Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200 12.1 MP Digital Camera with CMOS Sensor and 24x Optical Zoom - Black

UPDATE JULY 5 2015 The FZ200 is a great cam but after owning an FZ1000 for several months I must say the FZ1000 is better because of its large and bright viewfinder that makes it easier to see what you are taking and that makes it much much easier to take pictures outdoors. With your eye to the viewfinder and the other eye closed there are no distractions because nothing else is visible except the image and the indicators like F stop and shutter speed and ISO, which are all much clearer than on the flipout monitor. With my eye to the viewfinder I find I can manipulate the knobs much better and in my experience have better access to the menus because I can see them better. So... if you can afford to spend about $300 more, the FZ1000 would IMHO be a better choice, because of its superlative viewfinder. EARLIER TEXT FEBRUARY 2015 [1] One of the things I like most about the FZ200 is its awesomely strong image stabilization, that allows me to take good hand held shots without a tripod under low light and at long telephoto ranges. I have taken photos of Verrazano Bridge from 14 miles away, from Laurence Harbor Beach in New Jersey. Image 1 at the end of this review shows the bridge using a telephoto setting of 960mm and reveals remarkably little camera shake, though the photo is rather hazy because of humidity and shimmer. I have taken the same scene with a tripod ... and noticed very little reduction in blur. Also I have taken indoor pictures at night-time of friends and family under normal living room and dining room artificial light, with no bright lights and no flash, and have gotten super images with good reproduction of colors, at incredibly low shutter speeds like one eighth of a second, because of the profoundly good image stabilization. A discovery that totally surprised me is that when people are seated in a social situation, they tend to remain still, except when speaking or eating, so that low shutter speeds very often give good photos. Image 2 at the end of this review shows a map of South America. The pic was taken indoors at 600mm in fully automatic mode without a tripod. The camera selected an incredibly low shutter speed of 1/15 of a second, and an ISO value of 400. The picture was taken under artificial light provided by a shaded 23 watt CFL light bulb. This is given as another example of the FZ200's enormously powerful image stabilization. The pic also shows excellent color balance and comes very close to reproducing the true colors of the subject. [2.1] A second thing I like about this cam is its performance in fully automatic mode. After taking many many images, I have concluded that 9 out of 10 times, fully automatic mode gives better settings than I can achieve under semi-automatic or manual. It is crucial to realize that in fully automatic mode this is a WYSIWYG camera. What you see on the LCD is almost exactly what the image will look like if you take a picture. For someone who used a 35mm film camera, this is magical. In the old days you took pix at various settings and had to wait many hours or days before seeing the results. With this wee beastie, you actually get to preview the final picture, exactly the way it will look, before you take it. And this means you can keep fooling around and repositioning the camera until you get the best possible (or least bad) image. A camera that takes great photographs in automatic mode is a great camera because it means you can concentrate on the substance of the picture, rather than being distracted by the need to set the camera controls to the right setting, which consumes time, and often means that you miss a lot of good shots, because one is too busy fiddling with the cam. [2.2] I keep running across reviews by people living in the past with a 35mm mindset, like: "One needs a tripod"; "Automatic mode is strictly for amateurs who don't know better"; "One needs flash to fill in shadows." I think this is totally nuts. This is a 21st century electronic camera that amplifies light so it sees better than the human eye, designed by a collaboration of engineers from Leica and Panasonic, and most of the time, when set in automatic mode, will take something very close to the best possible image, that seldom needs a tripod, that almost never benefits from using flash. There are some important exceptions where semi-automatic is better than fully automatic, and it is useful to know the manual controls well enough to deal with such situations. When faced with rapidly moving subjects under low light, I find it necessary to use shutter priority mode in order to select higher shutter speed and higher ISO than the FZ200 will choose in full auto mode. But I am still letting the FZ automatically control the other settings. But in general I get excellent pictures by starting out in automatic mode, and accepting it if the picture looks properly exposed, and only trying manual when I'm not happy with the automatic mode picture. What this camera does - the beautiful thing it does - is let me grab a properly exposed shot of a far away object before it goes away. The bird is on a twig 50 feet away, with its head cocked at an appealing angle, and one wants to