Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18K 8.1MP Digital Camera with 18x Wide Angle MEGA Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black)

I have the Canon S5 IS and several other Canon cameras. I was concerned about the picture quality of this camera since I am used to the outstanding quality of Canon cameras. The picture quality is quite comparable. I got this camera to replace the S5 IS because it was wide angle, can shoot movies in 16:9 aspect ratio and can shoot camera raw. I wish I could zoom while shooting movies, but that is minor compared to the other advantages. The image stabilization at full zoom is outstanding, even under fairly low light conditions.

I bought this camera a month ago and it is a great experience. It does everything I was waiting for for long time (about 4 previous digital cameras within last 3 years), and it has light small body. It is fast, very good in low light conditions even without flash. Flash is very deep and maintains good colour. The most important part is the lens that is great in wide and extreme tele. It resolved my delema of choice between compact digital and SLR. The price and prompt delivery made this experience even more satisfying.

I use my camera professionally as a photojournalist. Tired of lugging around giant cameras with several pounds of lenses. The Leica lens on the FZ18 takes great photos and with the 500 mm optical zoom I have everything I need in less than one pound. Two things to consider, however. There is no hot shoe for an external flash and no accommodation for a remote shutter release. If you don't need those then you couldn't ask for much more. I would hope that in the next generation of this camera they will return the swivel LCD screen. I generally use the viewfinder, but the swivel screen is great for undetected photos of people - I'm a travel writer and like to get candid shots of the local people. This is my third Lumix (I update annually) and have had no problems with any of them. Add a skylight filter to protect the lens and you're all set. I don't use a camera bag because I travel in some places where it would be a good target for thieves. I just toss the camera in my backpack along with my other junk. If it gets lost, stolen or broken it's not a financial disaster. Can you say that about your Nikon or Canon?

Like anybody reading this, I did a lot of research on digital cameras. Obviously, my final choice was this camera, it beat out the Olympus, Nikon, Canon, and Fujifilm models that offer 12x-18x zoom.

First, there are two well-documented concerns about this camera that are posted in any decent review and most of the Amazon user reviews:

(1) Shutter lag
(2) High ISO causes terrible noise

These were the two concerns I thought may affect me when using this camera, but I decided to go ahead with the purchase anyway. I'll spend most of my time here on these issues, because when I was researching, they were the topics I was most interested in reading about.

(1) The shutter lag issue is noticable right away. It isn't bad to the point where it will cause you to lose many normal-motion pictures, but you will miss some random movment, high-speed shots(as many have mentioned, shooting birds is an adventure). To put some sort of measure to this I attempted to shoot my dog running at full speed about 10 feet away. The delay between my pressing the shutter button and the resulting picture was enough time for the dog to move about two feet. For me, this isn't a very big issue. If you are shooting high-speed action shots there is always an element of anticipation (or luck) involved, no matter what camera you use. Soon enough you will learn the delay and be able to get a reasonable estimate to take decent action shots as long as you can somewhat predict the direction of the motion. Also, the burst shot mode will drastically increase your chances to catch that tough action shot.

(2) The other issue, ISO-related noise, is another story. I had to go in and manually select the setting to get to the point to where I saw this issue. I took hundred's of pictures without noticing, I finally set the ISO to 1600 to match the results every internet review has posted. With the ISO at 800 in low-light situations(and no flash), the noise was not a big issue, if you print a 4x6 with those settings you will not notice. At 1600 it is very obvious, if you have any interest in shooting at varying ISO levels, this isn't the camera for you. However, for hundred's of normal use pictures this was never an issue, and even with some set shots at higher ISO's, it won't come into play unless you want a very large prinout. Still, this is definitely an issue for anybody concerned about shooting on variable ISO levels and expecting the same results at 100 and 1600.

The positive features of the camera are numerous: Great picture quality, great image stabilization, 18x zoom, RAW image mode, every manual control you can expect from a P&S, and many more.

The image quality is staggering, using JPEG 8mp mode, I uploaded the an image taken at 18x zoom on the camera to my 19" monitor(at full resolution) and then zoomed into the image on my computer substantially(to the point where the image on the screen was about 1/10th of the original image) and there was no noticable pixalation. Very impressive, especially taken at full-zoom. I'll also mention the image stabalization, I've seen some negative mentions of this, but I absolutely love this feature and it works exactly as advertised. I have horrible camera hands, constantly shaking which was very noticable on my old P&S, but the IS on this camera has been outstanding, I can't imagine how many 18x zoom pictures I would have to immediately delete if it weren't for the quality IS processing. The camera defaults to level 1, I switched over to level 2 which is more powerful.

This camera is for you if: You don't want to make the jump to a dSLR, you want a powerful zoom capable of producing high-quality images that you can print out at sizes bigger than 8x10 and you want to be able to control the settings in detail, but also pick it up and let the auto-settings do the work and still get great shots.

This camera is not for you if: You place a very high value on high-speed action shots or you have a special interest in varying the ISO settings.

There is a ton about this camera I didn't touch on, I'll let the professional reviews handle those issues, but the bottom line is that this is an exceptional top-of-the-line P&S camera. If you can conceed a couple of points upfront as not being big issues to you, then I 100% recommend this camera to you.

After 4 years, it finally became a necessity to replace my dependable but slow shutter speed Olympus Stylus 400.

I am a typical home/family user of a camera, but I want to keep up with my zooming 5 year old, whether she's on the soccer field, or in the dance studio...and get the shot that I see in my mind's eye. After reading everything I could get my hands on...out of all the variables on cameras, I finally decided that for me, the three biggest must haves were:

1) a fast start upfast shutter response
2) a good zoomimage stabilization
3) good quality images to print

The Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ18 has all that and more than I could want.

I used a PNY Optima 60x 2GB SD card, and filled it in two days...just with playing around with pics and video.

Start up speed:
I can grab the camera, and with one hand be turning it on & choose its setting, and with the other hand taking the cover off...by the time I have the camera in front of my face, it is ready to take the picture Im seeing. Its usually ready before I am!

Shutter lag minimal:
While I think the only way to ALWAYS get the shots I want is to take that step up to SLR, this camera gets the majority of the shots I want...and would get more if I started a bit earlier and used burst mode, instead! Im VERY happy with the low lag time on this camera.

Zoom/ImageStabilization:
I'm just astounded by this camera. Considering the HUGE zoom factor, Im just floored by the clarity of the picture, and how confident one can be just by looking at the EVF. The image is there, stable, and waiting for you to hit the button. Add to that, it uses the stabilization factor in its camcorder mode, and one might think I'd mounted the thing on a tripod! Excellent!

Good Quality Images:
The Leica lens makes this a bit of a cheat, but that was part of the draw for me. Image quality is fantastic, and looks great on not only the camera screen, but on my computer screen, and on paper.

Others have mentioned no zoom on the camcorder mode: they're right...you cant control the zoom in camcorder mode. HOWEVER! If you're already zoomed in while in another mode, and flip over to the camcorder, then it stays zoomed in. You cant zoom out without stopping the recording and changing modes, so that's a drawback, but this is not a camcorder...it's a digital camera with a camcorder mode...I'll take it!

All in all, this is an excellent camera with more features than I know what to do with. And the add-on of the camcorder ability just makes it more of a value. I won't have need of a camcorder, now...the quality is that good!.

Looking forward to a good, long relationship with my FZ18!