Comments on Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ45

Name withheld

JK

3:39 PM on 1 September, 2010

This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore JK. Show DetailsHide Details

@Cliff Smith - Interesting review. I have a few questions about the scores though.





First of all, how could you give the FZ45 a full 10/10 in Features? You mentioned it's big brother, the FZ100, earlier in the review. What score are you going to give the FZ100's features (when you get a chance to review it), 11/10 maybe...?? I also compared the FZ45 with Fujifilm's HS10 that you reviewed not too long ago, and you also gave the HS10 a 10/10 in Features (which a completely agree with). It seems to me that the HS10 has more features than the FZ45 (24-720mm vs 25-600mm, tilting monitor vs fixed one, 1080p vs 720p, 6400 ISO vs 1600 ISO, just to name a few) and therefore the FZ45 should only get a 9/10 in this category.





I think it's good to compare the FZ45 with the HS10. Even though the HS10's features are more similar to the features on Panasonic's FZ100, the HS10 is actually closer to the FZ45 in price than to the FZ100. And they're all in the superzoom category anyway.


So the other thing I was wondering, was how you could give the FZ45 a 9/10 in Image Quality? Especially after saying the following:


"Quality at 80 ISO is unquestionably very good, but there are small but visible blotches of colour distortion even at 100 ISO. The image quality at 400 ISO is no better than its main rivals, and at 800 ISO the noise reduction has blurred out almost all fine detail. It is very disappointing that Panasonic has chosen to sacrifice the outstanding image quality of one of its most popular cameras for the sake of a pointless increase in image resolution".


I completely agree with that statement, that's why I'm having a hard time understanding the high score in image quality. Especially after you only gave the Fujifilm HS10 a 7/10. After having carefully looked through your sample shots, it seems to me that the HS10 is better at higher ISO, the FZ45 has more detail (Cathedral), the FZ45 has slightly more barrel distortion but also better sharpness (both center and corner). I could still agree that the FZ45 DOES have better image quality than the HS10, but certainly not 2 points better. I think that the FZ45's poor ISO performance alone should lower the score to 8/10.





Lastly, in light of the aforementioned arguments I don't think that Panasonic's FZ45 is any better value than Fujifilm's HS10 (the HS10 only got 7/10 in Value). Particularly when the HS10 is packed with even more features than the FZ45, yet only costs £40 more.





That's all, hopefully I gave someone something to think about.





Have a good one!