Viewfinder (0.0)
The Lumix LZ5 has no optical viewfinder. The camera’s LCD is meant to fill this role.

LCD Screen (5.5)
A 2.5-inch LCD has become standard on compact cameras, but it's rare to see one that size with resolution as low as 85,000 pixels, so in this way the Lumix LZ5 is particularly disappointing. The color and contrast are fine – the color is saturated, to appeal to snapshooters who like their color bold. Still, there isn't nearly enough resolution to judge sharpness. The angle of view is limited, particularly from above and below. Panasonic compensates for this with a high-angle setting that boosts the brightness significantly, which makes the image completely washed out when viewed straight on, but it works to make the view useful when the camera is held overhead. It's a good feature, but it would be a great feature on a higher-res LCD.

Flash (6.0)
The flash is tiny and close to the lens, which is too bad. Small light sources cast harsh light, which isn't good for portraits because it accentuates wrinkles and blemishes. Close placement near the lens helps cause red-eye. The Lumix LZ5 offers a red-eye reduction mode with a pre-flash. Pre-flashes are effective, but they delay the actual shot by a half-second or so, and they're even more annoying to the subjects than a regular flash.

The Lumix LZ5's flash has a range of almost 14 feet with the zoom set to wide angle, and it’s about double that in high-speed mode, which boosts the maximum ISO. In telephoto, the range is less than half as far. The flash can be set to automatic, automatic with red-eye reduction, forced on, forced on with red-eye reduction, long exposure with red-eye reduction or off.

Lens (8.0)
The Lumix DC Vario Zoom’s focal length runs from 6.1 to 36.6, which equates to 37 to 222 mm on a 35mm camera. The wide angle capability is limited – 37 mm won't squeeze in a whole room in a typical home, for instance. A 222mm telephoto is pretty long, though. It ought to catch squirrels on a bird feeder, or get a close-up of the bride and groom from a few rows back in a medium-sized church.

The maximum aperture ranges from f/2.8 to f/4.5 from wide angle to telephoto. This is not unusual for a 6x zoom, but it means that the Lumix LZ5 is less able to take low light pictures in telephoto, with flash or not.

Panasonic includes MEGA O.I.S. on all its Lumix cameras. This optical image stabilization system is the Lumix LZ5's major selling feature. An optical element in the lens moves as the picture is taken to compensate for camera shake and prevent blurry images. Though optical stabilization is becoming more common this year, Panasonic pioneered it in low-cost compact cameras, and the MEGA O.I.S. system works very well. It has two modes, one that stabilizes the cameras only while the picture is taken, and one that works all the time, even for focusing and framing. The picture-only mode works a bit better, but the always-on mode helps the user frame the shot more easily. Picture-only probably extends the Lumix LZ5's battery life, too.

The Lumix LZ5 has a 4x digital zoom feature, which enlarges the center of the image to imitate the effect of a more powerful telephoto lens. It also significantly lowers image quality. A better feature is the Lumix LZ5's Extended Optical Zoom, which extends the reach of the camera when the image size is set below the maximum. The Extended mode uses a cropped central area of the image sensor, instead of resampling the image the way the digital zoom does. Without resampling, the extended optical zoom doesn't degrade quality the way digital zoom does.

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