TZ10 reviews

[froggie01]

Hi,

I'm going to Hong Kong soon and considering buying a TZ10 out there. Apparently the casing DMW-MCTZ10 is now available. Has anyone tried this combination? The specs on the casing say there's no external strobe connector. Does this mean there's no lighting options for this housing? The specs give 9 options for white balance settings, is this similar to TZ7's manual white balance settings? This would be my first u/w camera so thanks for any advice.

froggie

 

[mkzwo]

I recently bought the TZ10 and its easily available everywhere in HK. Unfortunately the DMW-MCTZ10 housing is everywhere sold out. I ordered it directly from japan. Regarding strobes and lights there is a lot of stuff available from Inon, but again very very hard to get in HK, even in Japan i had to wait quite a while due to limited availability on some parts.

mkzwo

 

[skynscuba]

Hi,
The specs on the casing say there's no external strobe connector. Does this mean there's no lighting options for this housing?

froggie

You connect an optical fiber, maybe via a velcro mount, in front of the camera flash, and the other end goes to the strobe. The strobe fires when the camera flash fires. Except for the fiber pickup, you cover the flash so that you don't get backscatter. This is the way most setups are done for point and shoot cameras, where there is no "hot shoe" on the housing.

 

[mkzwo]

The combination of Inon S2000 with TZ10 works fine with STTL. Only problem i have at the moment is that this little mirror thing is very loose and easy falls of due to the sticky attachable area being very small.

A general problem i feel is that the whole set is quite negative in buoyancy and at the moment causes me quite some buoyancy problems.

mkzwo

 

[ScubaDirk]

A new aluminum housing has been released from 10Bar for this beautiful camera.

 

[fubbick]

You connect an optical fiber, maybe via a velcro mount, in front of the camera flash, and the other end goes to the strobe. The strobe fires when the camera flash fires. Except for the fiber pickup, you cover the flash so that you don't get backscatter. This is the way most setups are done for point and shoot cameras, where there is no "hot shoe" on the housing.

I have a TZ8 and DMW-MCTZ10 combination.

It's hard to put the velcro infront of the inbuilt flash due to the Inon specific fiber cable mount socket which is located there.

I have a Sea&Sea flash. What I did was that i bought the Inon W35 Cap which is what fits this case fiber cable mount socket. After that I cut the Sea&Sea fiber cable with a razorblade and attached the W35 cap. Works for me and probably for other brands as well. The W35 cap can take up to two fiber cables.

 

[Wiggsy]

This looks to be an amazing camera - the HD video with stereo dolby sound is impressive. How does it do underwater? I like taking stills on full manual - is this also possible with this rig? I'm also impressed by the 25 mm - 300 mm zoom range. And I see there are a couple of options (Inon and Epoque) for an external mount for wet lens add-ons. All looking very good to me...So, any comments from an owner...? How good is the Panasonic housing? Is the LCD big and bright underwater?

 

[Mooseman1007]

Wiggsy,
The camera is really pretty good on land, full focus during video (including Macro) and full manual (limited aperture settings tho) mode. White balance is easy and the lens addons are good (wishing I had gone with the EPOQUE now as the flash diffuser has to come off to get the inon mount on !).
The housing seems ok, not as sturdy as the Fuji ones I am used to, but light and well laid out none the less.
Am going to christen the camera properly in a couple of weeks so will update on its effectiveness

 

[slowhands]

I've got a couple of ZS-3s. These have a reputation for two problems: broken LCD, and highly proprietary battery. I wonder if these issues persist on the ZS7/TZ10?

The battery is the same, DMW-BCG10PP. The LCD is bigger, so obviously different. Any experience with these issues on ZS7/TZ10?