H9 or Lumix FZ50

[mike12431]

These two cameras bolth look very good.

The two main reasons that I choose these cameras is: The panasonic FZ50 for its incredible price for its abilities, and the H9 for its longer zoom and good macro.

But first i want to know which of the two has the best image quality.

Last, is the night shot mode on the H9 effective, is it really any good.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[Tigadee]

mike12431 wrote:
These two cameras bolth look very good.

Looks mean nothing. The Panasonic has high noise levels, even at lowest ISO, and focus isn't great in low-light. The H9 has weaknesses discussed here in this forum.

The two main reasons that I choose these cameras is: The panasonic
FZ50 for its incredible price for its abilities, and the H9 for its
longer zoom and good macro.

Having used it for the last few weeks, I feel the S5 IS is even better: TTL hotshoe, twist & turn LCD, bigger bright EVF, very fast accurate focus in low light, macro and super macro modes, lots of features and clean results up to ISO 200. True, it's 'only' 12x zoom but so is the Panasonic which you're also considering... ;-)

But first i want to know which of the two has the best image quality.

I would say the H9 for having less nosie in the imahes but then you'll lack the hotshoe. The S5 IS is better than the H9 in that regard and a few others.

Last, is the night shot mode on the H9 effective, is it really any good.

Depends on what you want to do with it... I had it for years and never cared much for it. Only use I recently found for Nightshot was IR photography.

--



Your 4 'Cees' for photography: Crisp, Clean, Composed and Colourful
http://www.tigadee.fotopic.net

 

[Ann Badjura]

Hi Mike,

I think that the H9 would be a great choice...now that's just my opinion as I don't know anything about a Lumix. I have my Sony H5 now for 8 months and I love it! The H9 has a few more features, but I am sure it's overall the same as the H5.

The night shot feature is just fine, for me anyway. If you have a tripod, it will work just fine. I even took some nice hand held shots at dusk and they turned out pretty good. Have a look at the following evening photos, they were hand held:





The macro is fantastic as well, the details are quite amazing. Here are some examples of the macro:





The zoom is really good too. The quality is still very good when you zoom in fully. Here are a couple of examples regarding the zoom:



at regular distance



the same shot, zoomed in

I hope this can help you out!
Greetings,
Ann

--
Take only moments, leave only footprints! I Love my H5

Please comment or critique to help me make better photographs!



My favourite place in the Canadian Rockies...Moraine Lake (Banff National Park), taken in September 2006.

 

[mike12431]

Wow your pictures are amazing!!

 

[Stephen McDonald]

Here's two comparison shots from the H9 and the Canon S5, which was also suggested by another poster. The H9 shot is first, then the one from the S5. There are other photos from both cameras on my Flickr album.

I checked out the Panasonic FZ50 last year, when I was shopping for a new camera. I thing I liked most about it, was its larger, sturdier build. I shoot a lot of pictures in evening light, so its problem with dim-light noise and heavy noise-reduction, put it off my list. I used an H9 for 13 days, but returned it for an S5.

I rate the S5 better for most things, except the EVF and the discussion forum that goes with it. The S5 can be set in its highest-quality mode, to use more than twice as many encoding bits, as the H9. The effect of this can be seen in many over-compressed H9 pictures.
--
Steve McDonald
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22121562@N00/

 

[Tigadee]

Unfortunately the two shots are too dissimilar to be helpful... I can only tell others that I would prefer the S5 IS because of the following:

• Very fast autofocus, even in very low light
• Very nice bright and big EVF
• Hotshoe gives more lighting options
• Very long battery life
• Good corner to corner sharpness with lots of details

No camera is perfect, so the S5 IS does have some weaknesses:

• Heavy NR used
• IS not as effective as on lens IS with DSLRs
• Size a bit small for me - if only 20% bigger

Stephen McDonald wrote:
Here's two comparison shots from the H9 and the Canon S5, which was
also suggested by another poster. The H9 shot is first, then the one
from the S5. There are other photos from both cameras on my Flickr
album.

--



Your 4 'Cees' for photography: Crisp, Clean, Composed and Colourful
http://www.tigadee.fotopic.net

 

[Rooski]

Well, I've never tried an H9 or an s5, but I do own an fz50 and an H2. Yes, the Panny suffers from noise/NR issues, but I like it for the handling and superior optics. IMO, the fz beats the H2 in IQ when the lighting is good, but for higher iso, I'll reach for the H2.

I'm posting some samples from both the fz50 and H2, just to show you the difference between the optics of both cameras. Since the H9 lens is similar to (if not worse than) the H2 lens, this comparason may have some validity.

On the 100% crops, I resized the 10mp fz pics to 6mp for easier comparison, so some of the detail difference is probably related to MP difference, but I think you can still see the benefits of the fz50's lens, with it's consistent sharpness from corner to corner. I'm a sharpness and detail freak, so the fz50 at least satisfies that criteria, for me.

BTW, If I had no interest in Panasonic, I'd probably prefer an S5 over H9.

H2 full frame reduced:



fz50:



H2 center crop:



fz50:



H2 left side crop. Here is where you see the biggest difference:



fz50:



--
Rooski
FuZi50, Uzi, H-two

' Edit life's big picture, one crop at a time '