Panasonic DMC-FZ35 Digital Camera Review

The Panasonic DMC-FZ35 is a compact 12-megapixel ultrazoom could be a perfect traveling companion, with fine wide-angle coverage, powerful telephoto and pleasing portability. It's a small camera compared to other ultrazooms, and this makes it easier to handle and use than many other similar cameras. The zoom controls around the shutter is comfortable to use, and we found the controls and menu system easy to navigate.

This camera has a very long 18x zoom lens, which goes from a nice and wide 27mm right out to 486mm, which is enough to handle everything from a landscape or group shot to getting close in on a football game. There are ultrazooms with longer lenses available, though; the Olympus SP-560UZ has a 26x zoom, and the Olympus SP-800UZ takes the zoom to new lengths with a 30x zoom.

The FZ35 includes both an electronic viewfinder and an LCD screen. We found the viewfinder to be comfortable to use, but it does stutter somewhat when you pan the camera, which could cause you to miss a shot sometimes. Neither is all that sharp, either: both the viewfinder and the LCD screen are fairly low in resolution, but both are bright enough to be visible in daylight.

Performance (read in-depth performance coverage at DigitalCameraInfo.com)
Capturing still images, we found that the FZ35 produced high quality photos with low noise and plenty of detail across the zoom range, but we were less impressed with the colors in these photos. In particular, the camera seemed to struggle with reds and yellows, which were significantly different from the originals in our test charts.  We also found that the image stabilization system was only moderately effective, producing only a minor improvement in image sharpness in our tests. We found that this sharpness didn't carry across to video, though: we found that the videos that this camera captured lacked detail and had the same lackluster color as still images.


Comparisons (read in-depth comparisons at DigitalCameraInfo.com)
At $400, the FZ35 is well priced for an ultrazoom, as it is cheaper than both the Canon SX1 and the Sony HX1. However, it is not as well specified as these cameras: both have very slightly longer zooms (at 20x) and performed better overall than the FZ35. The Nikon P90 is priced at the same as the FZ35 (and has a slightly longer zoom), but the Panasonic DMC-FZ35 is the better performer.

For a more in-depth review, visit the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ35 Review at our partner DigitalCameraInfo.com