reach 2.5 or 3 frames per second, and nearly all venturing into prosumer waters exceed the FZ5’s 4 image maximum (fine quality JPEG).

Movie clips can be played back with audio in the Playback mode. Once the Playback mode is selected on the mode dial, users must press the bottom portion of the four-way dial that says Review. There are no directions on the LCD; users are expected to know this beforehand.

Playback Mode (7.0)
If users want to check out the last photograph captured, they can press the bottom portion of the four-way dial, which is labeled Review. When the picture comes up, users can zoom in on it with the zoom switch and scroll around to see if the desired subject is in focus. However, there isn’t much choice with the zoom; it’s either 1x or 4x - nothing in-between. Users can also delete single frames or all the pictures stored on the memory card. This Review feature is a nice option for viewing pictures without really switching into Playback mode.

The full Playback mode is accessed through the mode dial on top, where the triangle within the rectangle icon resides. When in playback mode, users can view photographs in single frames or in sheets of nine frames once users push the zoom control toward the wide angle. When single frames are being viewed, users can scroll up to 16x for a close look. In Playback mode, when the Display button is pushed, viewers can see histograms and the camera’s settings that were used to take the photograph. This information includes aperture and shutter speed, image size and quality, recording mode, ISO sensitivity, flash mode, white balance mode, exposure compensation, and file number.

When the Menu button is pressed, the following options appear: Rotate Display, Rotate, Protect, DPOF Print, Slide Show, Audio Dubbing, Resize, Trimming, and Format. These options have been explained in the Menu section of this review. In-camera editing options such as Trimming and interesting features such as Audio Dubbing are welcome additions to the playback mode of the FZ5.

Custom Image Presets (7.5)
When the mode dial is switched to the Scene setting and the Menu button is pushed, a colorful menu appears with text and colorful icons. The following options are available: Portrait, Sports, Scenery, Night Scenery, Panning, Night Portrait, Fireworks, Party, and Snow. The Panning scene mode is one unique to Panasonic; surprisingly, it works quite well. This isn’t the most extensive list of custom image presets I’ve seen on a digital camera, but it certainly covers all the necessities.