Panasonic Lumix FZ330 / FZ300 review

7th December 2015

Written by Ken McMahon

Quality

Panasonic Lumix FZ330 / FZ300 vs Sony RX10 II quality results

To compare real-life performance, I shot this scene with the Panasonic Lumix FZ330 / FZ300 and the Sony Cyber-shot RX10 II within a few moments of each other, using their best quality JPEG settings and at their base sensitivity settings. For this test the cameras were mounted on a tripod and image stabilisation was disabled, the ISO sensitivity was manually set to the lowest available setting and Aperture priority mode was selected for the exposure.

I’d previously determined that Lumix FZ330 / FZ300 produced best results with the lens wide open at f2.8. at which it set the shutter speed to 1/500 at its base 100 ISO sensitivity setting. With its bigger sensor, Sony RX10 II produces its best results with the lens stopped down to f4 where it selected a shutter speed of 1/320 at 100 ISO.

Before we compare the quality of the crops let’s just remind ourselves that the Lumix FZ330 / FZ300’s 12 Megapixel sensor has fewer photosites than the 20 Megapixel sensor in the RX10 II so the latter’s crops show a smaller area with larger detail. The Sony’s sensor is also physically larger at 1 inch compared with the 1/2.3 in sensor of the FZ330 / FZ300. Finally there’s a difference in the aspect ratio, the Sony sensor has 3:2 proportions while the FZ330 / FZ300’s is 4:3.

So, what about the crops? The lighting conditions proved quite demanding, with both models stuggling to maintain highlight detail in the sunlit scene. The first crop from the Lumix FZ330 / FZ300 looks a little bit soft, but that’s to be expected in a crop from the extreme edge of the frame with the lens aperture wide open. The next two crops are from close to middle of the frame, the second one still looks quite soft to me but the third one shows some improvement with sharper edge detail.

The softness is still in evidence in the fourth crop from mid way between the middle and edge of the frame. The lighthouse is indistinct and the small island it sits on also looks a bit blurry as does the foreground detail in this crop. Finally the fifth crop from foreground in shadow looks no sharper than the others and a little noisy. So with the exception of the third crop there’s one word that could be used to describe the performance at this focal length and that’s soft.

With the exception of the first crop which looks even softer than the one from the FZ330 / FZ300, the crops from the Sony RX10 II are much cleaner and crisper. In the second crop there’s more detail just about everywhere, but particularly in the church tower and the tiled roofs in the foreground. The window frames and the wires in front of them are much cleaner in the third crop and the lighthouse and its island are a little more distinct in the fourth one

Overall then a much better performance from the Larger sensor of the Sony RX10 II at this focal length. You can scroll down to see how these models compare at the middle of their zoom ranges and when fully zoomed in or to find out how they compare at higher sensitivities head for my Panasonic Lumix FZ330 / FZ300 noise results, skip to my Panasonic Lumix FZ330 / FZ300 sample images, or head straight to my verdict.