It’s an excellent 6-megapixel camera with amazingly low noise at ISO 1600, so ultimately the decision hinges on whether you want the 12x zoom lens for shooting faraway subjects or the high ISO performance for shooting in low light. For nature and sports photographers who prefer the former, the FZ50 is a sure-fire winner.

To summarize, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50 is without doubt the best of the prosumer/advanced amateur models, coming close to a SLR-experience and absolutely enjoyable to use in the field. As long as you stay within ISO 100 (and perhaps ISO 200), you can be guaranteed of very good to excellent image quality, and I recommend it on this basis.

In addition to its great lens and optical image stabilizer, the camera offers an impressive 10 megapixels, solid sharpness, bright, punchy, colorful images, and a range of helpful top-flight features. Best of all, this camera is fun to use and makes taking sharp, zoomed-in images a snap for photographers of most skill levels. While some previous Panasonic models suffered from excessive luminance noise even at low ISOs, the Lumix FZ50 with its Venus Engine III LSI image processor seems to have solved those problems.

It remains one of the best super-zooms around and is available at a compelling price. The zoom range is massive, the optical quality of a very high standard, and thanks to effective stabilisation, it’s quite possible to shoot static subjects under low light at 100 ISO and enjoy excellent results.

I’d recommend the Panasonic FZ50 to all but those who shoot at higher ISOs (presumably for low-light or spots). For that, you’d need to shoot in RAW and post-process (and the FZ50’s burst mode is for JPEG only) or get a digital SLR. A final note: If you like the FZ50’s lens, then let me tell you that SLR lenses to equal the coverage and speed would cost a whole lot more.

But, looking at the FZ-50 as a whole, what we have is a medium sized digicam of the super-zoom variety. In exchange for its almost DSLR size one gets a very nice 12X zoom lens and a whole raft of contemporary features. The trade off of size is made against the benefit of manual zoom control. The jump from 8MP to 10MP over its predecessor is compensated by its new image processing engine. The quality difference is therefore pretty much a toss, though to my eye leaving something behind when compared with similar featured cameras having lower pixel count chips.

All in all, we can only conclude that the FZ50 is a very mature and complete digital camera, as well as the ideal substitute for a DSLR camera. Although there certainly is room for improvement, especially where the high ISO settings are concerned, we can look back on a successful concept. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50 is an advanced digital Megazoom camera that will undoubtedly appeal to the creative photographer. A shining star!

Those looking for a high-resolution digital camera should look elsewhere. The FZ50’s sensor is too noisy to produce quality prints in sizes expected from a 10 megapixels camera. Those looking for a full-featured camera can be quite content with the FZ50’s ergonomics and speedy performance, as long as large prints are avoided.

While the FZ50 is a reasonably strong advanced camera, a combination of its size, price tag and issues at high sensitivities mean it is only suited to certain buyers.