Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50 Review
Review Date: September 20th 2006
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Image Quality
All of the sample images in this Review were taken using
the 10M Fine mode, which gives an average image size of around
4.5Mb - 5Mb.
Noise
There are 5 ISO settings available on the Panasonic Lumix
DMC-FZ50 which you can select at any time if the camera is
in one of the creative shooting modes. Here are some 100%
crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting:
There is virtually no discernible noise at the slowest setting
of ISO 100. Some noise starts to appear at ISO 200, but it's
still a usable speed. At ISO 400 image quality has deterioated
quite a lot as the camera blurs detail to try and hide the
noise, with ISO 800 even worse. You should avoid using ISO
1600 if at all possible.
High Sensitivity Mode
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50 has a new High Sensitivity scene
mode which promises to reduce blurry images, particularly
of moving subjects indoors, by raising the ISO speed to a
maximum of 3200 and therefore allowing for a faster shutter
speed. This mode allows you to handhold the camera without
using the flash and get more natural results, whilst at the
same time freezing subject movement more successfully. There
are some obvious drawbacks with this special scene mode, notably
a significant reduction in resolution - Panasonic state that
"The picture quality is good enough for printing at the
ordinary 4" x 6" (10 x 15 cm) size". You also
need to select the scene mode and therefore have some idea
about when it is applicable to your subject. Here are some
100% crops which show the noise levels:
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High Sensitivity Mode Shot (100%
Crop) |
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Sharpening
Here are two 100% crops which have been Saved as Web - Quality
50 in Photoshop. The right-hand image has had some sharpening
applied in Photoshop. The out-of-the camera images are a little
soft at the default sharpening setting of Medium and benefit
from some further sharpening in a program like Adobe Photoshop.
Alternatively you change the in-camera sharpening level to
Low, Medium or High.
File Quality
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50 has 2 different image quality
settings available, with Fine being the highest quality JPEG
option. There is also a RAW file format option available.
Here are some 100% crops which show the quality of the various
options, with the file size shown in brackets.
Chromatic Aberrations
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50 dealt extremely well with chromatic
aberrations during the review, with only very limited purple
fringing present around the edges of objects in certain high-contrast
situations.
Macro
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50 offers a Macro setting that allows
you to focus on a subject that is 5cms away from the camera
when the lens is set to wide-angle. The first image shows
how close you can get to the subject (in this case a compact
flash card). The second image is a 100% crop.
Flash
The flash settings on the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50 are Auto,
Auto/Red-eye Reduction, Slow Sync./Red-eye Reduction and Forced
On/Off. These shots of a magnolia coloured wall were taken
at a distance of 1.5m.
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Auto Flash - Telephoto (420mm) |
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And here are some shots of yours truly. As you can see, neither
the Flash On or the Red-Eye Reduction options caused any amount
of red-eye.
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Flash On (100% Crop) |
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Flash - Red-Eye Reduction (100%
Crop) |
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Night Shot
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50 maximum shutter speed is 60 seconds
in the Manual shooting mode, which is great news if you're
seriously interested in night photography. The shot below
was taken using a shutter speed of 30 seconds at f/11 at ISO
100. I've included a 100% crop of the image to show what the
quality is like - note that there is quite a lot of noise
apparent. The camera takes the same amount of time again to
apply noise reduction, so for example at the 15 second setting
the actual exposure takes 30 seconds.
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Night Shot (100% Crop) |
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Anti Shake
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50 has an anti-shake mechanism,
which allows you to take sharp photos at slower shutter speeds
than other digital cameras. To test this, I took 2 handheld
shots of the same subject with the ISO speed set to 100. The
first shot was taken with anti shake turned off, the second
with it turned on. Here is a 100% crop of the image to show
the results.
As you can see, with anti shake turned on, the images are
much sharper than with anti shake turned off. This feature
really does seem to make a difference and could mean capturing
a successful, sharp shot or missing the opportunity altogether.
Overall Image Quality
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50 produced images of above average
quality during the review period. The 10 megapixel images
were quite soft straight out of the camera at the default
sharpening setting and ideally require some further sharpening
in an application like Adobe Photoshop, or you can change
the in-camera setting. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50 dealt
extremely well with chromatic aberrations, with limited purple
fringing effects appearing only in high contrast situations.
Macro performance is above average for an ultra-zoom camera,
allowing you to focus as close as 5 cms away from the subject.
The built-in flash worked well indoors, with no red-eye and
slight under-exposure. The night photograph was good, with
the maximum shutter speed of 60 seconds allowing you to capture
plenty of light, although the resulting image is quite noisy.
Anti-shake is a feature that sets this camera apart from its
competitors and one that works very well when hand-holding
the camera in low-light conditions or when using the telephoto
end of the zoom range. Noise at higher ISO speeds is the DMC-FZ50's
main weakpoint. The 1/2.5 inch, 10 megapixel sensor produces
noise-free images at ISO 100, but ISO 200 shows some noise
and ISO 400 exhibits obvious noise and blurred detail (with
ISO 800 and 1600 even worse). The new High Sensitivity mode
extends the ISO range and allows you to freeze subject movement
effectively, but does so by reducing the effective image resolution.
 PhotographyBLOG
is a member of the DIWA
organisation. Our test results for the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50
have been submitted to DIWA
for comparison with test results for different samples of
the same camera model supplied by other DIWA
member sites.
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