Comparison with Panasonic Lumix FZ18?

Dear Andrew: Thank you very much for your answer. I am new to digital photo and not very experienced in film SLR. I have old Russian made Zenith SLR with a simple lens and no electronics. I have read whatever reviews about digicams are on the web, and I like ultrazooms for their versatility with quality sufficient for an amateur (I am not going to shoot centerfolds for National Geographic or Playboy). The most serious for my taste would be FZ50 if it had wider lens. I had problems taking pictures with my Zenith SLR in old Vilnius, Lithuania, where buildings are quite old and nice but streets are very narrow and one cannot step away enough to take in the building or old church. I like Panasonic FZ18 and reviews say that FZ18 IQ is better than Olympus 560, which has some purple fringing and barrel distortion (I am not sure how much it is bad, just know that FZ18 is better in that). I have heard that AA are better than Li-Ion batteries because AA are everywhere. I am not dying for a hot shoe for flash, but it would be nice to have it just in case. I think manual mechanical zoom ring is long overdue, because it looks silly to waste energy on zooming when one can do it more precisely by hand . So i got lost between three trees - FZ50, FZ18 and Olympus SP570UZ. I could go for Oly if anybody could certify that Oly solved these problems with distortion and fringing (if that is important - may be for an amateur like me it is not). I might just go for now with FZ18 because of proven quality and decent price and then upgrade to FZ50 + 1 may be in the future. Thank you again for your kind answer, my best regards to you, George Bogachevsky.

I like your judgments about resolution, zoom and ISO range. Probably nobody yet has tested 570 for quality of pictures (I mean technical quality, not artistic quality). Thank you again, George.

George,

You are right about the testing. If you can wait a month or two before purchasing, there should be some more decent reviews on the technical quality of the camera. If you don't want to wait, and you narrow it down to you other two choices, I would go with the Panasonic FZ18. It is a newer camera than the two year old FZ50 and has much more optical zoom 18x vs 12x. While you do get the higher resolution and ISO range in the FZ50, you won't get the 2 years of technological advances.

As for your battery questions, I've used both lithium ions and AA rechargeables and like both. I keep plenty of charges spares with me when I shoot, so I don't really worry about it that much. Good luck and happy shooting.

Andrew

I purchased a SP570 thru just olympus on friday. It probably will not ship until sometime between mar 1 and mar 15. It will be sent to me next day air, so as soon as I get it and run some photos I will tell you all I can.

Thanks for keeping ups updated Joeseph.

Andrew

The only sample images from the SP-570 on the internet as of to date are on Olympus Japan website at:
http://olympus-imaging.jp/product/compact/sp570uz/sample/index.html

Hi dont forget everyone is stating that the panasonic is only 18x zoom but you have extend zoom which makes it 28.7x optical at 3mp also if you take into account the digital zoom it makes it 115x compared to the sp570 of 20x optical and 4x digital that is still 100x so the fz18 still has the biggest zoom. So dont for get about the extended zoom on the fz18 28.7x optical.

Bob,

While the digital zoom does add extra options, you will find it degrades your resolution. You can get the same results by cropping on your computer.

Andrew

Hi guys,

I'm in the same delima as George but i guess i will settle for the Panasonic FZ18 as i find the zoom of Lumix FZ18 much better in comparison than the Olympus SP570...i may be wrong.....

I have a new SP 570. I just got it wednesday. I am going to bryce canyon tomorrow so I will let you know what i think of it when I return. I know already I love the zoom and I love the way it shoots panoramic photos already.

Thank you everybody for chipping in with my question. Here is update on my experience. I had to go to Buenos Aires to attend my aunt's birthday and so i had to settle on a transitional camera cheap enough and capable enough because none of the cameras on the market seem at the moment to be fit enough to my preferences. I have gotten Panasonic DMC LZ-8 as a transitional camera. It was under two hundred, cute small compact camera using 2 alkaline or NiMH batteries. It fits in a small camera bag attachable to a belt (bought separately). It has 8 megapixels and 5x zoom from 32 mm to 400 something (forgot the teleshot number). Not exactly wide angle and not exactly 20X, but for a trip it was OK. I took some pictures at the birthday party and many more loitering around Buenos Aires. Pictures at the party were OK, but of course limitations of a small digital camera show up. I am not talking about my limitations as a photographer :-(, that is implied :-). Built in flash works fine, but with general lighting at the party often darkened and some lighting going often on and off, some pictures came out somewhat dark and a bit fuzzy, because flash helps at may be 5-6 yards. Also, when camera uses iA mode (intelligent autofocus - completely automatic) and there are many faces at the party at different distances, and lighting is not sifficient, camera does not know at what face to focus, and resolution 8 mp is somewhat short to increase sensitivity. So i felt lack of convenient manual focus ring and higher pixel count. The option of manual control is there, but by definition small camera does not have manual zoom and focus rings, and going through menues in the fast changing party environment is awkward, and i frankly have not learned it yet. Taking pictures outdoors was much more convenient, and pictures came out OK for me as an amateur using the camera for the first time. AA batteries are convenient because even when camera suddenly informed me that battery pack is dying, i could buy 2 or 4 alkaline batteries anywhere. Now i am looking for a next generation of FZ-50+ when and if Panasonic designs FZ-50+ with range from ~25 mm to 400-500 mm (18z zoom or 20x - does not matter much, but wide angle is important - if one wants to take pictures of close up buildings or a group of relatives/friends, wide angle is necessary). I am not going to throw away LZ-8, it is a cute little camera, easy to carry around and doing a fine job, but i prefer to have also a camera with optical or digital viewfinder with vision correction because with my vision i had to put on glasses to see LZ-8 screen better and also in sunlight it is easier to stick one's eye into the camera to see better, than working with a screen. Thanks to everybody again, George.

just had my lumix fz 18 last night n was very happy with the iA function....pix were clear n night shots were good. m still struggling with the manual mode n thats normal for an amateur like me, but i'll get it somehow, just need more practice.....generally, m satisfied with my choice, price was good and zoom was just fantastic.

Bob above cites some specs and concludes that the panasonic has a better zoom than the Olympus SP-570. The problem is Bob's specs are wrong. The SP-570 has a 5x digital zoom, not 4x. He also talks about the panasonic having an extend zoom (but with resolution reduced to 3MP) giving it a 28.7 optical zoom, beating the SP-570 optical zoom of 20x. This is also a false statement because the SP-570 has a similar feature, called fine zoom, which results in a 30x optical zoom. His posting is just another example of why people should not just accept what people say on the internet, you need to verify critical information from authorative sources, otherwise you may end up making bad decisions.

A note on the AA batteries. The Sanyo Enelope AA batteries do not lose charge as most others do. They will discharge to 85% and stay close to that in storage. I put my first pair in over a month ago. After shooting many picrures a few days ago it showed the batteries getting low. The next day I went to change them and the meter showed almost a full charge again, so they are still in the camera.