Panasonic Lumix DC-ZS200 Review - Review 2022

We loved the thought of the Panasonic Lumix DC-ZS100, a premium pocket camera with a long zoom lens and a big 1-inch sensor. Its lens was a disappointment, withal, delivering so-so results when zoomed in. The ZS200 ($799) not just has a longer zoom ratio, but also a meliorate overall lens. Information technology delivers better images than a smartphone or small-sensor superzoom, while providing ample range for all only serious wildlife and sports photographers (who wouldn't utilize this type of camera for that piece of work to brainstorm with). We like it, but wish information technology had a larger EVF and a tilting LCD, both of which you'll observe in Sony's similar RX100 Half-dozen, but it's a more costly choice at only under $1,200.

Pocket-size, 15x Zoom

The ZS200 ($797.99 at Amazon) follows the design motif of most pocket superzooms. It's a small photographic camera (two.6 by 4.4 by 1.8 inches, HWD) with a lens that retracts into the body when not in use. It weighs 12 ounces and is available in black or silver. It'south a little bigger all around than the 10.6-ounce RX100 VI (two.three past four.0 by 1.7 inches).

The 24-360mm (full-frame equivalent) zoom doesn't cover as much range as 30x lenses we see in superzooms with smaller image sensors like the Sony HX90V, but the 1-inch sensor is iv times the size. That means it should internet ameliorate quality images, assuming its lens is up to the job. It's a picayune longer than the ZS100'due south 24-250mm and the RX100 VI'southward 24-200mm, but it gets there by utilizing a relatively narrow f-stop, fifty-fifty at the broad end.

The lens aperture is narrower than the f/two.8-5.ix design used by the ZS100 and the f/2.8-four.five zoom offered by the RX100 VI. Information technology opens to f/3.3 at the broad angle and narrows all the way down to f/half dozen.4 at 360mm, but it's non a linear progression. The f-finish, which measures how much light the lens gathers, is already at f/4.2 at the 50mm position, f/5.three at 100mm, f/vi.1 at 200mm, and at the smallest f/vi.four opening around 280mm.

This means the camera will be able to keep the ISO (a measure of the sensor sensitivity to light, which is variable with a digital camera) depression when shooting in brilliant light, but it will need to up that sensitivity in dim conditions. The ZS200 certainly offers meaning advantages in zoom power when compared with a flagship smartphone, but its advantages are less palpable when shooting in very dim weather condition. The RX100 Half-dozen offers a better compromise of zoom power and f-end, while one-inch models with shorter, but brighter zooms, similar the Canon G7 X Mark Ii with its 24-100mm f/1.8-two.8, deliver much better images in very dim lighting.

The peak plate houses a pop-up flash, centered behind the lens. It is mounted on a hinge and can fire when tilted back, a plus for calculation a bit of soft, indirect light to subjects when shooting indoors. The mode dial, video tape push, command punch, zoom rocker, shutter release, and power switch are also on the top plate, all situated on the right side.

On the rear you'll find the Fn4/LVF push, which switches between the viewfinder and rear LCD, a mechanical wink release, and the AE/AF Lock push, all running in a row along the top. To the right of the LCD y'all detect Fn1/4K Photo, Fn2/Focus Stacking, Fn3/Q.Menu/Delete, and Display buttons. A four-way control pad, with Menu/Set at the center and directional presses to adjust EV, White Balance, Bulldoze, and Macro focusing round out the control buttons.

The 3-inch LCD is a fixed blueprint—it doesn't swing out or tilt—with a 1,240k dot resolution. It'southward sensitive to bear on, and does back up Touch Pad AF when using the EVF. Touch Pad AF lets you change the active focus area by sliding your finger beyond the LCD when framing shots with the EVF. Bated from its fixed design—a tilting LCD makes taking shots from high or low angles a more than pleasant experience—I've got not complaints with the LCD. Panasonic'south touch support is quite good also, allowing you to navigate through menus, which y'all tin't do with the more than limited touch interface found on Sony'due south RX100 VI. The RX does have a tilting screen, even so, a large plus marking in its column.

