Panasonic FZ200 vs Canon SX50 HS Noise RAW
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To compare RAW noise levels under real-life conditions, I shot this scene with the Panasonic Lumix FZ200 and the Canon PowerShot SX50 HS, within a few moments of each other using their best quality RAW settings and at each of their ISO sensitivity settings.
Because the zoom on the PowerShot SX50 lacks fine nudge control and zooming in by the smallest amount led to a larger difference, I left both cameras on their wide angle setting - 25mm (equiv) on the FZ200 and 24mm (equiv) on the SX50 HS.
Image stabilisation was disabled for this tripod-mounted test and all other settings were left on the defaults. |
The image above was taken with the Panasonic Lumix FZ200. The camera was set to Aperture priority mode with the aperture set to f4 and the sensitivity to 100 ISO. The Lumix FZ200 metered an exposure of 1.6 seconds at f4. To produce a comparable image on the Canon PowerShot SX50 HS I set exposure compensation to +1EV to produce an exposure of 1 second at f4 at 80 ISO.
I processed both sets of files in Adobe Camera RAW using identical settings: Sharpening at 70 / 0.5 / 36 / 10, Luminance and Colour Noise Reduction both set to zero, and the Process to 2012 with the Adobe Standard profile. To further reduce any distracting visual differences between the crops I also set custom white balance to 4500K and tint to 0. These settings were chosen to reveal the differences in sensor quality and isolate them from in-camera processing. The high degree of sharpening with a small radius enhances the finest details without causing undesirable artefacts, while the zero noise reduction unveils what's really going on behind the scenes - as such the visible noise levels at higher ISOs will be much greater than you're used to seeing in many of my comparisons, but again it's an approach that's designed to show the actual detail that's being recorded before you start work on processing and cleaning it up if desired.
There are no big surprises here and these Raw crops pretty much confirm what we saw in the JPEG noise results. Cast your eye down the two columns and you'll notice a marginal difference with the lumix FZ200 showing slightly higher levels of noise throughout the sensitivity range. It's not enough to make a massive difference, but at the lower ISO sensitivities, once the files are processed to JPEG, it does mean the Canon PowerShot SX50 HS has a slight edge with cleaner detail. As you progress up the sensitivity range the noise in both sensors quickly becomes very apparent, and by 800 ISO and beyond, though the Canon SX50 HS still enjoys a slight advantage, noise levels are so high that, once processing has been applied there's little if anything between them.
For most people, this won't make much difference one way or the other. But if you're after the best quality you can squeeze from these RAW files, the Canon SX50's sensor provides a little more for you to work with.
Now head over to my Panasonic Lumix FZ200 sample images to see some more real-life shots in a variety of conditions, or head straight for my Verdict.
Canon PowerShot SX50 HS RAW |
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Panasonic Lumix FZ200 RAW |
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80 ISO Not available |
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80 ISO |
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100 ISO |
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100 ISO |
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200 ISO |
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200 ISO |
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400 ISO |
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400 ISO |
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800 ISO |
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800 ISO |
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1600 ISO |
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1600 ISO |
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3200 ISO |
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3200 ISO |
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6400 ISO |
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6400 ISO |
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