Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200 Summary

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200 takes an impressive 24X optical zoom lens, equivalent to 25-600mm, and makes it even more impressive with a constant F/2.8 maximum aperture. This gives it a huge advantage, two stops at least, towards the long end of the zoom over all other ultra-zooms. Incidently, this is where it is needed the most, allowing it to shoot at faster shutter-speeds and lower ISO compared to its peers.

The lens of this digital camera shows an impeccable performance with consistent corner-to-corner sharpness, low distortion, low aberrations and no vignetting. The image sensor lags a bit behind the lens in performance, showing noise at all ISO sensitivities which gets wiped along with details by noise-reduction beyond ISO 100. Still, the FZ200 produces images suitable for mid-sized prints up to ISO 800. ISO 1600 should be restricted to small prints and anything beyond that is better left unused.

PROS	CONS
Bright F/2.8 constant maximum aperture	Softness from NR above ISO 100
Superb lens sharpness	Noise visible at all ISO
Low optical distortion	Useless ISO 3200+
Nice rendition of colors with correct WB	Below average White-Balance system
Quick autofocus	Self-timer resets
Very good shutter-lag	Modal EC control
Extremely responsive	Minuscule EVF
Impressive 12 FPS continuous drive	Not always Exposure-Priority
Awesome LCD visibility	Rear buttons too flat
Usable video framing overlay mask	Slow startup and shutdown
Good ergonomics
Good battery-life
Good Good