get the shot before it flies away, and one zooms in to frame the bird just right, and one clicks, all in a few seconds. And voila, a really good pic. [3] As noted in other reviews, and super important to me, this camera calculates focus and exposure very very rapidly, so there is only a tiny time lag between pointing the camera and shooting the image, much much faster than my beloved Canon pocket camera. Also, it will very rapidly take multiple images. [4] I have not used the competition to this camera, namely the similarly priced superzooms by Nikon and Canon and Sony and Fuji. So I cannot say this is superior to any of those. What I can say is that I find myself taking amazingly good pictures with this camera under low light conditions, and at very long range telephoto. [5] If you buy this camera, I would strenuously recommend that you also buy Graham Houghton's "Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200 - User's Manual". I bought the hard copy for $35, but you can download a copy for free if your conscience will allow, or you can do the right thing and pay $5 for the download. Also check out Graham's stuff on U-Tube, and his website at www.grahamhoughton.com (The user manual that comes with the camera contains useful information and is worth reading but is not very user friendly, and Graham's book explains things much better). [6] Some reviewers put huge emphasis on very high resolution and very low "noise" in pictures, and quite rightly point out that the FZ-200 is not the best of the best in these regards. If high res and low noise is very important to you, you might think of looking at cams priced at $800 and higher, such as the Sony RX10 and the Lumix FZ1000. Personally, I find the FZ200's picture quality pretty damn flawless for 5x7 and 8x10 photos, though at higher sizes I would expect to see minor weaknesses. /----------- P.S. I do own a tripod, a great big Star made in Taiwan, that weighs nine pounds and whose maximum elevation is 78 inches. In the old days it was used for image stabilization with my 35mm film cameras. I occasionally find it very useful these days when I have a static object and am willing to spend serious amounts of time pondering the best angle and the best light and where the tripod is very useful in helping me to be more systematic and more thoughtful. But 99 per cent of the time with this camera I have no need for a tripod.

My wife and I love to take walks, particularly in natural places where we might seen lovely scenes or wildlife, and I like to take pictures of what we see. I still own a couple of 35mm film SLRs and a selection of lenses to go with them, but I don't want to carry all that weight or to miss a shot while changing lenses. The Panasonic FZ200 delivers 24-600 mm (equivalent) focal range in a package that weighs less than 1.5 pounds and is roughly the size of a small DSLR with a kit lens. With digital zoom, the reach is even farther. With it, I have been able to capture wildlife with handheld shots at distances that amazed me. The constant f/2.8 aperture enabled me to capture deer in the woods at dusk and details on the moon and it delivers razor sharp images. As a fulltime freelance writer, I have also used the FZ200 to shoot photos to illustrate stories that were later published in magazines. I am well pleased with the views delivered by the Electronic Viewfinder and with the performance of the autofocus system. Sure, DSLRs and mirrorless system cameras offer greater dynamic range and low light capabilities, but those capabilities come at a cost: more weight and less convenience. I am extremely pleased with the FZ200 (I also own its predecessor, the FZ150). It delivers everything I need in an extremely convenient, light weight, and versatile package. If you want the very best results, I recommend shooting in RAW and processing the files through DxO Optics Pro 9. I can also recommend the FZ200 manual written by Graham Houghton. It offers a wealth of information not covered by the factory manual.

After playing around with then camera a bit more, I have revised my review. What a nice camera. Now I'm not a pro by any means but I do like taking quick pictures. When the moment is there, I like to snap away. I'm not one for setting things up and taking time to take a shot. I like to just snap away. The camera is larger than my prevous FZ-18 but not so big that it's cumbersome or bulky. Anyone who's had a Lumix model will find the layout relatively similar. I use a 52mm Agfa filter (see my other review) on the lens which just screws straight into the lens - and you can still use the regular lens cap on top! The battery compartment is at the bottom; this is also where the SD card goes. On the right is the micro USB out port and the mini HDMI out port. The panel is a flexible type panel which is a little concerning in terms of longevity. I like the new on/off switch which is to the side of the main dial as oppsoed to a separate slider switch on the FZ-18. The Main dial itself has the usual iA (plus iA Plus), shutter priority, aperture priority, program mode, video mode, two custom modes, and the scene mode. There is a burst mode button to the right of the main dial which I haven't yet used. The wide/tele zoom is the usual (at least for panasonic) lever around