We used the lenses at their widest and longest focal lengths and with the apertures wide open. The crops are taken from the upper left corner of the chart and presented here at 100%.

The FZ8 exhibits a little coloured fringing in this test, but unlike the Sony H9 and Olympus SP-550UZ, it’s rarely noticed in real-life shots. It can be a problem for these other cameras though. Note the compact TZ3 does very well in this test.

To measure and compare the Panasonic Lumix FZ8’s macro performance we photographed a custom chart using it and a number of rival super-zoom models with their built-in lenses.

Each camera was positioned at a distance and set to a focal length which delivered the maximum possible reproduction.

The dark lines are 10mm apart and the result is not cropped. Smaller areas are preferred in this test. The image left was taken with the Panasonic Lumix FZ8 in its Macro mode.

The FZ8 has respectable macro capabilities, and if you’d like to minimise distortion and shadows, simply stand back and zoom-in; we have two examples in our FZ8 Gallery taken like this. So a fair result for the FZ8, but the Olympus SP-550UZ still does best of all here.