David J Taylor wrote:

measekite wrote:



David J Taylor wrote:



See: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0707/07...asonicfz18.asp With a Leica 28mm wide-angle lens and 18x image-stabilised optical zoom. Cheers, David



I am curious to read the reviews. The sensor and the Venus III processor appears to be the same except the cramming an extra 1 MP in there. So we have a wider longer slower lens. I wonder if either the noise is worse or the smearing of the artifacts is worse or possible both when compared with the FZ8. I am wondering is the long zoom digital (all of them including the Canon S5) have hit a wall and larger sensors are necessary to get improved and larger image quality. If so Canon has the most to gain/lose since the want to improve the S5 to keep up with the competition but to not want to tread on their entry level DSLRs.



Yes, although the earlier Panasonics (5MP) can produce excellent images, the Venus III engine does not seem to make the best JPEG conversions, and RAW is perhaps the better way to go, at the expense of more post-processing time and effort. Beware the reviews - almost invariably they look at the pictures at 1:1 zoom, and not at the size that a normal viewer would use. The FZ18 does include RAW.

I like the 1:1 reviews as I would like to print letter size and an occasional 11x14.


Having the wider zoom will be significantly useful, and a major gain for users of the FZ18.

I would like that lens also but not slower than the ones offered today.


Yes, it would be better if these cameras went back to 5 - 6MP rather than looking for 8 - 10MP. It's more in keeping with the lens capability, and would reduce the visible noise.

The S5 appears to be less noisy than the Pan FZ8 at ISO200 and even ISO400.  It got rave reviews from all reviewers except for Popular Photography.  They contradicted all other reviews on both Canon (worse) and Sony H9 (better).  Those reviews were so contradictory that I wonder if advertising dollars had something to do with that.


There is some hope though that sensors can be improved, both through quantum efficiency gains and through organisational improvements (like the Kodak "half pixels are white" idea). If you make the sensor too large, though, you end up with a camera like the Sony R1 - as big, heavy and expensive as a DSLR and yet not as versatile, and therefore one that doesn't sell!

That is the challenge.

I would like to see a lighter somewhat smaller version of the Canon Digital Rebel XTi with all of the features of the Canon S5 but with a fixed lens of the quality (it is not as good as Nikon's kit lens) of the current kit lens and would sell for $400.00 and would have an EVR of 250,000 pixels or better.  10MP would be nice.


Cheers, David