Panasonic TS5 Announced

     I've been using compact digital cameras for outdoor adventures since close to when they first came out.   I don't think camera companies recognized the potential for outdoor adventure use right off the bat - they were more for going clubbing or just around town when you wanted to slip the camera in your pocket instead or dragging around a camera case for your camera.

      I went through quite a few of them, most dying a death due to dropping into water, rarely any of them retiring gracefully.  Once I dropped a camera into a puddle while backpacking on the La Cloche Silhouette trail in Ontario and spent the evening at camp taking out the micro screws on the case with my Swiss Army knife and drying it out over a tealight candle...  to my surprise it actually worked the next day!  At times, I was almost on a first name basis with the repair people at Nikon who kept continually rejecting repairs as a result of water damage and I had to buy replacement cameras.  Thankfully the industry developed the ruggedized, waterproof compact cameras a couple years back... I actually have had the same camera for 3 years now!

     I think my first one was the Konica Minolta Dimage X, then I moved onto the Nikon Coolpix S series.  Nowadays I use Panasonic TS series, the one I have right now is the TS2.  In the beginning the low light performace of compact cameras was downright terrible, and the long shutter speeds and lack of  image stabilization made for a huge percentage of blurry photos. But now the performance you can get out of a small package is astounding. 

    I have been wanting to upgrade my TS2, but have been waiting for a good reason to.  Camera companies throw a bunch of what I consider non-value added features into cameras for the sake of gagetry, and not for the sake of the prime function of a camera - to capture images the best possible.  That is what I find paramount in a camera, the image quality.  The GPS, Wifi connectivity, scene modes, and other things like that are just frilly gimmicks and I never use them.  However, one cool thing I find though is the new panorama mode you can just sweep the camera and it will form a panorama shot within the camrea - the Panasonic TS4 and other recent cameras have nowadays.  

     Digressing, Panasonic announced their TS5 launched today at CES.  It has a new type of sensor, which they say has excellent low light performance.  Excellent, that's what I, or any self respecting photographer is always looking for.  It's 16.1 Megapixels, and has 4.6x zoom, same as all of the earlier models.  It also has some extra frilly, gadgety features like NFC (near field communications), GPS, and Wifi connectivity all of which I really don't care about and wish they made a camera without these things to save some weight/size.  It is even more rugged/waterproof than ever, which is great as well.  In any case, I'm really looking forward to seeing some test photos and to really tell if it's worth upgrading from my old TS2.

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