Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS2

Shooting Modes (9.50)

There are no shortage of shooting modes on this camera, with two auto modes and a slew of scene modes. The two auto modes are the Normal mode and iA, which is short for intelligent auto. In the latter mode, all settings are automatically controlled by the camera, including the ISO, the flash mode and the focus. The user does get some minor degree of control, the picture size, burst mode can be altered. In the Normal mode, the user can control more of the options, such as directly setting the ISO level, white balance, etc. These can be set to auto, though.

Auto Mode Features

Focus – Six focus modes are offered: face detection, AF tracking, 11-area, 1-area (high speed), 1-area and spot focusing. The face detection mode uses detected faces as the focus points, while the AF tracking tries to keep the camera focused on a specific object as it moves. We found this to be pretty effective at keeping a fast moving object in focus. The 11-area mode uses all 11 focus spots and tries to get as many as possible into focus, while the 1-area high speed mode continuously focuses the camera on a single spot at the center of the frame to make focusing as quick as possible. The last two modes differ only on the size of the focus area, with the spot mode using only a very small area in the center of the frame.There is no manual focus mode.

Exposure – Up to 2 stops either way of exposure compensation can be added to the detected exposure, and the TS2 can also automatically bracket exposures, taking 3 shots from a single press of the shutter with 0, -1 and +1 stops of exposure compensation.

Metering – The TS2 does not offer the usual selection of metering modes: there is no specific spot metering mode. Instead, you have to rely on the cameras judgment and the Intelligent Exposure function, which tries to detect high contrast situations and meter more appropriately for them.

White Balance – Plenty of options are available for setting white balance: you can set it to full auto, any of 4 presets or use an evaluative mode. The latter will produce the most accurate results, but requires shooting a photo of a white object.

Aperture – At the widest point on the zoom range, the TS2 has an aperture range of f/3.3 to f/10. That range gets smaller at the telephoto end, falling to f/5.9 to f/18. That’s no surprise (most zoom lenses do this), but it does mean that you’ll have problem shooting in low light at the zoom end of the range.

Shutter Speed – The shutter speed range of the TS2 goes from 8 seconds down to 1/1300 of a second. That’s a decent range, but it would have been nice to see a shorter shutter speed for capturing fast action.

Self-Timer – The usual options of a 2 and 10-second delay are offered, but there is no interval mode and no way to capture a photo when a face is detected.

Scene Modes

There are also a number of scene modes: Sport, Snow and Beach & Surf are available on the mode dial, while 26 more are available from an on-screen menu by setting the mode dial to SCN. That range of scene modes should be enough to deal with pretty much any sort of lighting situation.

Picture Effects (2.00)

In iA mode, the TS2 offers 5 color modes, which are more special effects than real color modes. There is the standard mode, Natural, Vivid, Black & White and Sepia. In the iA auto mode, this selection is cut down to four: Standard, Happy, Black & White and Sepia. The only one that requires explanation is the Happy mode, which boosts the brightness and saturation of the images for a ‘happier’ look. None of these modes provide any control over the effect.

Picture Samples
Standard Normal Vivid B&W Sepia Cool More...

Drive/Burst Mode (2.00)

The TS2 has a burst mode, but the name is rather misleading. It’s restricted to taking 3 shots at a speed of less than 1 frame a second. That is not so much of a burst of speed as a slight stagger.

Shot to Shot (1.46)

We measured the speed of the burst mode of this camera at a very disappointing 1.1 frames per second. There is no way to speed this up by sacrificing resolution, either.