the shutter button which I find counter-intuitive - i'm glad they put another zoom lever on the left side of the barrel which I find myself using more than the zoom ring on top. There's also a separate mic input for an external mic and a hot shoe for a dedicated flash. OIS works great even at the longer zoom range but of course this depends on your settings. However, if shooting at a relatively slow shutter speed or full zoom, you may still want to use a tripod. I really like the swivel screen (although it could be easier to open - I have to use my fingernails to do so) - it's size is good and it is very clear - it wasn't washing out in sunlight. it's not a touch screen but that's just fine by me as the 4 way dial to the right is very easy to use. Although the viewfinder has a diopter adjustment dial, for me the viewfinder is so small that trying to frame any picture is harder and I just use the LCD screen. YMMV. There are two function buttons that can be assigned with custom settings. There is also a quick menu button at the bottom on the rear which can be used to make quick adjustments whilst shooting. This is useful for changing things such as metering mode, flash, exposure, image size etc on the fly in any mode. In fact, there are SO MANY settings that the best way to discover what it can do is to play around with it. For example, the iA setting has only a couple of things that can be changed (such as picture size and color mode) but on the iAplus setting, you can change brightness, color, and depth of field using the rear upper dial. I usually take pictures in JPEG but the FZ200 can also shoot in RAW for those who want to. Honestly to date the quality of the pictures I've taken doesn't warrant me shooting in RAW. But then I only either view my pictures on my screen, email them, or print them at small sizes (eg 6 x 4). If you need to print at larger sizes, you may want to shoot in RAW - that's also if you carry out editing afterwards - which I don't as I simply don't have the time. Video (Full HD in MP4 format) is excellent and reinforces my decision not to get a separate camcorder. One cool (but gimicky) feature is the ability to take a snapshot picture when taking video. Simply press the shutter button when recording and the camera takes a picture. I haven't yet mastered all the controls so I could be doing something wrong but the quality of these pictures is very poor. There just so much noise (imagine a picture shot at, say, iso 12000 or so) that these pictures are really only useful for a critical moment. The video itself is great and there are no issues there. I like that I can shoot in MPEG instead of AVCHD. You can zoom whilst recording and the camera auto-focuses whilst doing so. There ia a quick record button on top so that even if you're in photo mode, you can still press the button to start recording instantly. Great feature. Of course you can still choose dedicated recording from the top dial which gives you more setting options. The only thing I wished that Panasonic had added was a zoom gauge on the top of the lend barrel so that I could tell what (35mm equivalent) focal length I'm at. To me, this camera seems as fully featured as a DSLR and I'm sure i'll have fun discovering its capabilites. Although I've only used it a few times so far both inside and out, I haven't noticed any blurring, fringing, or noise (at least at iso 200 - and other than in the record mode as I mentioned above)), or any other things that some may be complaining about. The colors are full and rich, noise (at least at iso 200 to 400) is non-existent, and playing with depth of field can be great (given the f2.8 aperture capabilites of the lens throughout the focal range). For an amateur like me, I can't see myself ever getting (or needing) a DSLR. Having had a little time with this camera, I can say that this is definitely a keeper! ***UPDATE*** Oct 7th 2013 This has been a great camers over the summer. I've really appreciated its portability especially whilst on vacation. Friends were amazed at just how good most of my pcitures wcame out. And these are friends with $2500 DSLRs !!! The reason? - Like every new technology, there is a learning curve. I'm definitely not even an amateur photographer - I'm just an average Joe who likes to take good pictures (rather than crappy cellphone ones!) and keep them for posterity. I've not really found that i've needed a manual since I just like to experiment and I find that's the best way to get to know something. For example, I'll take 10 pictures of something using different settings and see what look good. What my friends don't see are that for ever 1 picture they see, there may have been numerous others that didn't look good. But that's MY fault - not the camera's. Once I find a setting I like, I then use that for all my similar shots. I do make full use of the definable function buttons for such things as flash exposure and bracketing. Video has been a treat and I don't miss not having a camcorder. The only issue I do find is that auo-focus when taking video can be slow especially when zooming in quite fast. I find I have to zoom out again just to get focus. However, if you zoom slowly there's no issue (the zoom button allows you to zoom slow/fast dsepending on how much you press it).

