Introduction

Ease of Use

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72 is the size of it. We half expected a camera the size of a mid-range DSLR with a zoom that size on it. However, it's not actually that bad. Sure it's a little bit bigger than a bridge camera that features a smaller zoom range, but that's to be expected. The design has been given a rework with smoother corners, a chunkier grip and adverse angles on the top where the hotshoe is located. Couple that with the built-in microphone and speakers on the top of the pop-up flash and it looks quite futuristic.

Typically, for a bridge camera, the controls and buttons are slightly more over-sized than what you'd see on a digital compact camera. But then that's what happens when you have more estate to play with. The large command dial sits on the right shoulder nestling against the Live View Finder (LVF). The power switch sits under it. Surrounding the command dial as if defending the shutter release are the direct video, continuous shooting and focus option buttons.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72's zoom is operated by the rocker switch around the shutter release. Panasonic should really have thought about placing a separate zoom switch on the side of the lens barrel. It's a lot easier to use when supporting the lens at full zoom.

Front	Rear

That's not to say that it's difficult to use and we found through testing at full zoom that we generally got sharp pictures as long as we kept the ISO setting to auto and let the camera do its thing. It's programmed to keep the ISO as low as possible and the Power OIS (Optical Image Stabiliser) will ensure that it does. Panasonic use two different types of OIS: Mega and Power. The Power OIS is fitted to the FZ72 because it's twice as good at suppressing shake than Mega OIS. It's designed to help with low light such as night scenes without a flash, but can also help with high zoom ranges due to the reduction in light from the narrower field of view.

For the keen photographer there are a number of features that will appeal. The command dial on the top plate of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72 has manual PASM modes. The back of the camera has an AF/AE lock button for creative light or focusing techniques and you can also record in raw, JPEG and both at the same time. There's a hotshoe for fitting external flash and an LVF (Live View Finder) for holding the camera up to your eye as you would with a DSLR or CSC. This brings the camera into your centre of gravity and stabilises it which is useful if you have the zoom at full length.

Top	Side

Typically on a camera of this price range and filled with this amount of tech, the build quality is very good. It's solid to hold and feels great. As we mentioned previously, the grip is a little more chunky than we normally find on a bridge camera and while we think that it may simply be a happy accident, it certainly helps when shooting as you feel that you've got more to hold onto. Bigger is certainly better with a bridge camera.

Despite the plastic exterior, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72 feels solidly built. The battery door is strong with little play when it's fully opened. The spring loading of the door is powerful and it snaps open. Thankfully a lock is provided to prevent it opening by accident. The tripod bush is located just next to the battery compartment and is slightly off-centre. We'd normally poo-poo that idea but it's obvious that it's been done to make room inside for the lens.  The tripod bush is made of metal, which is great. Let's face it, with a zoom lens like this, you'll want to take your time to use a low ISO.

We dived into the menu systems and immediately melted. Panasonic are known for the simple, straight forward layout and design of their menu systems. Usually black lettering on white, or similar. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72's Q.Menu has a black layout with blue fading on the sub-menus and dark yellow a highlighter. The Main menu is even prettier with detailed clip art images as the menu titles (camera for shooting, camcorder for video and a spanner for set-up). The dividing line from menu title to sub-menu is red unless you're actually at the title stage, in which case it turns yellow. There are six pages to the shooting menu alone, but the options are clearly labelled to be understood easily. There shouldn't be any problem with knowing what each setting does

Front	Pop-up Flash

From a cold start, the typical start up time of a digital compact camera is around 2.5sec. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72 blows all that out of the water. We switched the camera on, focused it and took a picture in 1.3sec. That's an astonishing time and moving into DSLR territory. There are five continuous shooting modes. The slowest is the 2fps (frames per second) mode. It's a continuous mode and not a burst. It does start off faster at the beginning, but it slows a little after around 4-5 sec. We managed to get 17 images in a ten second period which is an average of 1.7fps. It does shoot at 2fps for the first 4 seconds before that noticeable drop in speed.

Next up is a 5fps burst mode. It rattles off the initial images, then slowly plods along at a continuous rate of around 1fps. Unusually, we only recorded 4 images taken over a 1sec period. Both these settings come with a continuous AF option.

