Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS1 (Lumix DMC-FT1)

Opinion: Panasonic TS1 is excellent for the summer/winter holiday where you wouldn't dare to take a DSLR. I've just returned from a sea camping holiday and the camera survived diving in salt water, sand, sun. At the end of the day you just put it in the sink to wash out the salt and you are ready for the next day. Last winter I dug a hole in almost frozen snow with the camera just for the heck of it and to impress some friends and the camera was fine. The starry sky mode is excellent for experimentation, although 60 seconds aren't nearly enough for nice star trails and the dark lens prevents the camera from capturing weaker glowing stars.

Opinion: Normally a Canon fan - but G10 was larger so grabbed a TS1 for kayaking, swimming, or wading and trail shots. There are serious design problems with this camera. Panasonic can't have user tested it before release Overrall a poor effort - don't recommend buying it.
PROS:
. splash and 3M water proof
. solid build
. images clear and precise if taken in strong sunlight with no water around.

Opinion: I expected a lot of this camera as I did quite some research and this camera had
good recommendations. The pictures and especially the movie function is fairly
good, in particular for an "underwater camera". The latter being the reason why
most people want to spend the money for this camera. Otherwise there is better
value for money. Unfortunately my camera turned out not to be waterproof, the
first time I used it underwater (maximum depth1,5 meter). When I claimed under
the guarantee Panasonic said it was my fault because I would not have closed the
battery compartment properly. They based this on a sticker that showed that there
had been water in the battery compartment (which was clear), but they simply
assume it is your fault and they do not check whether there is a production failure.
I am convinced I did close it properly. It was the first time underwater and I
checked multiple times as it is clear that water and electronics generally do not go
well together. I did not see the red marker anymore, which is supposed to show
that the camera is not properly closed. However, even if it was my fault and I did
not close it properly, the margin for error is extremely thin. When I brought it to the
service dealer, I understood my camera was not the first one, where this happened.
If you decide to buy it, be extremely careful, because don't expect much of the
service of Panasonic. They will simply claim it was your fault and there is not much
you can do about that, very disappointing for such a renowned big company.

Opinion: Well this camera lasted less than a year. disappointing image quality for the price of
the camera. my friend has a canon point and shoot and the photos crystal clear. (and
I am not a canon fan) viewfinder got scratched and the LCD glass ended up cracking.
Not as tough as it is meant to be.

My second panasonic and I WILL NOT BUY THIS BRAND EVER AGAIN. Not value for
money

Opinion: I purchased this camera recently. Our initial impression of the camera was somewhat favorable, but as soon as it went underwater, the camera died. Here are my impressions on this short lived camera:

Pros: Good image quality, Adequate flash, Portability
Cons: Did not survive underwater, Subjects looked rather severe with flash, holding the camera was not very easy because of its size/shape

Opinion: I'm disappointed in this camera... picture quality at first i thought was great, but then comparing to other cameras it was just not providing good quality images for normal point and shoot pics, especially night shots or indoor shots. The underwater capability and shockproof features are wonderful... however, I find my lens fogging up inside and the camera was never below 7 or 8 feet of water for more than a few seconds... this camera was used a fair bit before the fogging problem or underwater use, so that does not influence my pic quality issue. i don't think it's well thought out for underwater use. i would say, great marketing, but Panisonic needs to re-engineer and rethink this camera. Nice try...at this price it should be nothing less than amazing. Start up time is slow, but lag time is pretty good. Construction seems very solid, but I think the access doors are too easy to open in underwater circumstances. Also, I found my thumb ended up covering the lens in a lot of pictures.

I've owned tons of ultra compact cameras, buying two or three a year, this one had the highest expectations for me and came in on the highly disappointed side. I'm just going to leave this camera on the boat and probably just give it away to a niece or nephew. don't waste your money.

Opinion: Nearly one year ago I bought the LX3 and was quite happy with it. I thought that Panasonic would build really good cameras. However, since I own the FT1 (TS1) I am not convinced about Panasonic anymore.

I thought that this cam would be a point and shoot camera which I can take everywhere to get decent results without having to worry about the camera being damaged. But I was disappointed both by the images and the build, see below.

For me this is not a "carry with me all the time" camera, although I wished it would be so. I now really think twice about using this cam, because of the mediocre image quality. I use it only if the environmental conditions do not allow the use of any other of my cameras.

User Interface:
One thing that really annoys me is that you cannot switch the display off. If you want to save battery, then you have to switch the camera off. Which is bad because you lose the settings for your picture. There is a display button on the camera, but it only switches between different display modes and always leaves the display on. The camera has an energy sving mode, but if you use that mode then some time after the display is turned off the whole camera is powered down automatically. Hey Panasonic, this is really stupid !

On/off button:
I agree with the review of dpreview: the on/off button is painful to use.

ISO issues:
Yes, of course there is too much noise and too many pixels in this camera, as we all know. I always manually set the camera to low ISOs.
Unfortunately the ISO value cannot be set in the Scene modes. I do not trust the Scene modes at all as long as they do not let me limit the ISO range. Because of the noise/ISO issue the Scene modes are useless to me. Anybody who wants to limit the ISO (and noise) is stuck to the one automatic program that the camera offers in automatic mode. This means that the user influence is really limited.

Video, AVCHD Lite:
I made the mistake to copy the contents of my SD card to my hard disk and then wanted to work on the AVCHD Lite video. I could not access the video, it is not as easy as with a JPEG file, which you can move from anywhere to anywhere. I should have read the manual before, it tells you how to proceed. The AVCHD Lite files needs special care. Since then I stopped using that format.
What I like about this camera is that you can zoom during video. Opposite to the picture quality, I am quite happy with the video quality.

Camera Bag:
Because of the broken display (see below) and the fact that the front glass of the camera has no cvoer I always use a "Crumpler P.P.70" bag to carry the camera with me. It fits perfectly around the FT1.

Screen Protection:
I now have a Vikuiti screen protector on my FT1, apart from some additional protection of the display against mechanical impacts it also helps against reflections (which can be quite bad in sunlight).

Opinion: Bought it for 2 months and loved it for the features and purposes. Pictures quatilty is great for point-and-shoot camera. Easy to use. HD video is great. Haven't got the change to test it under water.

Opinion: I bought this camera especialy for flying on my paraglider (as my DSLR's are too big and heavy).
It took some time to get used to the strange power on/off button behaviour, but now I can control it pretty good by single hand operation during the flight.
It also has special flight scene mode which gives good results from PG.
Very good value for the money.