I have received this product within one day after i have ordered. Excellent delivery. Thanks to amazon for such a wonderful packing and quick delivery and also for the unbelievable promotional discount. Thanks to JJ Mehta too for sending me the warranty card so soon after intimating that it was missing in the order received. I have selected this camera after going through a lot of reviews online. The main attractive feature which would beat any pro zoomer is its bright lens (f/2.8 till 600mm). Used it recently on a trek and am really impressed with the image quality, options available, EVF and LCD quality. The grip provided to hold is also very comfortable. I used Canon SX 30 IS before and i would say Panasonic FZ200 is much more fun to play with. Though i have a little complain about the complexity in the menu, but its a good thing as i am going through the manual and videos to get more accustomed with. Raw mode is very good option and the burst mode is excellent (12fps). It has a 52mm thread on the lens which would help in fitting filters. Lens hood provided is also of good quality. The camera case provided is of panasonic make, but it can only fit the camera,nothing more than that. not even the hood. So i would suggest you to prepared to buy a new camera case. The battery backup is very good. I was able to take around 350 shots with almost half the battery renaming. Some might think 24x zoom is very less compared to Canon SX50's 50x zoom, but they forget that the image quality. This product has very good 2x intelligent and 4x digital zoom too. I would suggest as every one have suggested to keep the ISO not more than 200-400. Pros: 1. f/2.8 till 600mm 2. EVF pixel count 3. Sharp Image quality. 4. Numerous options to play 5. Ergonomics 6. 52mm thread (no need of adapter) 7. Burst mode 8. Video quality 9. LCD 10. Fast autofocus 11. 24x zoom ( more than enough to cover everything) 12. Macro Cons: 1. Noise at higher ISO 2. A little complex menu system 3. Camera case given would be small. 4. A little costly compared to available bridge cameras (but fast lens does come at a price- imagine how much we need to spend for the same type of lens for a dslr) I would recommend this product to anyone who doesn't want to invest more for DSLR and want to have the freedom of exploring the options a DSLR has and very good image quality. The best bridge camera in market. Go grab it now. :D

very impressed with this camera and the features available. I would recommend that if you are interested in this camera that you check out the series of tutorials by Graham Houghton on you tube prior to making your decision..you'll be impressed.

Bought this camera after a long research in Amazon . Pros 1) First it is not an DSLR its called a bridge camera 2) you should have owned a digital camera before buying this one,(Means you should have an idea how digital camera works) 3)I am telling you all ! this is worth the money. 4)Rugged construction 5)Best lens zoom camera not digital ....i bet you you have not seen anything zooms in and out like this one & it is fixed lens 6)you can bring in , on board sound from any source of mic(but you need to buy an adapter because it is 2.5 mm ) 7)LCD 270 degree rotation 8) you have manual options also and auto advanced 9)Best aperture F 2.8 10)Good battery back up 11)if you are beginner to professional photography and this is for you 12)Photography is best but don't expect DSLR QUALITY ! NEVERTHELESS VERY CLOSE , AVCHD video quality ONE OF THE PREMIUM AND INDUSTRY STANDARD Cons Cables not supplied like for TV A/V cables and adapter for 2.5 mm port

I bought this camera mainly for claim of 2.8 aperture through out the full zoom lenght and in anticipation of very good quality of pictures. Claim of 2.8 aperture seems "more technical and less optical". In fact the lense specification in the camera manual shows 2.8 - 8.0. My 7 years old Kodak P 850 takes much better pictures than this heavy duty and rich on specification camera. Remember that end of the day what you want a good quality photograp, which I am dissappointed to say, this camera is not cacpable of to deliver.

To be honest, like every one who is amazed by the specs, I had high expectations from the constant f2.8 telezoom lens this camera sports. In fact that is the biggest selling point of this model. Had it not been for that fast lens there are lots of other models from competition which offer a lot more for the money. But, yes, f2.8 25-600mm is worth it, period. I will briefly summarize pluses and minus of this model as I experienced: + Constant f2.8 lens from 25mm to 600mm focal length that can let you shoot at lower iso or faster shutter speed than anyother bridge/superzoom camera. + Comfortable and bright viewfinder which is a boon while shooting in sun at full zoom. + Effective image stabilisation which again is helpful especially when shooting indoors/low light. In bright light it is not as much a big deal thanks to f2.8 lens which allows faster shutters speeds. + Superb sun light viewable vari angle display. It is only 460k while many competitive models offer 920k, but that is sufficient enough and actually helps save some battery juice compared to competition. + Generous number of external controls that makes shooting experience enjoyable. 