Memory Card Slot	Battery Compartment

Scream if you want to go faster because the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72 has a 9fps setting at full resolution. However, in our tests, the camera stopped after 3 frames. This is where it gets a bit pedantic about what the manufacturers are labelling their products with. You see, the camera takes three photographs in around 0.3sec. That means if the camera DID take nine photographs, it would manage it in one second. That means it's a 9fps SPEED, not a 9fps RESULT. It's a bit misleading and either the buffers should be bigger to cope with nine frames of information, or they should find another way to display it. If you want 9fps, you need to choose the next setting, but that only records at 3 megapixels.

Because the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72 uses a power switch and not a power button, you can't preview images you've taken without switching it on first. The image will be full size in the screen with no information around it, so you can see it in all it's glory. You can press the DISP button to bring up various amounts of information such as the file size, number and picture style. Press up and you can enter a Retouch area which allows you to add the digital effects to the picture if you forgot to do it while taking the shot. Pressing the DISP button again will add a little more information to the screen before scrolling back to no information.

In the box, you get the camera, a dedicated lithium ion battery with charger, CD software that features PHOTOfunSTUDIO 9.2 and a trial version of LoiLoScope video editing software. There's also a neck strap, lens cap and a basic owner's manual to get you started.

Image Quality

All pictures were taken at full resolution unless otherwise stated. A full resolution JPEG records an image around 6Mb. Drop it down to the normal compression setting and it records around 4Mb. You can record in raw which pumps out 18Mb of information. If you shoot in raw, you need to download the Silkypix raw conversion software by following the instructions that are buried in the instruction manual on the enclosed CD. We then converted to TIFF which increased the file size even more to 45Mb.

Noise

We recorded the JPEG ISO test shots at third stop intervals to try and gauge where the no9ise starts to come in. We also shot the standard ISO settings in raw to see if there's any change made by the processor as it makes the adjustments for JPEG.

The level of detail in the raw images can definitely be appreciated in low ISO. Images are sharper in JPEG, but that's the processor's doing. No noise is showing through at either setting, though. Shooting in raw is great for seeing where a camera sensor starts to fail, because the processor has no input. So because of that, we begin to see noise show through at ISO 200 in the raw pictures, but not the JPEG.

It is noticeable in JPEG by ISO 400 and the stepped shots show it showing up by ISO 320. After that it's a downward spiral with the processor trying it's best to remove the noise, but it can't cope after ISO 800. Raw images really suffer from ISO 400 or higher with lots of colour JPEG artefacts littering the image. By ISO 1600, the raw shots are taking a real hammering with a colour casting over the entire frame.

When comparing to the raw image, the noise reduction software does a great job of removing noise. It still manages to get through, though which is a shame. And it starts to come through relatively early. We can see instances of it at ISO 400 and it steadily gets worse. Not as bad as it could be. In fact, we do check these results at full magnification of the image. At normal viewing size, the pictures look ok throughout the stages. So the argument could be made that if you're not going to enlarge or print the pictures, you could easily knock the ISO up to help in low light and not worry too much. IN fact, you could probably use it up to around ISO 800 in JPEG without worrying too much.

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)

Focal Range

The focal range of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72 is simply stunning. 20Mm at it's widest and rushing out to a nostril flaring 1200mm. The most stunning thing about this new technology is that the Power OIS can cope with it. We got lovely, sharp images from the full telephoto while hand holding the camera.

Edge to edge sharpness at the wide-angle setting seems good although there's some loss in the corners of the frame. We did see some pin cushion on straight lines, but it's not much and there's bound to be some distortion with a lens this wide.

20mm	1200mm

Sharpening

JPEGS are sharp enough from the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72 to begin with and the same can be said about the raw files if kept in focus. At low ISO, the pictures do improve slightly with a standard sharpen in an editing suite. Anything over that and the black & white noise exacerbates to noticeable levels.

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

File Quality

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72 has 2 different 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.

