Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200 DC Vario -Elmart 1:2.8/45-108 Lense

The Lumix DMC-FZ200 is Panasonic's flagship super-zoom digital camera. While recent models have been relatively minor upgrades, the FZ200 returns to its roots by featuring a lens with an F2.8 maximum aperture across its entire zoom range. The early models in the FZ series (FZ1 - FZ20) had lenses with constant maximum apertures, but that stopped with the FZ30, launched back in 2005. Last year's DMC-FZ150 had an F2.8 - F5.2 lens, so the lens on the FZ200 is a huge improvement, and the extra brightness should make a real difference at long focal lengths and/or in poor light, allowing you to shoot at lower, less noisy ISO settings.

In combination with the newly-developed 12MP MOS sensor, this makes the FZ200, at least on paper, by far the best choice in the superzoom segment for low light shooting. That large aperture allows it to offer faster shutter speeds at the same ISO settings as its peers, or use lower sensitivities at the same shutter speeds as the competition.

While the Leica-badged lens is definitely the number one head-turner on the FZ200's spec-sheet, the remainder reads very well too. As usual you can frame and review your images on either on the rear LCD or the electronic viewfinder. The latter is a new 0.2-inch variant with 1,312,000-dot equivalent resolution. The 'equivalent' part of this statement stems from its 'field-sequential' design - instead of having triplets of dots showing red, green and blue at all positions, it displays one color, then the next, at each position. The downside of this approach can be that if you move your eye quickly, or blink, you become aware of delays between the three colors being drawn - with colorful, rainbow-like edges appearing. Thankfully this display runs at 60hz, so this effect isn't too noticeable.

Panasonic Lumix FZ200 key specifications

• 24x 25-600mm equivalent lens with F2.8 across the zoom range
• 12.1-megapixel High Sensitivity MOS sensor
• 12 fps continuous shooting
• High Speed Video at 120 fps (HD) or 240 fps (VGA)
• 1080 60p video recording in AVCHD or MP4 formats
• 0.2-inch EVF (Electronic View Finder) with 1,312,000 dot equivalent resolution
• 3.0-inch, free-angle 460,000-dot LCD screen
• Panorama Shot mode
• RAW and RAW+JPEG data recording option

Compared to the Lumix FZ150:

The differences between the last-generation FZ150 and FZ200 are mostly cosmetic. The grips are slightly different, and the flash doesn't pop-up as far on the FZ200 (hello, redeye).

The microphone has been moved closer to the hot shoe on the FZ200, and the power switch as been integrated with the mode dial. This allowed Panasonic to add a new customizable Fn3 button next to the burst mode button. Other improvements compared to the FZ150 include an HDR feature (plus more special effects), in-camera panorama stitching, and high speed movie recording.