The crops are taken from the original images, saved as High Quality JPEGs in Photoshop CS2 and presented here at 100%. Each number represents 100 lines per picture height (lpph), so a figure of 20 means a resolution of 2000 lpph.

In terms of resolving power, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18 improves on its predecessor by delivering 2000 lpph of horizontal and vertical resolution respectively; there also appears to be slightly less sharpening on the FZ18 judging from these samples.

This result actually places the FZ18 comfortably ahead of its two major 18x rivals, the Olympus SP-550UZ and Fujifilm FinePix S8000fd, although it may not translate into significantly greater real-life detail as seen on our Outdoor results page.

That said, it’s a good result here for the FZ18 under studio conditions, where it measurably out-resolves the competition. Now let’s see how it performs in our FZ18 real-life noise results.