Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS5 (Silver)

• Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 4 reviews
• My rating: 0 stars

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• 4 stars

  Good camera, UNRELIABLE battery, POOR customer support

  by kvsara on July 22, 2010

  Pros: Great super-light "pocket" camera with an excellent feature-set: super-wide angle lens, optical image stabilization, intelligent resolution, large variety of auto-exposure settings, and manual exposure control.

  Cons: UNRELIABLE Panasonic replacement battery quality; POOR Panasonic customer support

  Summary: Bought the camera (Panasonic Lumix DMZ-ZS5) in April 2010. I find this to be a great super-light "pocket" camera with an excellent feature-set (super-wide angle lens, optical image stabilization, intelligent ...

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  Summary: Bought the camera (Panasonic Lumix DMZ-ZS5) in April 2010. I find this to be a great super-light "pocket" camera with an excellent feature-set (super-wide angle lens, optical image stabilization, intelligent resolution, large variety of auto-exposure settings, and manual exposure control). Several previous reviewers have done a great job explaining these features, so I won't repeat them here. I consider myself an advanced user, and I like to experiment with several exposures for each composition (whether using this point-n-shoot, or my SLR) - so I always like to travel with (at least) a couple of spare, fully-charged batteries. The battery that came with the camera seems to work as advertised and I am happy with its performance.
  
  Now, the negative (or, why 2 stars?): Based on warnings from other reviewers (both here and elsewhere), I decided to buy two brand-new Panasonic replacement batteries (from the Amazon marketplace). I checked that these were IDENTICAL to the one that came in the original box (DMW-BCG10pp). However, owing to work/travel commitments, I did not get a chance to test out these new batteries for over 3.5 months. Just recently, I took the batteries out of their packaging, charged them, and tried to use them. But the ZS5 refuses to recognize the battery, shutting down within 3-4 seconds with the message: "This battery cannot be used". I waited several hours, recharged the batteries, and tried again - with the same result. I looked online and found that this message results from ID-secure feature built into their cameras to identify non-Panasonic battery packs.
  
  I then tried Panasonic's web-site, but found nothing related to either battery problems or firmware updates for the ZS5/ZS7. So, I called Panasonic's customer/tech support (U.S.), hoping for some sort of a firmware download or some other "re-setting" procedure that would let me over-ride the camera error-message. To my surprise (and after three phone-transfers), instead of helping me figure out why TWO, BRAND NEW, Panasonic batteries were being rejected by their own camera, the rep kept insisting that I bought the battery over 90-days ago, so they cannot help me! Now perhaps I am naive, but I consider a battery to be brand new (within a reasonable time-limit, of course), as long as it has not been abused or used before - so it should not matter whether I bought the batteries 90 days vs. 110 days previously (at the time I called them).
  
  During our extensive online review prior to buying this camera, the battery issue never come up. But now when I type the exact camera-error message in Google, I get several hits on this subject (all pertaining to Panasonic Lumix cameras). I am now stuck abroad with only a single working battery, and TWO BRAND-NEW batteries that don't work! Yes, I could buy two more brand now ones here, and fork out an even higher price - but what if those don't work either? And what if the only working battery fails at some point?
  
  So, I wanted to put this warning out there that in spite of Panasonic's advertised "stringent" standards that purportedly make their batteries so much better, their camera's failure tolerance seems to be so tight that many of their own batteries fall outside of it! So, the lessons learnt for me are: (1) Don't expect that the "Panasonic" brand implies a guarantee of quality or reasonable customer/technical support; (2) If you plan to buy any Panasonic Lumix camera, or any of their new ID-secured battery based cameras, check online for 'battery cannot be used' or 'battery failure' for that camera before purchasing; (3) Be prepared to go through the hassle of trying out several replacement batteries, EVEN if you buy Panasonic's own; and (4) Thoroughly test out any spare replacement batteries you buy within the first 90 days (I guess the last one's a "DUH!").
  
  I have never bought a camera outside of Canon before, and will most likely go back to Canon after this - I am afraid I cannot trust Panasonic to "do the right thing" at this point.

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  1 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 9 stars

  Excellent picture quality with lots of pro features.

  by geldner on June 8, 2012

  Pros: Great zoom with real wide-angle. Even greatly enlarged pictures show very little pixelation. Offers lots of manual and semi-auto shooting modes for photo geeks. Easy-to-use. Scene modes work well. Excellent build quality with most metal body.

  Cons: LCD display could be brighter in sunlight. A little slow shot-to-shot. Flash could be a little brighter.

  Summary: I thought I'd post this as a counter-balance to the negative reviews that trash the camera based strictly for battery issues.
  FWIW, I haven't experienced any problems. I ...

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  Summary: I thought I'd post this as a counter-balance to the negative reviews that trash the camera based strictly for battery issues.
  FWIW, I haven't experienced any problems. I am using the OEM supplied battery AND an aftermarket battery. Both work fine. The OEM battery was bought from a reliable supplier on eBay so they must have reverse engineered Panasonic's proprietary batter coding. Two batteries are generally enough to get me through two days of shooting with mixed flash and normal outdoor shots.

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• 1 stars

  Message "This battery cannot be used" all the time.

  by oineant on February 21, 2012

  Pros: Movies are of very good quality.

  Cons: Photos are not good

  Summary: I don't recommend buying a Panasonic DMC series.

  Summary: I don't recommend buying a Panasonic DMC series.

• 6 stars

  Panasonic has the best software in digital cameras.

  by Eideard on July 21, 2010

  Pros: Great lens.

  Cons: As long as they use a proprietary battery instead of letting folks use rechargeable AA batteries - I won't upgrade from the two I own, now.

  0 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.

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