Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200 review

The FZ150’s photo quality was impressive but couldn’t quite match the Canon PowerShot SX40 HS. This time around, the updated models’ sensor specifications remain the same, but whereas Canon has super-sized the zoom range, Panasonic has gone for the constant f/2.8 aperture.

The Panasonic has a brighter lens and the Canon has a superior sensor – in practice there’s not much to separate their low-light image quality – click to enlarge

Testing the two side by side, we expected to see wildly different results from these two very different lenses, but the reality was that their various strengths and weaknesses mostly cancelled each other out. While the Canon exhibited lower noise for a given ISO speed, the Panasonic’s brighter lens meant it could use lower ISO speeds to compensate. Both cameras shot at ISO 100 in bright light, though, whereupon the Canon’s JPEGs looked cleaner. Shooting in raw mode improved the Panasonic’s output.

The Panasonic had the edge for focus and resolved sharper details in dense textures, although focus suffered a little when the aperture was wide open. It sensibly picked an f/4 aperture on automatic settings when there was sufficient light for it. The Canon’s colossal 1200mm maximum focal length nudged it into the lead for telephoto details. These shots were far from pixel-sharp, though, and there weren’t many occasions that the Panasonic’s 600mm focal length was insufficient. We also found that the Panasonic’s Auto mode gave more reliable exposures and white balance.

Focus is impressively sharp into the corners but details in JPEGs look a little scrappy – raw gives better results – click to enlarge

The 24x zoom is smaller than other ultra-zoom cameras but it’s still pretty enormous – click to enlarge

It’s hard to pick a clear winner for image quality, but in most other respects the FZ200 has the upper hand over the Canon PowerShot SX50 HS. It was faster throughout our tests, and often significantly so. Battery life is longer, and its viewfinder is much sharper. Both cameras capture attractive videos but the Panasonic’s video mode is much better specified. They’re both superb cameras, but the Panasonic comes out on top.