Panasonic Lumix ZS200 sample gallery

Nice to have the 24mm equiv. on the wide angle. Having a reach out to 200 would be plenty for me and less demanding on the optical design. All in all a good performance. People forget how awful those 1/2.3" sensor super zoom cameras are especially when zoomed in even in bright sunlight.

4 months agopermalink

DarnGoodPhotos

Its a 1" sensor.

4 months agopermalink

I know it is. That's why it's better than the 1/2.3" sensors.

4 months agopermalink

tkbslc

I was thinking the opposite. These don't look much better than 1/2.3" to me.

4 months agopermalink

DarnGoodPhotos

Check the high Iso shots.

4 months agopermalink

Having two 1" sensor cameras and 1/2.3" sensor cameras, the smaller sensor is not really usable for anything over ISO 400 where the 1" sensor still delivers usable images over 1600. Even at lowest ISO at full zoom, the 1/2.3" images turn to mush.

4 months agopermalink

tkbslc

Looking at the restaurant shots, this isn't really usable indoors either.

4 months agopermalink

Dan W

I disagree. I have cameras with 1/2.3" sensors and others with APSC sensors. The cameras with the smaller sensors do very well with good light. And if the camera has a fast lens, such as the FZ300 with its constant f/2.8, high ISO isn’t often needed.

4 months agopermalink

GeraldW

Totally agree. I have the FZ1000 and FZ300 and for fine detail in hair another low contrast subjects, the FZ300 has to drop down to ISO 500 to match the FZ1000 at ISO 1600. My G7X II is quite comparable to the FZ1000, also with the 1" sensor.

4 months agopermalink

This is incorrect. In normal light, a GOOD small sensor zoom will be as good or better due to less compromises in lens construction. If you want excellent optics, things get much larger: RX10M3
And yes, in low light, small sensors will go pear-shaped very fast...
Now that we're on the subject, my A6300 wasn't too hot above iso1600 either, so go figure...

4 months agopermalink

I've been researching P&S cameras to buy for a while. As far as I know the BSI sensors used in various models have been the best of the 1/2.3" sensors. They are okay in good light with the lens at the short end of the zoom where it has the brightest aperture. The images gets murky at the long end of the zoom even in good light. The 1" sensors are better there and when zoomed in. Yes, the ZS200 shows effects of high NR in low light / telezoom but not as murky as the tiny sensor. We have larger sensors for a reason. I'd be interested in what 1/2.3" sensor camera doesn't look like crap when zoomed in?

4 months agopermalink

The tiny Casio ZR850 uses multi-imaging burst modes to produce hi-res images. Don't ask me how they do it. So it can do excellent 900mm equiv images (no way to show you here). Yes..., gasp!

4 months agopermalink

Overall the lens performs better than expected for its spec.

There is clearly a ton of image processing going on which sometimes leaves its mark (for example sharpening halos when f/6.3 is used at the long end, presumably trying to compensate for diffraction).

Scott mentioned he shot a lot on iA, which probably explains some of the stranger settings, f/8 (f/22 eqv) for the bikes against the wall! I always assumed the 'i' stood for intelligent but perhaps it's really for irrational.

4 months ago*permalink

Herkybird

Boy, tough crowd to please. The pictures look fine except for the the noise reduction settings, seems to be a common theme for all compacts. Heck, DSLRs from a decade ago had similar quality and people gushed over those technological marvels.

4 months agopermalink

Are you sure the noise you speak of (grain) is not the processing of a very distorted RAW image?

4 months agopermalink

StephanBG

Did Jordan recently spill that they have a LX200 in their hands?

4 months agopermalink

deluk

As an LX3 and LX7 owner I rather like these images. I'd also appreciate the extra telephoto. Looking at the exposure details, I'd rather like to know what setting was used. iA or one of the PASM modes.

4 months agopermalink

Scott Everett

I was using IA quite often as it generally means I get a range of apertures and ISO values for the gallery.

4 months agopermalink

XPloRR

Artistically, the compositions look great.
Technically, the ZS200 is very disappointing. There is noise even at ISO 200. Halo's around contrasting objects. Sharpness below par. Noisy grays in evening scenes. Unnatural skin-tones. Waiting for an updated LX10. Please invest in faster lens, 24-120mm equivalent is enough for travel.