3 customizable fn buttons and a quick access 'Q' menu are quite thoughtful, something even entry level dslrs doesn't have. + Side zoom/focus toggle lever on lens mount. While it doesn't seem much useful for still photos, during videos one can experience full potential of it. + Fluid and customizable menu system. Compared to the likes of Sony/Fuji/Nikon Panasonic menus system is much more fluid and user friendly. Menus are grouped under 3 side tabs, with seamless scrolling in each tab. + Very good video clarity and resolution both at 1080p and 720p settings. + Smooth and clear 120fps(100fps for PAL) 720p video recording. There are only a few cameras (no dslr till date!!) that are capable of this and only FZ200 has 600mm zoom among them! + Full manual control (zoom,focus, shutter speed,aperture and iso) during live video recording. Again very few cameras (including dslrs) are capable of that. + Quick one touch auto focus using focus button in manual focus mode. Extremely helpful in tricky situation to quickly focus and then finetune. This is something that can be understood better after using the camera. Mostly it is other way around in competition, manual focus is used to fine tune after auto focus is achieved. + Excellent battery life among the superzoom and bridge cameras next only to bigger dslrs. (Rated 500+ shots all this with EVF and LCD). Panasonic micro 4/3 cameras using same battery last about 300-350 shots. + Good control of auto ISO, 1/3 fine iso stepping, lowest shutter speed limit, adjustable noise reduction etc. Not many cameras give such options to user. + Easy to use and practical art filters. Best part they are applied after taking the images, so the original RAW image is untouched incase any other post processing is needed. + 2 custom mode dial settings to save user set parameters. + A lighter weight and compact body when compared to other superzooms. But build quality is same high spec as other high end products from Panasonic. Now upto the negatives: - Perceptible image noise even in jpegs right from lowest ISO settings. I do not pixel peep but I could immediately sense this especially coming from clean output of my Canon cameras. And upon viewing 100% crops it is worse that I just couldn't digest the output. For those who never do much cropping of images or blow them 1:1 this is non issue. - 25-600mm lens is soft at telephoto end. Fully zoomed this fails to resolve fine details. I did do some bird shooting, but was disappointed at the softness and lack of detail. - Focus doesn't track moving objects well. Not suitable for fast action sports/kids/flying birds. - No eye sensor on EVF. I didn't miss this but some may. - Perceptible delay while switching to image playback. - Artfilters should be available in every mode through menu rather than being delegated to a separate mode where exposure cannot be manually adjusted. - Slow motion video mode disables zoom, manual focus or exposure. - LCD monitor is kind of hard to pull out while closed. The lock mechanism is bit hard. This is noticeable after using the monitors on other similar cameras. Not a big negative but I find it inconvenient every time I have to open the lcd. - Ideally there should be a setting to let monitor display shooting settings while live view is fed to EVF (like how dslr settings are shown on lcd). This is very useful out doors as we don't need to raise camera every time we need to check settings. - Selection of menu item requires right navigation key stroke and confirming it center button press, which is kind of awkward at first. It rather should be double press of center button to get in and once more to confirm selection. - Lack of leveling indicator (to show if camera is tilted in some direction, Fuji HS50EXR has it, and many others.) - Lack of normal speed video ( 24p or 30p as the case may be. 60p is the slowest available setting) - Lack of RGB histogram in image playback mode (even cheaper cameras show this). - I didn't find any setting to adjust power saving mode (lens retraction, sleep time etc). As such lens retracts too quickly if I spend a little longer time reviewing pictures. No small inconvenience as it takes some time to get back to correct zoom range to take the shot. There is zoom resume setting but still it takes time to react after short sleep. - Not a negative specific to this model, but image quality deteriorates beyond ISO 400. Unusable(except for very small prints) after ISO 800. This is common with small image sensors. - Custom self timer option is not present if you want to choose sometime between 2 and 10 secs. - Since, a leaf shutter is used, f2.8 is limited only upto 1/2000 s shutter speed. To go beyond that one has to lower aperture to f/4. It is common with many fixed lens models. But, there should be an option to use electronic shutter (which is anyway present) to keep using f2.8 at higher shutter speeds. - Extended tele zoom, intelligent resolution etc are all just fancy settings. They work but importantly they also pull down image quality. Best not be used for important snaps. So, why do I like the camera despite all the negatives I listed, especially noisy picture quality. In the first place, I am not comparing this with a dslr or other things that can come at similar price. There is something about that whole package that left good impressions every time I picked it up for shooting. Video quality is amazing, exceeding many entry level dslrs and on par with higher end camcorders. Attached a video clip taken from FZ200 which shows how smoothly one can get cinematic focus pull effect. Except for the inherent drawbacks of the small sensor that lies at its heart, FZ200 has everything that a typical amateur photographer expects in one all-in-one device, certainly it is a jack of all trades.