Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18 Review

Do you ever act as if your a tourist in your own country? Well, ever since I bought the Lumix DMC-FZ18, I've been doing just that.

The DMC-FZ18 is my first DSLR experience. Previously, I've been using the Olympus u850 which is a simple dummy camera with waterproof features.

The FZ18 is Panasonic's latest "super zoom" camera that comes pack with x18 optical zoom and 8.1 megapixel resolution. One thing i liked about this camera is the Leica lens comes together with this model. Leica is a well knows German camera manufacturer that is famous for its quality lenses.

At the moment, there is only 2 other camera that matches the specification of the FZ18. The two are Olympus 560UZ and Fuji's Finepix s8000fd. However most reviews that I read pointed FZ18 to be more superior then the other 2.

The FZ18 also comes with a generous 2.5" LCD and for the first time introduced their Intelligent Auto Mode which integrates face and scene recognition, image stabilization, intelligent ISO control and continuous AF in an easy to use auto mode.

Battery, battery charger (that plugs directly into the wall), USB cable, AV cable, CD-ROM, shoulder strap, lens cap, lens cap string, lens hood, and lens hood adapter are bundled together with the camera.

The highlight of the FZ18 would definitely be the x18 optical zoom with a 35mm equivalent focal length of 28-504mm. The FZ18 is fitted with optical image stabilization, which, at an 18x zoom, is an absolute necessity. The result can be seen from the below 2 picture's I took.

1x zoom

x18 (telephoto) of the dome

This camera is ideal if you do not want to spend a lot of money and still want to play around with a DSLR camera (Cost me RM1500). Its ideal for beginners too since you can still point and shoot with the camera and then review what kind of aperture size, shutter speed and ISO exposure used by the camera. With time you can then experiment with your own settings and see what you get.

Ubudiah Mosque, Kuala Kangsar

Using the camera for the last week or two have been a pleasure. Its a great outdoor camera and you can happily shoot away and get pretty decent pictures even while using its Intelligent Auto mode. The casual photographers will definitely enjoy this. Nevertheless, if you are taking non-stationary images, I would suggest the P mode since the continuous AF is not fast enough.

Istana Kenangan, Kuala Kangsar

The only downside of this camera would be night and indoor shots. If you are taking pictures in a dimly lit area and the camera needs ISO 400 and above, the shots looses a lot of detail (significant digital noise) and its simply frustrates me sometimes. So I won't really bother using this camera for a party at night.

In conclusion, if you are looking for a "super zoom" camera that is not that expensive, comes with full feature set (manual exposure mode etc) and like to take outdoor pictures then its worth putting the FZ18 in your short list.