Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS1

Manual Controls

While there is no true manual mode, you can still alter most of the standard settings, though strangely not metering. In general, there are enough controls here for those who want to fiddle with how their camera operates.

Focus

The focus can be set to face recognition, tracking, normal, continuous and quick. The face recognition system can apparently learn particular faces, but this isn't a feature we've seen work properly in other cameras.

ISO

The ISO runs from 80 to 1600, with a high sensitivity equivalent of up to 6400. It can also be limited to a max of ISO 400, 800 or 1600.

White Balance

White balance can be put on auto, daylight, cloudy, shade, halogen or manual.

Metering

The camera is permanently set on 'intelligent multiple' metering which meters from the entire picture. Exposure compensation runs ±2EV in 1/3 steps.

Shutter Speed

While you have no direct control over shutter speed, you can set the minimum from 1/125 to 1 second. The stated range of shutter speeds is 8-1/1300 seconds, with up to 60 seconds in starry sky mode. The maximum speed of 1/1300 seconds isn't particularly fast, but not too sluggish.

Aperture

The aperture runs from f/3.3 to f/11 at the wide end and f/5.9 to f/18 at the tele. This is a little on the slow side, but not terrible. Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be any way to directly control the aperture, which is always a sad limiting factor.

Image Stabilization

The DSC-TS1 has an optical image stabilizer, which can be set to two different levels.

Picture Quality & Size Options

This camera has a rather stunning number of image sizes and ratios, all of which can be set to two levels of quality.

4:3 aspect ratio: 4000x3000 (12M), 3264 x 2448 (8M), 2560 x 1920 (5M), 2048 x 1536 (3M), 1600 x 1200 (2M), 640 x 480 (0.3M)
3:2 aspect ratio: 4000 x 2672(10.5M), 3264 x 2176 (7M), 2560 x 1712 (4.5M), 2048 x 1360 (2.5M)
16:9 aspect ratio: 4000 x 2248(9M), 3264 x 1840 (6M), 2560 x 1440 (3.5M), 1920 x 1080 (2M)