Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50 Review | Compact Digital Cameras | CNET UK

by feedback@cnet.co.uk (Philip Ryan)

Superzooms are nothing new, but somewhere along the line, a portion of them have evolved into catch-all SLR substitutes, with long, fast zoom lenses, high megapixel counts, manual exposure controls, and in some cases, even hotshoes and raw image capture. They also record video. For now, that's something you can't get from an SLR. Panasonic's Lumix DMC-FZ50 sports a 35mm-to-420mm, f/2.8-to-f/3.7, 12x optical zoom lens, a 10.1-megapixel CCD sensor, and it has a body that's as big and heavy as an SLR. For a really advanced user, the blazing speed, better noise performance, and lens selection of an SLR will still trump these high-end superzooms. But for photographers who crave the artistic control that these cameras offer, don't want to mess with interchangeable lenses, and occasionally want to shoot video clips, a camera such as the DMC-FZ50 might make sense.

Design
Panasonic's DMC-FZ50 is one large camera, but if you can get past that, you can enjoy some of its more interesting features. For example, it includes a rotating, flip-out LCD screen to make extreme high- and low-angle shooting easier, as well as a hotshoe so you can use Panasonic's DMW-FL28 accessory flash should the camera's built-in, pop-up flash not be powerful or versatile enough for you. Unfortunately, the LCD screen is only 51mm (2 inches) diagonal, but flip-out LCDs tend to be smaller, so it's on a par with the competition.