Not long ago, I posted the following:

"... my family recently moved from Baltimore City out to the Maryland suburbs, very close to this great park which is home (or hunting grounds) for a variety of wildlife including herons, beavers, swans, geese, and eagles. For the first time, I am tempted to get some equipment with true reach. Still not sure whether I should stay compact (eg. Panasonic FZ50) or think about carting around a long lens for the DSLR. If I weren't lugging around two small children with me, it would be a much easier decision!"

Shortly after that, I posted, based on what turned out to be an incorrect source, that Panasonic would be announcing new cameras on July 17th. I was hopeful that the new Panasonic cameras would include an FZ50 replacement, but I think that what they instead introduced is an even better solution for me.

Today, Panasonic revealed the DMC-FZ18. Amongst its many features, the ones which interest me the most are the following, some of which are unchanged from the FZ8:

- 18x f/2.8-4.2 zoom with focal length range equivalent to 28-504mm on a 35mm camera
- 8.1 MP 1/2.5" CCD sensor
- Image stabilization
- RAW + JPEG
- SD/SDHC storage
- Spot metering mode
- +/- 2 settings on NR, sat, contrast, sharpness (more control than FZ8)
- AE/AF lock
- Good EVF

The only other camera to include almost all of this is the Olympus SP-550, which has not gotten great reviews. It is clear that packing in this many features must come at the cost of certain compromises. However, Panasonic has consistently offered class-leading (IMHO) compact super-tele models, so I am confident that they made good compromises with this one.

Certainly this camera is in a different class than the FZ50, which is probably the finest currently-produced "bridge camera" available. I continue to look forward to what Panasonic has in store for the upgrade to that model. The FZ50 is more "DSLR-like" in both size and features, offering important advantages such as a larger sensor and mechanical zoom. If they keep the 1/1.8" sensor in the FZ50 replacement (assuming there is one) and extend the zoom range to 28-504mm equivalent, I'd have to imagine that there will be a size increase - or worse, a slower lens.

There are predictable downsides to this camera. Panasonic stuffed 8MP into a 1/2.5" sensor (24.7mm^2). By comparison, the FZ50 puts 10.1MP in a 1/1.8" sensor (38.2mm^2), a Canon 30D puts 8.2MP in a 337.5mm^2 sensor, and a Canon 5D puts 12.8MP in an 864mm^2 sensor. In terms of thousands of pixels per square mm then, they come out at roughly 324 (FZ18), 264 (FZ50), 24.3 (30D), and 14.8 (5D). With that little light hitting each pixel on the FZ18, it will inevitably be challenged in terms of dynamic range and noise, especially in low light conditions (see here). Making things worse, Panasonic has a heavy-handed, detail smearing approach to noise reduction (NR) using their Venus III in-camera processing engine, have been known to apply NR to RAW files (see here), and a very popular RAW processing engine has made heavy (IMO) NR mandatory for those who use it (see here).

I can't imagine that such a small sensor camera will be any good for birds in flight, but I do think it will satisfy my very limited wildlife requirements. The FZ18 will be available in September at a retail price of $399.95, and I will be buying one of the first ones I can get my hands on. Early adopters do get burned sometimes. However, Panasonic has been consistently good in this class of cameras, and the main predictable downsides are compromises which I am prepared to accept.