While its burst performance may seem fast, it's limited to 3 shots at full resolution and quality, which makes it less than useful. In its infinite burst mode, we expect performance to be about the same as that of competitors. But we never felt that the FZ28 was sluggish, and the autofocus feels very responsive in bright light.
The camera's new AF tracking feature works relatively well, as long as the subject is well illuminated and doesn't move too quickly. And Panasonic's optical image stabilisation does a good job when shooting at slower shutter speeds.
Image quality is solid but not outstanding. The FZ28 produces natural-looking colours, and exposures are generally even and accurate, especially outdoors. As is typical, macro shots are especially sharp, as were those from wide to about the midrange of the zoom. Telephoto shots are slightly soft, even at lower ISOs. But, as with many Panasonic cameras, you can see noise artefacts even at the camera's lowest sensitivity of ISO 100, particularly in shadowed areas.
In part, this seems to stem from more poorly executed noise suppression in the blue channel than most. There's visible softening as low as ISO 200, and by ISO 800 you lose a significant amount of detail. Sensitivity is best kept at ISO 400 or below, but you'll be able to get decent prints above that setting. Just try to keep the noise reduction set low in order to avoid softer images.
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
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Time to first shot | |
Typical shot-to-shot time | |
Shutter lag (dim) | |
Shutter lag (typical) |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
Conclusion
Panasonic delivers a solid superzoom in the Lumix DMC-FZ28. Although it's not particularly outstanding in any particular area -- its image quality is its weakest link -- a well-thought-out and robust feature set, plus above-average performance, help it to rise above much of the competition.
Additional editing by Charles Kloet
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