Panasonic FZ18 vs. Fujifilm S8000 or Olympus SP-550; Compare 18x SLR-likes

What will happen if you stick a prefect Leica lens to the 1/2.5 inch sensor? You will waste $400 for a doubtful pleasure to have an 18x zoom on the small and noisy sensor. Besides you can participate in new SLR-like camera race with Fujifilm S8000 (look through my next post), Olympus SP-550 UZ (look at my previous post) and cool-and-clever Panasonic FZ18. If you think that taking up the race is for your shooting accommodation it’s a wrong idea. This is running for your money. But if some time before we were running for mega pixels, now we are running for the ultra-mega-super optical zoom.
Run for your money
Moreover, the same story takes place with some compact cameras. However, there are mega pixels races instead of ultra zoom fights. For more details look through: Nikon Coolpix P5100 vs P5000: it’s better to look at Canon A630 and Canon Powershot G9, SD950 and A650: can 12MP make SLR from compact.
Some Olympus’s and Fuji Film’s progress in selling their 18x ultra-zoom cameras has pushed Panasonic for making FZ18. Unfortunately DMC-FZ18 uses not the same as Lumix DMC-FZ50 1/1.8 inch sensor. For no apparent reason Panasonic has taken 1/2.5”sensor size. Maybe it has happened not to stand out for FujiFilm S8000 with 1/2.35 inch sensor or Olympus SP550 with the same 1/2.5 inch. I don’t know. But I am sure that manufacturers try to make us to be in need of exaggerated figures such as extra pixels, ultra zooms, high ISO etc. Do we really need it?
Come back to Panasonic FZ18. What do we have on board? It’s so lucky. We have a RAW format! In my opinion it is "а must" for shooting in FZ18’ High Mode with ISO 6400. Just think where the sensor noise has got to? In return Panasonic FZ18 can shoot 30 fps 848 x 480 movies. But how it can capture films with all of this18x’ splendor I don’t know. Panasonic has forgotten to give notice that lens for photo is not the same as lens for video. But it is ‘incidental’ for selling SLR-like cameras which can shoot a movie. Instead it’s possible to save your money and not to buy a camcorder. As for face detection I can distinguish face from ass myself, even without Lumix FZ18.
Comparing Panasonic FZ18 with Olympus SP-550 and FujiFilm S8000 it’s hard to find actually important distinctions. For comparing with new Olympus SP-560 look at Olympus SP-560 vs SP-550; 18x SLR-like with E410’ processor and 826mm Tele converter. SP-550 has 7.1 MP 1/2.5” with image stabilization sensor, 30 fps 640 x 480 movie, 1.2 fps continuous drive, 2.5 inch LCD, awkward xD Picture Card with 20 MB internal storage. S8000 is luckier. It has ‘a whole’ 1/2.35 inch 8MP sensor, ‘Dual Image Stabilization’; a brand new combination of mechanical sensor shift stabilization with Fujifilm’s Picture Stabilization Technology which utilizes a combination of higher ISO levels and faster shutter speeds, 2.5 inch LCD, 1.3 fps continuous drive, the same as Olympus movie mode and xD Picture Card with 58MB internal storage. It is ‘reasonable’ that these cameras have a RAW format and say ‘NO’ to external flash. What solely I’m interested in is Panasonic’s lens optical image stabilization system. Maybe it can work just a little better than CCD shift systems. At any rate Canon’s stabilized zoom lens allows me much more than Sony Alpha’s Sensor shift. But this lens costs much more than these entire 18 x SLR-likes cost.
Apropos, I had much trouble with zoom lenses shooting in Thailand this August. I was in need of faces, Thai girls, and funny situations in real life, not a performance for my Thaitramp blog. It was truly hard to shoot on the beach, on the Walking Street, especially in low light. I had although a speedy SLR with a large sensor. Before the trip I had already had some practice with shooting by SLR-like camera from Nikon. It’s good for landscapes and family not for afoot shooting. Of course you can try to ask dancing girls to freeze. But how can they do it? A high aperture lens such as 300mm f2.8 or external flash could have saved my situation. But who can save FZ18? Only large CMOS sensor can. But it won’t happen before Canon, Sony and other manufacturers finish their new CMOS sensor factories. For more details look through Canon vs. Sony: 5 billion more for better ultra-zoom with CMOS sensor and Canon PowerShot with CMOS sensor: SLR-like vs. SLR or instead? Maybe it’s better to wait. Or else you will write something like this: ‘I just bought a DMC-FZ18 and I am a bit upset when using the wide angle lens. Pictures taken in wide angle position are not as clean and crispy than when I took with a bit more zoom. It is a good camera. I hope someone can tell me what I should do to get clean pictures from DMC-FZ18 while I am using the wide angle lens’.
I’m really interested what this Panasonic FZ18’s user will write after using 18x zoom position. And why it seems that: ‘it is a good camera’?
As for our SLR-like camera comparison I would choose 12x Panasonic FZ50 with 1/1.8 inch sensor or even Sony DSC-R1 with 21.5 x 14.4 mm CMOS sensor. In my opinion Bolivar cannot carry double. 18x zoom and 1/2.5 sensor is an excess.Almost the same excess as 12 megapixels in 1/1.7 inch sensor at the Canon Powershot G9 (look through Canon Powershot G9, SD950 and A650: can 12MP make SLR from compact).
For more details look through The summary table of the best SLR-like camera specifications.
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