16M Fine (6.06Mb) (100% Crop)	16M Normal (4.07Mb) (100% Crop)
16M RAW (18.8Mb) (100% Crop)

Chromatic Aberrations

We certainly expected to find chromatic aberration in the pictures and we weren't disappointed. However, what we did notice is that it only occurs in very high key images with harsh contrasting lines and only at the extreme edges of the frame. In the everyday shots, we couldn't find any instances of it, but the studio shots with bright light did exhibit it.

Chromatic Aberrations 1 (100% Crop)	Chromatic Aberrations 2 (100% Crop)

Macro

Not only can the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72 zoom into things terribly far away, it can also focus on things terribly near. The macro mode has a close focus of 1cm at 20mm. That's near enough to make even the boldest ladybird get worried. Edge definition does start to dissipate early when you get very close, but it's good to have it there. The great thing about the macro mode is that it works throughout the zoom range. That doesn't mean you can zoom to 1200mm and still focus at 1cm, it's a minimum of 150cm but the compression you get is brilliant. The background gets completely thrown out of focus.

Macro	Macro (100% Crop)

Flash

Without the flash activated, we found that there's an obvious vignette in the corners of the frame. This dissipates when the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72 is zoomed in. Using flash suppresses it, but it's still clearly seen.

Flash Off - Wide Angle (20mm)	Flash On - Wide Angle (20mm)
Flash Off - Telephoto (1200mm)	Flash On - Telephoto (1200mm)

And here are a couple of portrait shots. Because of the high vantage point of the flash unit when activated, red-eye isn't an issue. However, there's a red-eye reduction mode in the flash options along with a red-eye removal mode in the Main menu. Using the latter will erase any problems you may get.

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

Night

Because of the manual modes available on the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72, it's possible to use a tripod and set up a long exposure on Manual. That way, you can use ISO 100 and be noise free. We also wanted to see what the Program and Night scene modes would do for us.

The  Night scene mode gave the best result in terms of colour reproduction. The warmth of the sunrise was captured better than what the program mode managed. There's also slightly more detail in the darker areas. Should you decide to want more detail in a shot like this, you could always use the HDR mode.

Night Scene	Night Scene (100% Crop)
Night Program	Night Program (100% Crop)

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72 camera, which were all taken using the 16 megapixel Fine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample Movie & Video

Product Images

Front of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72

Side of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72

Side of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72

Side of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72 / Lens Extended

Flash Raised

Rear of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72

Rear of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72 / Turned On

Rear of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72 / Image Displayed

Rear of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72 / Main Menu

Rear of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72 / Quick Menu

Top of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72

Bottom of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72

Side of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72

Side of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72

Front of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72

Memory Card Slot

Battery Compartment

Conclusion

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72 is a very pleasant camera to use. It feels solid in your hands and responds well to commands. The zoom is fast without being too fast that you miss where you want to be. Focusing is super fast, and the start-up time is brilliant. We got some great shots using the camera for the short time we had it.

As with any camera that has a tiny sensor, the image quality is going to fail at some point. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72 - like so many others - is when you start raising the ISO. Being pedantic, noise comes through quite early, but it's tolerable until maybe ISO 800. Shooting raw, you have to ideally keep it on ISO 100 to get the benefit.

This is a camera that will be attractive to the keen photographers who enjoy going out and taking time with their photography. The need for using a low ISO will mean that longer exposures could be needed. The long zoom and Power OIS will be extremely useful for hikers or travellers, although the latter may not like the size of the unit. They may also be put off by the separate charging unit as this will add weight and take up precious space.

The cost of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72 is also an issue. It will have been positioned higher because of the advanced technology available in the form of the long zoom. There's no other camera with that range at the moment and people will always have to pay top dollar for the newest gizmo or feature.

In all fairness, Panasonic have done a very good job with the DMC-FZ72. It's well built, takes nice photographs that are in focus and exposed perfectly. There's certainly room for improvement, such as the zoom switch could do with being on the side of the lens barrel (or at least an extra one) and the live viewfinder isn't as good as we'd like, but then they never are and they're limited to what they can do in such a small space. We understand this, but it doesn't stop us wanting more, does it?

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4
Features	4.5
Ease-of-use	4.5
Image quality	4
Value for money	3.5

Main Rivals

Listed below are some of the rivals of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72.

Specifications

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