Ruud's Imagination

My FZ18
I had a FZ18 from end September 2007 till December 2007.
I liked this camera, but my camera was a heavy bluebander. It went to the Panasonic doctors in Japan end December 2008.

The Panasonic FZ18 was for me an excellent daylight / travel-camera in combination with my small Fuji F31fd.
In 3 months I made about 8000 pictures. Except the bluebanding I was really satisfied with the camera.

In 2007 it costed me a lot of time to make a decission which camera I should buy.
I was looking for a non-DSLR as a travel camera with a what larger zoom range beside my pocket camera.

Finally I had to choice between the Canon G9 and the Panasonic FZ18.
The Canon G9 is according to Dprieview-reviews better than FZ18. But on which criteria and how weighted? I appreciate the image quality of the Canon less: it has a poor dynamic range and gives more highlight clipping. Also I like the color reproduction of the FZ18 more.And I don't need an external flash on a travel camerary and for me are 8M pixels more than enough. The wide angle of FZ18 is for me now essential and the large zoom gives me unexpected possibilities.

My fz18 Settings

	normal	highlight	twilight	Moving objects
mode	P	P	P	S
Wb	awb	awb	abw	awb
iso	100	100	400	200
Aspect-ratio	4:3	4:3	4:3	4:3
Pict Res	8m	8m	8m	8m
Pict qual	Jpg2	Jpg1 (best)	Jpg1 (best)	Jpg2
Measure dist	auto	auto	auto	auto
Af mode	centerblok	centerblok	centerblok	centerblok
caf	off
Af*	off
	af/ae
Exp corr	-1/3 ev	-2/3 ev	0	0
Contrast	0	-2	0	0
saturation	0	0	0	0
sharpness	0	0	0	0
noise	-2	-2	-2	-2
stabilisation	S2	S2	S2	S2

My case
The Dörr Malta Mini : small and a good protection

My UV filter
I use a 46mmv-haze B+W . And I don't use my lens-cap

Tips
If you can avoid it: don't use f 8 on the FZ18, it will make your photos look softer losing fine details due to diffraction,

My Wish-list
Because nothing is perfect and also the FZ18 can improve, here is my wish-list:

My wishlist 2007 no blueband keep the best color reproduction and best dynamic range of all the superzooms less smearing by the noise reduction: in twilight the yellow splotches are awful. better less pixels (6M) and higher low-light quality zoom during movie mode white balance"shadow" and "cloudy" less yellow also macro possibilities from longer distance (with zoom) more than 3 customs presets iso 800 in high sensitivity mode compacter by a smaller zoom (28-400)

Realised in FZ28 1: Yes 2: Yes 3: Yes 4: Not 5: Yes 6: Yes, new colortemperature Wb! 7: No 8: Yes 9: No, but improved lowlight performance 10: No

(updated 04-09-2008)