Image Quality

All of the sample images in this Review were taken using the 12 megapixel Fine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 5Mb.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200 produced images of very good quality during the review period. Noise is well-controlled until ISO 1600, which exhibits some artifacts, blurring of detail and slight colour desaturation. The noise and loss of detail get progressively worse as you go from ISO 1600 to the fastest 6400 setting, which isn't really very usable at all.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200 dealt very well with chromatic aberrations, with limited purple fringing effects appearing only in high contrast situations. The pop-up flash worked well indoors, with no red-eye and adequate exposure. The night photograph was excellent, with the maximum shutter speed of 60 seconds allowing you to capture plenty of light. Anti-shake is a feature that works very well when hand-holding the camera in low-light conditions or when using the telephoto end of the zoom range.

Macro performance is amazing, allowing you to focus as close as 1cm away from the subject (although it's difficult to get the lighting correct at such a close distance). The images were a little soft straight out of the camera at the default sharpening setting and ideally require further sharpening in an application like Adobe Photoshop, or you can change the in-camera setting if you don't like the default results. The Intelligent Resolution feature either makes a standard image look sharper, albeit with some unwanted artefacts appearing, or it digitally increases the 24x optical zoom to 48x, again with a slight loss in quality. Intelligent Dynamic Range successfully adjusts the exposure to record more detail in both the highlights and shadows.

Noise

There are 7 ISO settings available on the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting for both JPEG and RAW formats.

JPEG	RAW
ISO 100 (100% Crop)	ISO 100 (100% Crop)
ISO 200 (100% Crop)	ISO 200 (100% Crop)
ISO 400 (100% Crop)	ISO 400 (100% Crop)
ISO 800 (100% Crop)	ISO 800 (100% Crop)
ISO 1600 (100% Crop)	ISO 1600 (100% Crop)
ISO 3200 (100% Crop)	ISO 3200 (100% Crop)
ISO 6400 (100% Crop)	ISO 6400 (100% Crop)

Focal Range

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200's 24x zoom lens provides a focal length of 25-600mm in 35mm terms, as demonstrated below.

25mm	600mm

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. You can change the in-camera sharpening level if you don't like the default look.

Original (100% Crop)	Sharpened (100% Crop)

File Quality

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200 has 2 different JPEG image quality settings available, with Fine being the highest quality option. Here are some 100% crops which show the quality of the various options, with the file size shown in brackets.

12M Fine (5.07Mb) (100% Crop)	12M Normal (3.01Mb) (100% Crop)
12M RAW (14.3Mb) (100% Crop)

Chromatic Aberrations

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200 handled chromatic aberrations excellently during the review. There's some slight purple fringing between areas of high contrast, but it's only noticeable on close inspection, as shown in the examples below.

Example 1 (100% Crop)	Example 2 (100% Crop)

Macro

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200 offers a Macro setting that allows you to focus on a subject that is 1cm 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.

Macro Shot	100% Crop

Flash

The flash settings on the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200 are Auto, Auto/Red-eye Reduction, Forced On, Slow Sync./Red-eye Reduction, Forced Off, and Flash Synchro. These shots of a white coloured wall were taken at a distance of 1.5m.

Flash Off - Wide Angle (25mm)	Flash On - Wide Angle (25mm)
Flash Off - Telephoto (600mm)	Flash On - Telephoto (600mm)

And here are a couple of portrait shots. As you can see, neither the Forced On setting or the Auto/Red-eye Reduction option caused any amount of red-eye.

Forced On	Forced On (100% Crop)
Auto/Red-eye Reduction	Auto/Red-eye Reduction (100% Crop)

Night

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200's maximum shutter speed is 60 seconds in Manual shooting mode and the Starry Sky Mode scene mode, which is great news if you're seriously interested in night photography. The shot below was taken using a shutter speed of 15 seconds at ISO 100. I've included a 100% crop of the image to show what the quality is like.

Night Shot	Night Shot (100% Crop)

Anti Shake

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200 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 same settings. The first shot was taken with anti shake turned off, the second with it turned on. Here are some 100% crops of the images 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.

