On Wed, 19 Apr 2006 08:52:47 -0700, Paul Allen "paul dot l dot allen
at comcast dot net" wrote:

F wrote:
I'm going on Safari in Kenya in June and was thinking of changing my
Fuji Finepix S602Z for the Panasonic FZ30 to get the 12x zoom rather
than the Fuji's 6x. Image stabilisation and the quicker startup were/are
also a consideration (ideally I would like something like the EOS350D
but I doubt I could afford the equivalent of the 12x zoom for it!).

I'm hesitating about changing after seeing conflicting comments about
the Panasonic's images being noisy above ISO 80. Anyone got any views on
how it compares with the Fuji in this area? If it is an issue with the
FZ30 I'd hate to get one now only to find it's fixed in the next model
in only a few months. OTH, I'd hate to miss a decent photograph with the
lesser lens and system...

The FZ30 definitely has more noise at ISO 400 than the S602, although
Neatimage apparently deals with that fairly effectively. What you get
with the FZ30 is that lovely 12x zoom with a mechanically-linked zoom
ring in addition to the focus-by-wire ring, a higher pixel count, the
tilt/swivel 2" LCD, and a proprietary battery. There may be some other
operational differences, but I don't have enough data to judge.

It's probably true that there will be an FZ35 in six months. They'd
have to do something radical (like use a SuperCCD sensor) to fix the
noise problem. All of their designs (and those of most other makers
except Fuji) have had some noise at higher ISO settings.

Paul Allen

I have a FZ5 the little brother to the FZ30. yes there is noticeable
noise at high ISO. The pictures that are marginally noisy are
ones that I wouldn't have gotten at all with my OM2 film camera.
The image stabilization and the 12x zoom gets useful shots in some
marginal situations. Subjectively the noise even at high ISO
from my FZ5 is less than I get from scanning my old slides and
negatives. For noise reduction I use Noise Ninja.