The image above was taken with the Canon PowerShot SX50 HS. The camera was set to Aperture priority mode with the aperture set to f4 and the sensitivity to 80 ISO. The camera metered an exposure of 1/400. The Panasonic Lumix FZ200 metered an exposure of 1/640 at f4 at its base 100 ISO sensitivity.

The test scene on the day that I took these shots was particularly demanding with bright sunshine presenting a very wide brightness range. The PowerShot SX50 HS has made a reasonably good job of the exposure, but nonetheless there’s a good deal of highlight clipping in the image, particularly the white walls of the buildings which are reflecting the bright sunlight. The histogram reaches both ends of the chart, so had the SX50 HS chosen a faster shutter speed it would have clipped the shadows rather than the highlights.

Moving on to the crops, the Canon SX50 HS lens and sensor deliver very good quality overall. The level of detail is good and remains reasonably consistent across the frame. At the wide angle setting at least, the SX50’s 50x zoom performs very well. The detail in the chapel and the grassy foreground in he first crop is a tiny bit soft, but you can still make out the smaller details in the chapel quite well.

In the second crop the lighthouse is a clear and distinct white rectangle and, despite the atmospheric haze you can also make out some detail in the cliffs. Again, the detail in the windows and roofs in the foreground of this clip is a tiny bit soft, but the edges are distinct.

In the third crop from close to the edge of the frame the softness increases marginally, but the edge detail is still distinct and there’s only the slightest hint of chromatic aberration. Finally the fourth crop from close to the middle of the frame has lost some highlight detail, but generally the level of sharpness here is consistent with the other crops.

Compared with the Panasonic Lumix FZ200 there’s very difference in the quality of these crops. Certainly crops one and two are very close with a similar level of detail. At the edge of the frame, shown in the third crop the 25x zoom lens of the Lumix FZ200 dosn’t do as good a job at maintaining consistent image quality as the PowerShot SX50. The detail here looks a little smeared and distorted and there’s also a significant amount of colour fringing in the Lumix FZ200 crop. Back at the centre of things in the final crop, again, there very little in it, they’ve even blown the highlights by a similar degree. So, on quality at least, there’s little to choose between these two models.

To compare results with the lens zoomed in I repeated this test, this time with both lenses zoomed in to a little under 400mm. I used the scale on the SX500’s lens to estimate the focal length zoming it as close as I could to 400mm equivalent which, as it turned out, was 65.4mm or 365mm equivalent. I zoomed the Lumix FZ200 to match the framing at a focal length of 65.8mm – 366mm equivalent. Both cameras were set to f5.6 in aperture priority mode at their base ISO sensitivity setting. You can see these results if you scroll beyond the first table of results below; as always, the 100 percent crops are taken from the areas indicated in red.

These crops don’t reveal any lens shortcoming that weren’t apparent at the wide angle setting. The quality of both lenses at this focal length is good and also very consistent. Crops two and four from close to the frame edge look as sharp as one and three from near the middle. They do however, exaggerate the difference between the two sensors with the clumpier, grainier appearance of the Lumix FZ200 now much more apparent.

Check out my Canon SX50 HS RAW quality results on the next page or see how these models compare at higher sensitivities in my Canon SX50 HS Noise results.

The image above was taken with the Canon PowerShot SX50 HS. The camera was set to Aperture priority mode with the aperture set to f4 and the sensitivity to 80 ISO. The camera metered an exposure of 1/400. The Panasonic Lumix FZ200 metered an exposure of 1/640 at f4 at its base 100 ISO sensitivity.

I processed both 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 6000K 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.

These crops from the RAW files processed in the same way make for interesting viewing. As with the JPEGs, the results from the two cameras are very close, but this time the RAW processing has unveiled a significant difference. The crops from the Panasonic Lumix FZ200 look to be noisier than those from the Canon PowerShot SX50 HS. You can see this straight away in the area of ocean on the left side of the first crop and it’s even more obvious in the second. In fact, you don’t have to look particularly hard to see the noisier textures in all of the crops. While you wouldn’t normally process RAW files with this degree of sharpening and no noise reduction what this does show is that the SX50 HS RAW sensor data may be a bit more robust than that from the Lumix FZ200. In other words it’s likely to offer more scope for tweaking and revealing improved detail.

Of course RAW processing isn’t just about squeezing better detail from images and you’d also have no problem rescuing the blown highlights form this RAW file. You might also want to do something about the chromatic aberration apparent in both lenses, but to a slightly greater extent in the FZ200.

In view of the noise differences at the base ISO settings, it’ll be interesting to see how these two models compare starting with a JPEG comparison in my Canon SX50 HS Noise results.

To compare RAW noise levels under real-life conditions, I shot this scene with the Canon PowerShot SX50 HS and the Panasonic Lumix FZ200, within a few moments of each other using their best quality 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 smaller amount led to a larger difference, I left both cameras on their wide angle setting – 24mm (equiv) on the SX50 HS and 25mm (equiv) on the FZ200.

Image stabilisation was disabled for this tripod-mounted test and all other settings were left on the defaults.

To compare noise levels under real-life conditions, I shot this scene with the Canon PowerShot SX50 HS and the Panasonic Lumix FZ200, within a few moments of each other using their best quality JPEG 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 smalles amount led to a larger difference, I left both cameras on their wide angle setting – 24mm (equiv) on the SX50 HS and 25mm (equiv) on the FZ200.

Image stabilisation was disabled for this tripod-mounted test and all other settings were left on the defaults.