The EVF is slightly larger than what you lot get with the ZS100. Its magnification is 0.53x (full-frame equivalent) and it packs ii,330k dots into a 0.21-inch field sequential LCD. I wish information technology was a bit bigger—it'due south helpful to frame a shot on a brilliant twenty-four hours, but it doesn't give you every bit expert a view of the scene as you become with a larger EVF, like the pop-upwardly OLED finder Sony has put on its RX100 series cameras starting with the third-generation model. An OLED finder is likewise better for tracking action—some photographers volition see rainbow smearing when panning with an LCD. It's not something that my eyes pick up, even so.

Wireless communication is included, both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, so you can transfer images to your smartphone. It works with the Panasonic Image App for Android and iOS. Images are saved to an SD, SDHC, or SDXC memory card.

The battery is removable, but is charged in camera via micro USB. Information technology'south rated for 370 shots using the rear LCD, 250 shots using the EVF, or 350 shots using the EVF in conjunction with a power-saving mode.

Operation and Autofocus: Pretty Speedy

The ZS200 isn't the fastest camera in its class, just it's not slow either. It starts, focuses, and fires a shot in about 1.5 seconds. Autofocus speed varies based on lighting conditions and the selected focus area. With the broad focus surface area enabled and nether bright light, the ZS200 locks on in almost no time at all. But information technology does dull downwardly significantly in dim lite, to about 0.vii-second, and if y'all opt to use the tiny, but very precise, Pinpoint focus function, information technology requires near 0.eight-second, even in bright light.

Meet How We Examination Digital Cameras

The Pinpoint function is useful for scenes where other distractions in the frame may describe the attention of the larger boxes used by the standard focus system, similar photographing a bird through tree branches, for instance. I wish it was as speedy as the other focus modes, but you should only need to use it in select scenarios. The RX100 VI'south phase observe system does a better chore overall, even when honing in on a very minor region of interest, but information technology's i of the reasons the RX costs $400 more.

Continuous capture is available at 9.4fps (a little shy of the 10fps advertised by Panasonic) when shooting full-resolution JPG or Raw photos with fixed focus, and at near 6fps with tracking focus enabled. The elapsing of capture changes based on the image format. The photographic camera's buffer is good for 29 Raw+JPG, 32 Raw, or 170 JPGs earlier filling upwards. Clearing to a SanDisk 280MBps memory menu (an overkill—the ZS200 doesn't back up UHS-Ii speeds; you'll be fine with a 95MBps UHS-I carte du jour) requires 28.8, 19.viii, and 21.seven seconds, repectively. Yous can keep to capture images and employ the camera equally the buffer clears, only you can't offset recording a video clip until all images are committed to retentiveness, so be careful with those big bursts if y'all like to add video to the mix.

There'southward also Panasonic'southward 4K Photo way. Leveraging the video engine, 4K Photo extracts JPG all the same frames from video clips, allowing the ZS200 to capture 8MP JPG images at a staggering 30fps. But because the ZS200's video engine introduces a ingather to 4K, the widest angle you lot'll be able to use in 4K Photo is 36mm. In that location are options to vary focus points during 4K bursts, simply you lot don't get truthful subject tracking capability. If you exercise need extreme burst shooting at total resolution with subject tracking, once more look to the $1,200 RX100 Half dozen—information technology shoots in Raw and tracks subjects at up to 24fps.

Image and Video Quality: A Step Up From the ZS100

I tested the ZS200'due south zoom lens using Imatest software, which examines photos of a test chart to quantify sharpness. At 24mm f/3.iii the lens resolves 1,930 lines on a eye-weighted evaluation, better than the i,800 lines we want to run across at a minimum from a 20MP sensor. Nigh of the frame shows good prototype quality, just the edges are very soft (867 lines), giving them a blurred look. Narrowing the aperture doesn't do much to change image quality, though edges amend a little flake at f/5.six (988 lines) and f/viii (1,394 lines).

