The 8-megapixel Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18 packs a monster-sized 18x zoom lens. There are cameras with higher megapixel counts for less than the FZ18's £250 price tag, but few have as many features. We tested to see if Panasonic had overreached itself, cramming so much into a compact package.
Design
The giant Leica lens dominates the surprisingly lightweight body. There's a contoured grip for the right hand and a curved thumb rest. Other SLR-style features include a large, retro-styled silver mode wheel, a satisfyingly brisk pop-up flash and a viewfinder.
As on many superzooms it has an electronic viewfinder, but this 188,000 pixel EVF is better than most, giving decent real-time previews of your exposure alterations. The FZ18 also has a dioptre that allows you to dial the focus of the EVF to suit your eye. The viewfinder also protrudes slightly from the back of the camera, making it deeper but stopping you from plastering your face up against the 64mm (2.5-inch) LCD screen.
Features
The FZ18 has so many useful features that we don't have the space to go over them all. Shutter priority, aperture priority and manual modes are available, as well as 14 scene modes. Odd choices include aerial photo mode and food mode, which surely can't be used often enough to merit first place in the menus. These are probably best ignored as the primary modes on the mode dial, like sport and landscape, have handy subsets such as indoor and outdoor.
Full manual mode and programmed manual mode give you an enormous amount of control over pictures. Another great feature is the ability to save your settings in three different customised modes.
The enormous zoom, equivalent to 28-504mm on a 35mm film camera, is extremely responsive and feels like it isn't moving in increments at all. It also reacts to the speed you move the zoom rocker, zooming faster when the zoom is pressed harder.
We especially like the calendar view in playback mode, which groups images by date, and the quick shooting menu intuitively controlled by the dinky little joystick.
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TAYLORMILLS 24 December 2011
Good: all
Bad: nothing
Comment: all very good
alan furness 14 September 2008
Good: 18x zoom
Bad: Nothing
Comment: Just purchased my Panasonic fz18 in june this year and took it on my family holiday to Florida. The 18 x zoom was perfect for the animal parks when you wanted a picture of an animal that was just a bit too far away. Have got all my holiday photos on my pc now to enjoy my mamories, thanks Panasonic
NervousEnergy 5 June 2008
Good: RAW shooting, excellent anti-shake, fantastic long range optical zoom, wealth of features.
Bad: Noise readily apparent at mid-ISO levels, hard to get the hang of for beginners.
Comment: After I smashed my old Canon pointNshoot, I was in desperate need of a camera that had a good zoom range, and a variety of options. There was no way that I could afford a dSLR camera, and I felt that I had gone beyond a simple pointNshoot.
So, I looked into what has now become known as 'bridge' cameras; which combine the quality of picture and control over features in a dSLR, and the affordability and portability of a smaller pointNshoot camera, without all that mucking about with extra lenses, which can often add a few hundred pounds to your expenditure (though of course, optional lenses are available for most bridge cameras).
The Panasonic DMC-FZ18 had some raving reviews on the web, so I finally decided it would be a worthwhile purchase. Thankfully, I was so so right.
Of course, one of the most touted features of this camera is the extraordinary large optical zoom lens, which can reach up to 28x optical on lower resolutions, and 18x optical on the normal resolutions. You would think that with such a huge zoom that shake would be a massive problem; but amazingly it is not. The Panasonic's anti-shake feature is definitely the best I have ever come across on a camera of this caliber - I was able to take a clear picture on the maximum zoom, using no tripod, on a windy day.
Image quality is also very very good, the camera sporting a nice megapixel range, with colours that come off as quite accurate. As with most cameras, the Panasonic comes with very many scene modes, plus the Intelligent Auto mode general mode; which detects the scene type and adjusts the settings accordingly. The iA mode does well 80% of the time, and yet for that final 20% I often find that the images can become too overexposed, or have colours that are slightly off. iA mode is also limited to JPEG, without having access to the RAW mode, which I must say was a key feature that I wanted in a new camera. Therefore, I would recommend that you stick with the huge variety of different scene modes which should cover most environments that you find yourself in.
Another great feature is that this camera comes with pretty much full control over aperture, exposure, and shutter; including the general Aperture and Shutter Priority modes, and Manual and Program modes. Disappointingly, this camera has a limited open shutter time of just 60 seconds, and not a bulb mode.
The video mode was also quite a disappointment, as although it recorded video in very good quality, you are unable to zoom in or out, without first stopping the recording, zooming in, and starting it again.
The camera has a good design, quite like that of many dSLRs. The screen is large and clear, and there is too an electronic viewfinder. Buttons are placed sensibly, and feel high quality. You may notice a little joystick to the right of the display; which gives an added dimension to navigating through menus; which can be a great help. The mode selector wheel is prominent and sturdy, making a satisfying 'click' when it is turned to the next mode. The battery/card plus the external port covers are again strong, and probably won't snap off without some considerable effort. The camera is also surprisingly light, and fits comfortably in your hand when taking pictures.
Some of the only drawbacks I can see with this camera is that the medium-sized sensor can produce visible noise results, even at lower ISO ranges. To help combat this, I recommend downloading Imagenomic's Noiseware free Community Edition, which can tackle noise very effectively. Also the manual is huge; just a tad smaller than a novel, and it is not exactly user friendly. Therefore I recommend a thorough read of it before you begin to start using some of the more advanced features, especially if you are a newbie to these types of cameras.
But in all, this camera is excellent. It provides great pictures, and enough features to rival the lower-end dSLRs, an outstanding zoom range, and a good long battery life (though I
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