Compared to... Panasonic FZ30

Below you will find a studio comparison between the Kodak P880 and the Panasonic DMC-FZ30 at ISO 400.

Studio scene comparison (@ ISO 400)

• Kodak EasyShare P880: Aperture Priority mode, ISO 400, Default Image Parameters, Manual white balance, +0.67 EV compensation
   
• Panasonic DMC-FZ30: Aperture Priority mode, ISO 400, Default Image Parameters,
  Manual white balance, +0.66 EV
   
• Lighting: daylight simulation, >98% CRI.

Kodak EasyShare P880	Panasonic DMC-FZ30
ISO 400, 1/322 sec, F5.0	ISO 400, 1/250 sec, F5.6
4,405 KB JPEG	3,951 KB JPEG

At ISO 400 differences are mostly down to noise reduction - there's little if any difference in the amount of detail captured. Although the noise characteristics are slightly different there isn't really much to choose between the two images - it's almost a matter of taste. Both will be fine for smallish prints, but neither is particularly satisfactory. The FZ30 image has slightly lower luminance noise - especially in the deep shadows - but there's a price to pay; the images have a distinctly unnatural 'watercolor' appearance. Ultimately if you squeeze this many pixels onto such a tiny sensor there's no way you're going to get clean, sharp ISO 400 images, but the sheer size of the files means for small prints you can - just - get away with it.