Tag: TZ30

June 10th – Whilst at Chasewater, I played with the sweep panorama function on my trusty Panasonic TZ30 camera. It’s a great piece of kit of which I’m very fond, and a huge step on from it’s predecessor. The panorama function, however, has been a disappointment. Not as reliable as the one on Sony pocket cameras, it seems to have trouble with synchronisation, and can generate poor images. Hoping this will be fixed in a firmware update, it does work best on sunny days like this, and these results weren’t bad. 

6th April – New camera day. I’ve been using Panasonic cameras for a while now – built like brick shithouses, they offer a good feature set, remarkable zoom range and good picture quality, all in a package small enough to pop into a pocket and always carry with you. I’d been eyeing up the TZ30 for a while – I’d had a TZ20, and liked it, but there were a few extra features in the new model – 20x optical zoom, sweep panorama, better low-light performance and so on – that I quite fancied. Able to hand down the old one, I found a camera store in Birmingham had stock and a decent offer, so I cycled into town and picked one up.

I always love a ride round Brum, and took advantage of the opportunity. Near Edgbaston Street, I realised how far Birmingham had come as a cycling city: the bike racks were full. This is in spite of, rather than because of anything the council have done. Birmingham City Council’s support for cyclists is legendarily awful, yet Brum is developing an engaging, active cycling community.