The image left was taken with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18 at 82.8mm f5.6; the original JPEG measured 3.78MB. The crops below are taken from the left, middle and right sections of the originals and reproduced here at 100%.

With both cameras zoomed-into their maximum focal lengths, a significant difference between them emerges. The Fujifilm FinePix S8000fd suffers from quite noticeable fringing at high contrast areas, which the Panasonic impressively avoids. Interestingly we noticed the same fringing when testing the Olympus SP-550UZ and upon closer inspection it appears both it and the Fujifilm S8000fd appear to share the same optics – they certainly suffer in the same regard anyway. Previous to the FZ18 you may have accepted this as a compromise of having an 18x optical zoom range, but the Panasonic proves it is avoidable. An impressive result here for the FZ18. Now to see how its RAW mode performs, scroll to the bottom of this page.

Judging from the crops below, the RAW file processed using Adobe’s default settings appears less punchy than the in-camera JPEG – there’s less contrast and sharpening applied. So anyone hoping for a better result without tweaking will be disappointed. But the advantage of shooting in RAW is of course the flexibility and latitude for adjustments, not to mention the ability to apply more sophisticated noise reduction to uncompressed files. Support for RAW is a great selling point for the FZ18. Now let’s take a look at the FZ18’s resolution.

outdoor scene