4 months agopermalink

james s. kennedy

Unless some fatal flaw appears in a more comprehensive review, I will be getting one.

4 months agopermalink

Raist3d

The lens seems surprisingly good for what it is.

4 months agopermalink

photo perzon

Still poor jpeg skin tones for Panasonic

4 months agopermalink

Image 64 is a ≈245mm eq. portrait!

4 months agopermalink

Only way to get any background blurring with this kind of lens.

4 months agopermalink

Please update the gallery with some bird shots!

4 months agopermalink

Imaging-resource is much better in this regard, dpreview hates birds!

4 months agopermalink

Franz Weber

Birds are highly overrated. Every telephoto beginner takes those photos. Heck, there is even a special term for taking bird photos just like there is a term for taking pictures of yourself which seems to be very popular as well. I want to see some sharks or chinchillas

4 months ago*permalink

princecody

Winner Winner Lumix Dinner Lol

4 months agopermalink

NOWHITELENS

I am not interested in this camera, but the pictures are really way above the average walk around photo shoot.

4 months agopermalink

DavidNJ100

We need an image comparison with the ZS100 and RX100V/IV. May also the Canon.

The ZS100 had an unacceptably soft lens..we based on it and I'm sure many others did also. If this camera avoids that it could be a great choice. Many times that telephone is very handy to have.

4 months agopermalink

Good news for detail in that it appears to have *no anti-aliasing filter*. Moire can be seen in the hair at the top of the young lady's head in the portrait, 7th image from the end.

Does Panasonic apply noise reduction even to the low-ISO images, since these are JPEGs? It seems like there is some smearing of detail at 100% zoom.

In the first ferris wheel image, ISO 3200 does amazingly well!

4 months agopermalink

That's not moire, it's simply 'rainbow dots' from bright reflection of the sun on the hair.

On a 1" type sensor f/6.3 is equivalent to F17, well into diffraction territory, but even so the lens holds up pretty well considering.

4 months agopermalink

It looks like moire to me. I've *often* seen similar in black hair with the 5DsR, which didn't show up on the 5D2 or 5D3, because they have AA filters.

F/6.3 shouldn't be into diffraction on the long end. If so, just barely. Multiplying it by the 2.7 crop factor only holds true for depth of field.

It would be nice if the lens could be stopped down beyond f/8 in order to blur water in daylight, and to get more depth of field, which would be into diffraction, but sometimes is required for composition.

4 months agopermalink

At F6.3 the Airy disk size is 8.46 μm.

On a 20MP 1" type sensor the pixel size is 2.14 μm so F6.3 is well into diffraction limiting territory for this sensor. Diffraction limiting begins around F4.5 for this sensor.

Of course, you don't have to believe it just because it's true.

4 months agopermalink

The airy disk theory was made famous by Cambridge in Colour. This has been debated dozens of times in the DPR forum. The general consensus is that the theory their DOF calculator is false. Pixel size does not dictate when diffraction sets in.

This is demonstrated in tests in which the same lens is tested by two different cameras, having different pixel sizes, 22MP and 50MP full frame Canons. Diffraction sets in at the same f/stop; though, edge sharpness seems to often suffer with extreme wide angle lenses at the edges when shot with the 5DsR, instead of the 5D2. I'm referring to Photozone.de's tests.

In 1" sensor compact zooms, diffraction seems to set in earlier at 24mm and later at full zoom.

F/6.3 is probably hardly affected by diffraction at close to full zoom, which is why we can see moire here.

4 months agopermalink

FrithjofA

The airy disk size is very simple and depends on the aperture and focal length only (Wave optics 101) assuming an ideal lens. The problem arises when people do "real life" tests with real lenses. People are often confuse lens resolution limits and the diffraction limit. I agree, aberration induced lens blur is independent of the sensor resolution. Most cheap lenses show limitations even before diffraction sets in. So people who do not understand physics easily draw wrong conclusions.

4 months agopermalink

deep7

Terrific gallery! Bang on for the type of camera.