At the 50mm position nosotros see crisper results at f/4.2 (2,292 lines), with edges that prove but a hint of softness (1,698 lines). Resolution holds steady at f/5.6, with a slight drop (2,168 lines) at f/eight.

Theres a modest drop in resolution at 135mm f/5.seven (ii,007 lines), with a slight uptick in shooting quality at f/8 (2,164 lines). Here we meet a crisp center, merely a drop in resolution as you lot move abroad, even before you get to the edges of the frame. At f/5.7 results are a fiddling soft (1,769 lines) in the mid parts and periphery, only they meliorate at f/8 (2,120 lines).

The blueprint is similar at 250mm. At f/6.3 the average score is i,915 lines thanks to a abrupt central area (2,138 lines), but the mid parts and outer edges of the frame evidence about 1,773 lines. And at this position narrowing the iris to f/8 doesn't practice anything to better the results; the camera actually takes a slight step dorsum. Still, this is significantly better than the re-create of the ZS100 nosotros tested—it delivered noticeably blurred results (1,334 lines) at 250mm.

Moving to the 360mm focal legnth changes things a bit. At f/half-dozen.iv the boilerplate is one,879 lines, and the lens shows as good or meliorate resolution at all the simply the edges of the frame, which drop to 1,432 lines. Narrowing the aperture to f/8 doesn't alter the results.

We were only able to test ane copy of the ZS200, and sample variation is a existent concern when lens designs become as complex equally this i. I'd say the copy of the camera that Panasonic sent over is a skillful one, simply other media outlets had less luck. DPReview tested iii ZS200 samples and found the lenses delivered different results on each, including one that offered disappointing middle resolution.

PCMag hasn't had a chance to complete its full review of the Sony RX100 VI every bit of yet, only if y'all have the budget, it's an alternative to consider. We did exam its lens, and plant it to deliver overall sharper results, topping 2,300 lines at each tested focal length when shot wide open. Its edge performance also suffers at 24mm, though not every bit much every bit the ZS200. It doesn't have the same level of telephoto reach, only is brighter throughout, and has ameliorate macro capability. The ZS200 can focus to three.15 inches (8cm) at its widest angle, while the pricier Sony locks on every bit shut as i.18 inches (3cm).

In terms of prototype noise, the ZS200's 1-inch, 20MP, BSI CMOS epitome sensor is a known quantity. Information technology's the same one Panasonic uses in other models, including the ZS100 and LX10, equally well as in Canon cameras like the G7 X Mark II, G9 X Marking Two, and G3 10. It's a Sony-made sensor, and so it's not surprising that information technology'south also in the RX100 and RX10 series, although the latest models utilise an upgraded version with on-sensor phase detection and a stacked blueprint—this doesn't accept those features.

Considering of that nosotros look Raw results to be similar to the other cameras, but Panasonic's JPG engine is its own, so we used Imatest to take a wait at those results. Our ISO examination shows that ZS200 keeps under 1.5 percent through ISO 6400. That's an excellent result, but in that location is a serious amount of noise reduction used to get there, which does a number on clarity. In reality, you lot can shoot through ISO 400 with admittedly no loss of paradigm quality. At ISO 800 and ISO 1600 nosotros see some very slight smudging of details. Things are a bit blurrier at ISO 3200, just like ISO 6400, I'd be comfy pushing the sensor that far for web sharing. The sensor can be set equally high as ISO 12800, but there the results are seriously blurred. Bank check out the slideshow that accompanies this review for pixel-level crops from our ISO scene—you tin can estimate the quality for yourself.