Shutter Speed / Focal Length	Anti Shake Off (100% Crop)	Anti Shake On (100% Crop)
1/5th / 25mm
1/6th / 600mm

Intelligent Resolution

The Intelligent Resolution feature either makes a standard image look like a higher resolution one by processing the contour areas, texture areas and smooth areas individually, or it digitally boosts the zoom magnification from 24x to 48x.

Intelligent Resolution Off	Intelligent Resolution On
i.Zoom Off	i.Zoom On

Intelligent Dynamic Range

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200's Intelligent Dynamic Range feature adjusts the exposure setting to record more detail in the highlights and shadows, with three strengths available - low, standard and high.

Off	Low
Standard	High

Photo Styles

Panasonic's Photo Styles, similar to Nikon's Picture Styles, Canon's Picture Controls and Olympus' Picture Modes, are preset combinations of different sharpness, contrast, saturation and noise reduction settings. The six available Photo Styles are shown below in the following series, which demonstrates the differences. There is also a Custom option so that you can create your own look.

Standard	Vivid
Natural	Monochrome
Scenery	Portrait

Creative Controls

The Panasonic FZ48 has an expanded range of Creative Controls, denoted by an artist's palette on the shooting mode dial, with 14 different options on offer. You can also apply all of these effects to a JPEG image during playback via the Creative Retouch option (press up on the navigation pad).

Expressive	Retro
High Key	Low Key
Sepia	Dynamic Monochrome
Impressive Art	High Dynamic
Cross Process	Toy Effect
Miniature Effect	Soft Focus
Star Filter	One Point Color

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200 camera, which were all taken using the 12 megapixel Fine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample RAW Images

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200 enables users to capture RAW and JPEG format files. We've provided some Panasonic RAW (RW2) samples for you to download (thumbnail images shown below are not 100% representative).

Sample Movie & Video

Product Images

Front of the Camera

Front of the Camera / Turned On

Front of the Camera / Flash Raised

Front of the Camera / Lens Hood Fitted

Isometric View

Isometric View

Isometric View

Isometric View

Isometric View

Rear of the Camera / LCD Screen Closed

Rear of the Camera / LCD Screen Open

Rear of the Camera / Turned On

Rear of the Camera / Image Displayed

Rear of the Camera / Main Menu

Rear of the Camera / Quick Menu

Rear of the Camera / Creative Control Menu

Front of the Camera / Tilting LCD Screen

Front of the Camera / Tilting LCD Screen

Front of the Camera / Tilting LCD Screen

Top of the Camera

Bottom of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Front of the Camera

Front of the Camera

Memory Card Slot

Battery Compartment

Conclusion

While other manufacturers have concentrated on making their super-zoom cameras bigger in terms of their focal range, most notably Canon with the 50x zoom PowerShot SX50 HS camera, Panasonic have bucked the trend with the new FZ200 by making the lens faster. Astonishingly the FZ200 has a constant aperture of F/2.8 throughout its now relatively modest 24x zoom range, which arguably offers greater benefits to the photographer than increasing the telephoto reach. In practice having an aperture of F/2.8 at 600mm results in far fewer blurred pictures, with the added benefit of producing more out-of-focus backgrounds, making the Lumix DMC-FZ200 even more appealing to sports and nature photographers.

Other key improvements include a class-leading electronic viewfinder, which has 1.31-million-dots and is subsequently more of a pleasure than a chore to use, and better noise performance, with a now usable ISO range of 100-800 and the added benefit of RAW format support for those who want to take full control of post-processing. The FZ200 also retains the fast auto-focus system, 12fps burst shooting, titling LCD screen and 1080p video of its predecessor, plus the battery life has been greatly improved to over 500 shots.

The only real downside of the new Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200 is a fairly substantial price increase compared to its predecessor - £50 in the UK and $100 in the US - making it one of the most expensive super-zooms on the market. Even so, that F/2.8 lens is a technical triumph that will make a real difference to your photography - hand-holding a camera at 600mm and getting sharp results and blurred backgrounds has never been so easy...

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	5
Features	5
Ease-of-use	4.5
Image quality	4.5
Value for money	4

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200 from around the web.

Specifications

Your Comments