The lens seems better than I expected but the jpeg processing is surprisingly poor. It's hard to believe that's a one inch sensor inside!

4 months agopermalink

BigBen08

Shoot raw.

4 months agopermalink

Max Thunder

Excellent contrast management.

4 months agopermalink

Androole

I am a bit bummed pixel peeping these shots, since I want to like this camera. There are a few shots that show that there is good potential from even the longest end (there's some decent detail in the picnic photo, for instance), but it is definitely on the soft side.

However, I will reserve judgment, because I am happy to attribute a lot of it to Panasonic's sloppy JPEG algorithms. They are always way too heavy handed on the noise reduction.

I know that ACR probably doesn't support the ZS200 yet, but I'm sure that even a straight RAW conversion with no adjustments would have a lot more detailed retained. That's what I'm hoping, anyway!

4 months agopermalink

Ocolon

Exactly my thoughts, Androole. I’m looking forward to RAW samples.

4 months agopermalink

whakapu

+1 to that. Main take from this gallery is that even at base ISO jpegs look like they're from a phone.

4 months agopermalink

Lan

I think another part of the problem may be that the majority of shots were taken at ISO200, rather than ISO125, which is odd given that the camera natively supports ISO125, and a number of the ISO200 shots were taken at 1/1000th or thereabouts even at the wide end.

Not sure whether that's bizarre behaviour in auto ISO, or a strange choice on behalf of the photographer, but the handful of ISO125 shots do look better.

4 months agopermalink

situman1

I think these look great. If you demand perfection, sorry its still a small compact with a smallish sensor.

4 months agopermalink

Androole

Honestly, given what I can deduce from previous galleries of Panasonic 1" cams like the FZ1000 and ZS100, I am pretty confident that the RAW files will look significantly better, and probably up to my standard. These have all the tell-tale signs of Panasonic's noise allergy, where even the finest grain cannot be allowed to infilitrate the image.

I really like Panasonic cameras, but I'll never shoot JPEG with them.

4 months agopermalink

Steve Swayne

I use an FZ1000 and always shoot in RAW and I am quite happy with what I achieve in Adobe Lightroom.

4 months agopermalink

You know, I might even go for this one, despite the fixed screen and horrible 4-way controler....

4 months agopermalink

Geekapoo

Great pics that make it difficult to argue that the ZS200 isn't a good street camera. Well done.

4 months agopermalink

Silat Shooter

I like the images shared here. I think the quality is quite good. Like some have mentioned here, it's a question of this pocketable vs something a little larger.

4 months agopermalink

lotzi

Obviously, but this question can be asked not only on a person-by-person basis, but also on a situation-by-situation and trip-by-trip basis. And cameras with a comparable zoom are not a little larger, but a lot larger.

So even if you have a full DSRL or mirrorless kit or an RX10IV, you might be still be tempted by this camera.

4 months ago*permalink

Thomas Kachadurian

Clear proof that it's not the camera, it's the photographer.

Nice work Scott.

4 months agopermalink

Totally agree with you, Thomas.
Either it was the most polluted day in Japan,
Either the camera lens & captor suck,
Either some photographers want to apply bokeh to every image,
Either the photographer had a full bottle of sake before hitting the street,
Either they want us to think that Sony is still the best Godfather, therefore this biased "report".
Because I own some old Panasonic (FZ-50, LX-5, LX-7) which are prehistoric models compared to this new ZS-200 and believe me, I got better Image Quality than these ones.

4 months agopermalink

Julio Sánchez

FZ50 unforgetable. Now a TZ100 as good as TZ200 but less zoom I think.

4 months agopermalink

The FZ-50 has been a work horse in my studio without even flinching once. The whole TZ Series cameras are so reliable. Keep yours, Julio.

4 months agopermalink

cgarrard

It's both. :) - quality of the images is the camera, quality of the compositions and lighting are the photographer :).

4 months agopermalink

I couldn't have said it better, cgarrard!

4 months agopermalink

JerryWilliam

Good advice Manny, FZ50 has a glorious piece of glass in front of it, the best photographs I have ever taken was with that camera, if you need a guaranteed sharp keeper in a pinch (mine is permanently in my car just in case), then thats a goto camera to get it done; although it wont win any awards on the sports pitch, especially shooting RAW.