If you are serious plenty about your photos to have fourth dimension processing images, Raw capture is also an option. We apply Adobe Lightroom Archetype CC to procedure images, and nowadays the results in the slideshow along with the JPG output. Lightroom does a ameliorate task controlling racket with its default develop settings enabled than the ZS200's JPG engine, then we come across stiff epitome quality through ISO 1600. There'southward a scrap of crude grain visible starting at ISO 3200, and the event is distinctly pronounced at ISO 6400 and 12800, though you can certainly use these settings if you don't mind some texture in photos. They're specially well suited for a grainy black-and-white conversion.

Panasonic makes some of the most popular cameras for videographers, so it's not surprising that the ZS200 has solid video chops. It shoots at 4K at up to 30fps (24fps is likewise supported), and 1080p at upwards to 120fps. At that place is no microphone input, so the ZS200 shouldn't exist your commencement pick for vlogging.

There is a ingather introduced when shooting video. The lens covers a 36-540mm angle of view when shooting in 4K and a xxx-450mm view in 1080p. Aside from that, I have few complaints about the video quality. The 4K footage shows lots of detail, the image stabilization is effective (though handheld footage at a 500mm bending is always going to be a bit shaky, no affair how proficient your stabilization is), and the autofocus system smoothly racks between subjects, whether it be automatically based on changes in the scene or manually—you just need to tap on the screen to change the focus signal. Video capture is another reason I miss a tilting screen, all the same, as at that place are times I'd prefer to concord the camera a bit lower when recording, and I tin't do that and see the ZS200's screen at the same time.

Leaves The states Wanting More than

The Panasonic Lumix DC-ZS200 is a very appealing camera for photographers who value zoom power over low-lite shooting. Its lens covers the longest range nosotros've seen from a i-inch pocket-friendly model—Sony's RX10 Iii and IV have a one-inch sensor and a 24-600mm zoom, but are the size of an SLR—and the sample we tested netted crisp images throughout, although with some bluriness around the edges of the frame.

There are a lot of other practiced aspects, including snappy performance, 4K capture, Raw capability, and a price that's well nether $one,000. But I'thou left wanting a fleck more. I actually missed having an articulating screen, a feature I've come to accept for granted given how many cameras now offer it, and I want a amend EVF for those times when I want to raise the camera to my center to accept a shot.

The ZS200 is a marked comeback all around when compared with the ZS100 (which is still on auction), just information technology'due south now overshadowed by the RX100 Half dozen. If yous aren't too sensitive on price, I think it's a better overall option, even though its lens doesn't have as much attain as the Panasonic. With the Sony you lot get a better EVF, a tilting LCD, improve autofocus, and a brighter lens for clearer photos in dim light. Merely $1,200 is a tough pill to eat when shopping for a indicate-and-shoot. If your budget isn't that large, and y'all're happy with what the ZS200 delivers, it will serve you well.

Panasonic Lumix DC-ZS200 Specs

Dimensions	2.half-dozen by iv.4 past 1.eight inches
Weight	12 oz
Type	Compact
Sensor Resolution	20 MP
Sensor Blazon	CMOS
Sensor Size	1" (thirteen.ii ten viii.8mm)
Retentiveness Menu Slots	ane
Memory Card Format	SDXC (UHS-I)
Battery Blazon	Panasonic DMW-BLG10
Minimum ISO	eighty
Maximum ISO	25600
35mm Equivalent (Wide)	24 mm
35mm Equivalent (Telephoto)	360 mm
Optical Zoom	15 x
Stabilization	Optical
Display Size	3 inches
Display Resolution	one.24 one thousand thousand dots
Touch Screen	Yes
Viewfinder Type	EVF
EVF Resolution	2.three million dots
Connectivity	Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, micro HDMI, micro USB
Maximum Waterproof Depth	0 feet
Video Resolution	4K
HDMI Output	Yes
Flat Profile	No

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Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/cameras/19573/panasonic-lumix-dc-zs200-review

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