As part of our testing of the Panasonic FZ50 digital camera we examine the image noise during typical daytime exposures.
The Panasonic FZ50 is an impressive 10MP, 12x optical zoom digital camera with an electronic viewfinder and a swing down and tilt LCD display.
It has convenient functions, like the swing down LCD screen that make shooting in difficult positions much easier and are a real help for macro work.
The optical image stabilizer is reviewed in a seperate article.
Daytime tests with our usual subject matter:
100ISO
200ISO
400ISO
800ISO
1600ISO
Daytime tests with our new less-cluttered subject matter:
100ISO
200ISO
400ISO
800ISO
1600ISO
Note- these images show as much noise as you ever would see. We go to great lengths to ensure that the software we use to prepare the images does not reduce noise or sharpen the image at all. This is not always easy, as virtually all RAW processing applies some sharpening and noise reduction, even at a very low level.
So, what of the FZ50? Well, it is clearly not a low noise camera. Even at 100ISO you can see noise in the blue sky, something which is much less noticeable in the plant image. With normal RAW processing these image do look much smoother though.
So the FZ50 has acceptable noise perhaps up to 200ISO, but the noise becomes very noticeable, even against a complex, busy background, above this point.