4 months agopermalink

Well Jerry,
It's clear that you belong to the good old club of people taking pictures for fun and also to record memorable moments. You, same as I, are convinced that we are NEVER going to expose our images at the Guggenheim. My wife owns a DMC-ZS5, and believe me, I've been editing some of her vacation images as decent 11x17.
Keep on clicking.
Keep on sharing.

4 months agopermalink

Simon Zeev

I don't need better pictures.

4 months agopermalink

davids8560

I could be wrong, but if what I'm thinking is true, then it's entirely possible that I have no idea what I am talking about. Anyway, count me in on this one.

4 months ago*permalink

otto k

*Scott Everett not included with camera.

4 months agopermalink

comfreak

Overall, great shots. But this mainly concerns composition.
I don't much seem to care for colour reproduction. A lot of grey hues. Also skin tones are unnatural unless in bright daylight. Not sure how that compares to the predecessor, but I've seen nicer colours.
Would have loved to see some of the pics as post-edited raw files for checking the difference. IMHO, maybe 3-5 keepers out of the 70 shots. Not that that's a bad ratio necessarily, but I presume the original amount of shots was 10x that...

4 months agopermalink

SETI

It's a question of price. IMHO Canon M6 + 18-150mm or m43 camera + 12-100 is more interesting as travel kit.

4 months agopermalink

Brian P Smith

Comparing even the smallest of m43 bodies with the 12-100 vs the ZS200 is a bit silly. The 12-100 is fairly large and looks like a huge honker on small bodies, vs a pocketable "compact" camera...

4 months agopermalink

geepondy

Interesting, I tried that M6 with 18-135 combo inside Best Buy when the camera first came out. The camera was really struggling to focus at the long end of which I thought the store interior was reasonably bright. I then went and tried the ZS100 and it was instantly focusing at all focal lengths. Very unscientific comparison I know but is there a rational explanation why?

4 months agopermalink

I totally agree geepondy. I had the M6 with the 15-45mm and between 30mm and 45mm the autofocus was unusable in low light. No comparison with a Panasonic Gx85+12-32mm. The Dual Pixel autofocus of the M6 is just awful in low light conditions with a slow lens, possibly the worst on the market. Even dpreview mentions the bad autofocus of the M100 (which has the same autofocus as the M6): https://m.dpreview.com/reviews/buying-guide-best-cameras-for-beginners/4
The specifications of the M6 claim that the autofocus works in -1EV light conditions. The Panasonic Gx85 autofocus works at -4EV, that's 8 times less light. But apparently Canon understands that the autofocus is awful: The new M50 works at -2EV.

4 months ago*permalink

Julio Sánchez

My bulky bag with D7100, 10-24, 18-140 and 70-300 is OK for travel. Wide angle Ok for monuments, 10-140 for Street and Telezoom for closeups or long distance.
Bulky but very usefull. If not my other option is a TZ100.
And I take pictures with what I have.

4 months agopermalink

Beckler8

Suggestion: show basic camera specs in gallery because you don't know where the stated focal length/aperture lies in the camera's range - both due to its sensor size and lens range. Stating it was taken at 30mm doesn't tell me much. For images, might want to include 35mm equiv. too.

4 months ago*permalink

tingel7

Beautiful gallery!

4 months agopermalink

achim k

As far as I can say, the lens seems to be better than that of the predecessor, I exspected the opposite.

4 months agopermalink

chrisno

sharpness is average but wow

the first two shots are incredible

4 months agopermalink

Nadzo

I wonder how much post processing there was, if any, as these are beautiful shots esp if str8 out of the box!

4 months agopermalink

Marty4650

Technically, the photos are pretty good coming from a compact camera.

Artistically, the compositions are outstanding. Scott Everett makes the camera seem better than it is! He really got some really nice shots.

Panasonic should be grateful that Everett didn't shoot brick walls and test charts.

4 months agopermalink

SETI

That's why we love DPReview. They know how to take photos =)

4 months agopermalink

Marty4650

Yes. And Scott certainly did a great job with these sample shots.

4 months agopermalink