The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18 remains the ultra zoom digital camera that sets the standard for the others to follow. It has pretty much everything a beginner to serious amateur photographer could wish for: very good to excellent image quality, superb 18x optical wide-angle zoom with an effective optical image stabilization, fast and precise AF even at the long end of the zoom and in low light.
The Panasonic FZ18 has a superb Leica DC Vario-Elmarit lens and it shows in the quality of the images. The effective optical image stabilization allows hand holding shots at the long focal lengths and slower shutter speeds. The wide-angle makes this a great camera for landscape and group shots.
There is full exposure flexibility, so if you are a beginner, you can start with Auto, Scene and Program AE exposure modes, then move on to Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority, and full Manual modes when you are ready to learn and explore. Switching from mode to mode, and using the different options available is intuitive.
The Panasonic FZ18 is fast, with no practical shutter lag. In fact, auto focus is incredibly fast making this a very responsive ultra zoom digital camera.
A large 2.5 in. LCD monitor makes focusing and composing easy. An AF-assist Lamp helps achieve focus in low-light. The on-board flash is quite good with a 6 m reach.
Like the FZ7 and FZ8 before it, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18 makes a great all-round family digital camera. Beginner amateur photographers (and the proverbial “soccer moms”) will find it easy-to-use, especially with the Intelligent Auto (iA) mode that turns on MEGA O.I.S., Intelligent ISO, Face Detection, Continuous Auto-Focus and Intelligent Scene Selector for a beginner’s point-and-shoot ease of use. More serious amateur photographers will appreciate all the useful and immensely practical features — all in a well-designed and relatively compact and light body. The Panasonic FZ18 produces great images, is fast and a pleasure to use — and is simply incredible value for money. If you are looking for a long zoom digital camera, be sure you try the Panasonic FZ18 hands-on first. Available in silver or all black body.
Barely half a year after the introduction of the DMC-FZ8, Panasonic added another model to its popular range of compact ’super zoom’ Lumix cameras in the shape of the FZ18. Although obviously based on the FZ8 (they are externally almost identical), the FZ18 doesn’t replace it; it’s a sort of ‘big brother’ with a bigger zoom, more pixels and a smattering of new features.
The biggest news is the optically stabilized lens, which has ‘grown’ at both ends and now sports a whopping 18x (28-504mm equiv.) zoom, putting the FZ18 into direct competition with Olympus’ SP-550UZ (now updated to the SP-560UZ) and Fujifilm’s recently announced FinePix S8000fd.
Almost inevitably the FZ18 squeezes even more pixels onto its 1/2.5-inch sensor, although the increase has been fairly moderate from 7.3 to 8.3 megapixels. Other new features include a dedicated AF/AE button, Face Detection and a new Intelligent Auto mode which integrates Image Stabilization, Intelligent ISO, Face Detection and Scene Detection into a ‘Super’ Auto Mode.
Barely half a year after the introduction of the DMC-FZ8, Panasonic added another model to its popular range of compact ’super zoom’ Lumix cameras in the shape of the FZ18. Although obviously based on the FZ8 (they are externally almost identical), the FZ18 doesn’t replace it; it’s a sort of ‘big brother’ with a bigger zoom, more pixels and a smattering of new features.
The biggest news is the optically stabilized lens, which has ‘grown’ at both ends and now sports a whopping 18x (28-504mm equiv.) zoom, putting the FZ18 into direct competition with Olympus’ SP-550UZ (now updated to the SP-560UZ) and Fujifilm’s recently announced FinePix S8000fd.
Almost inevitably the FZ18 squeezes even more pixels onto its 1/2.5-inch sensor, although the increase has been fairly moderate from 7.3 to 8.3 megapixels. Other new features include a dedicated AF/AE button, Face Detection and a new Intelligent Auto mode which integrates Image Stabilization, Intelligent ISO, Face Detection and Scene Detection into a ‘Super’ Auto Mode.
Despite the usual noise issues you would expect from a tiny sensor/big zoom camera (and our dislike of Panasonic’s approach to noise reduction), overall we were pretty impressed with the FZ8 when we reviewed it a few months ago. This was to a large degree due to the superb LEICA lens. So let’s find out how Panasonic have tackled the noise challenge - and if the new lens, with it’s much more ambitious zoom range, can match its predecessor, starting with a look at what’s changed:
Major differences to DMC-FZ8
* 18x optical zoom (28-504mm equiv.) - FZ8 has 12x (36-432mm) zoom
* Smaller maximum aperture at long end of zoom (F4.2 vs F3.1)
* 8.3 megapixel sensor (vs 7.2 megapixel)
* Face Detection
* Intelligent Auto mode
* Manually selectable ISO 1600
* ISO 6400 High Sensitivity mode
* AF/AE lock button and dedicated AF/MF button
* 1cm macro (was 5cm)
* Custom mode and extra scene modes (plus ‘advanced scene modes’)
* Five level Noise reduction (was three level)
* Slower continuous shooting (burst)
* Heavier and slightly larger