Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

In general, the camera is O.K. for the price, especially with the 600mm f/2.8 zoom which is an engineering milestone. It is small and very usable. However, the in-camera JPEG engine is worthless. It is VERY noisy with JPEG. I have to shoot them in RAW, and get that converted using Lightroom 4.2 RC. At the end, I use the camera to take photos, but the photos came out just OK with too much noise and lack of details. Very frustrating to me that it can view but not taking great photos. With this limitation, any forced JPEG modes (i.e. special effects, AI and AI+, etc) usefulness will be very limited. (Panasonic, if you are reading this, please release a firmware ASAP to fix this. And please release updated codec for the FZ200's RW2) I have used Lumix cameras for the past 7 years, but this is a major disappointment that I returned this camera. With that said, the zoom of the camera is amazing. The size is small for the zoom range while it is not a compact camera. Considering that lens alone from other brand of 600mm @ f/2.8 can easily cost many times more than the price of this camera (e.g. a Canon 600mm F4 lens alone is $13K and more than a foot long)! The FZ200's stabilization at 600mm is very, very good. If you are looking for a camera for vacation, this is a good choice due to size and zoom. However, if you need fine details or for any indoor shoots, it may not be the one. Pros: . The focus and zoom are very, very good. The image stabilization is excellent even at the far end of the zoom. . Video is very good especially with the f/2.8 constant lighting. . The Fn buttons are nice, and they are re-programmable. . The extra Zoom button on the left is nice. . Many modes (3D, miniature, etc) and features with the camera (if you can stand the noise) Cons: . The in-camera JPEG is hopelessly aggressive and full of artifice. I MUST shot in RAW, otherwise, the photos are not usable. (-1 star) . The RW2 format is different from prior version. (Panasonic, if you are reading this, PLEASE make sure that software vendors have already implemented your codec before releasing the camera. I needed to download the Lightroom 4.2 Release Candidate to get that to work with the photos) And No, I don't want to use your Silkpix. (-1 star) . The AI is poor (It tends to wash out), and coupled with forced JPEG mode with AI or AI+, this mode is useless to me. (-1 star) . Although, it has great zoom @ 12mp. The fine detail resolution at the far end of the zoom is very poor. . A bit of noise - even at lowest ISO 100 and cannot get anything below ISO 100. . The noise level is significantly visible above ISO 400. . ISO 800 starts to see very pronounced smearing and lack of details. At 1:1, it is not usable. . The dynamic range is a bit narrow. . Focus hunt around a bit in high zoom and video mode.