Panasonic DMC-FZ18

Reviewed October 2007

Interface & Software

Interface

The design of Panasonic's FZ series cameras has remained very consistent over the last few years, and so has their user interface, albeit with minor additions and deletions. Indeed while some manufacturers feel a need to re-invent their interface, Panasonic seems to heed the adage that "if isn't broken, don't fix it". As a result, the FZ18 is an easy camera for existing Panasonic owners to upgrade to since its operation and even the way its menus are presented will be familiar.

During capture, the default presentation of information about the camera's current settings are superimposed on the image coming from the lens, and to further improve legibility, some of the information is presented on a partly transparent gray background. Menus are presented over bright coloured background that serve to enhance their visibility and make the particular menu instantly recognizable. The FZ18 also offers the Quick Settings menu, a short menu of the most commonly accessed settings that is called up simply by pressing, and holding, the joystick.

The use of both a sharp EVF and LCD monitor goes a long way into making the interface easy to read, and use. As do thoughtful touches such as offering the user a choice over whether or not the camera replicated the movements of the mode dial on the display and displays the name of the current mode. Indeed, while that information can be valuable under some conditions — shooting at night for instance — they also slow down the operation of the camera, which can occasionally be a drawback.

The FZ18's menus are organized logically, and menu location of various settings are easily remembered. Likewise, the most basic settings of the FZ18 are contained in the Setup menu, accessed as the last tab in all menus. Worth noting, however, some options can appear grayed out depending on whether the camera is set to a capture mode, or the playback mode:

• Clock Set: is to set the internal clock and calendar of the FZ18.
• World Time: allows setting a Home time and a Destination time.
• Cust. Set Mem. (not accessible in Playback): serves to save current camera settings to one of the 3 Custom Setting memories.
• Monitor/Viewfinder (depending on the display in use): serves to adjust the brightness of the EVF or the LCD monitor separately (7 steps).
• Guide Line decides what information is displayed on the monitor:
  • Rec Info: On or Off.
  • Histogram: On or Off.
  • Pattern: grid or diagonal.
• Travel Date: allows setting the start date of a trip, and then recording the date on which photos are taken during the trip so they can be printed and identified on the print as from the first day, the second day, the third day etc.
• Play on LCD selects where the image will be displayed first in playback: the LCD monitor, or on the display that is currently active.
• Auto Review: displays, or not, the image immediately after capture for a set period of time (1 or 3 sec.), or zooms the image 4X after presenting it for 1 second to ascertain sharpness. Note that the setting is disabled when the camera is set to RAW.
• Power Save: sets the time after which the camera automatically shuts down when it is inactive (1, 2, 5 or 10 minutes, or Off).

• Zoom Resume: On or Off. Allows the camera to store the zoom position in memory and return to it when powered back on.
• MF Assist controls the type of assistance provided by the camera during Manual Focusing: MF1 enlarges the centre portion of the image; MF2 enlarges the centre portion of the image, and fills the monitor with it.
• Beep offers three settings to control the volume of the sounds produced by the FZ18 during operations: Soft, Loud or Off.

• AF Beep sets the volume for the beep sound produced by the camera when the AF has focused: Soft, Loud, or Off.
• Shutter: sets the volume of the shutter sound produced by the FZ18, Soft, Loud, or Off.
• Volume: serves to adjust the playback volume for recorded sounds or video clips over 7 levels.
• No. Reset: resets the file numbering system of the camera so that it will restart from 1.
• Reset: returns all options to their original factory settings, but not date/time settings and folder number.
• Video Out (Playback mode only): sets the output video signal to NTSC or PAL.
• TV Aspect (Playback mode only): offers a choice of 4:3 or 16:9 so that the camera adjusts its output image to the type of television it is connected to.
• MF m/ft: decides whether distances are shown in imperial or metric.
• Scene Menu: to select if the Scene menu is shown automatically (Auto), or not (Off) when the Mode dial is turned to the SCN position.
• Dial Display: On or Off. Decides whether the virtual dial appears on screen when the Mode Dial is rotated.
• Language selects the interface language: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, or Japanese.

A printed manual is part of the DMC-FZ18's kit. The manual is detailed, well-written, and benefits from good organization and a detailed table of contents, all of which make it easy and pleasant to learn the functions of the camera. Panasonic also provides the manual in PDF format (Adobe Acrobat) that can be downloaded from a number of the company's many Internet sites. The PDF manual has the advantage of offering colour illustrations while the printed manual is only black and white.

Software

In North America, a single CD is bundled with the DMC-FZ18. The disc contains a number of programs:

• Lumix Simple Viewer.
• Photo fun Studio Viewer.
• QuickTime.
• USB Driver.
• Acrobat Reader.
• ArcSoft which includes:
  • Media Impressions
  • Panorama Maker 4.
• SilkyPix.

Of these, 3 programs can read and display the JPEG photos captured with the FZ8, and 1 of these can read RAW images.

Lumix Simple Viewer is, as its name indicates, simply an image viewer that can display photos located on the memory card in the camera, or on the computer's hard disk and show the shooting data.

The program has an arcane system that requires images to be "registered", one folder at a time before they can be viewed, at time-consuming process that can be quite confusing.

Photo Fun Studio Viewer, another program from Panasonic, and it can only be run if Lumix Simple Viewer is not running. It is a slightly more advanced and more comprehensive viewer and benefits from a better designed interface. It can present images in an index view, and can be used to print photos. In addition, it can be used to adjust brightness, contrast, gamma, hue and saturation. Furthermore, some effects (sepia, black & white, negative, etc.) can be applied to images and the altered image can be saved as a new image.

To process RAW images, Panasonic includes SilkyPix a program that can be used to convert RAW images, with or without modifications and adjustments, to non-proprietary image formats such as TIFF, BMP, or even JPEG.

Once an image is opened in the program, it can be adjusted for exposure, white balance, sharpness, tone, colour and noise reduction.

The program is powerful, comparing favourably with the RAW import plug-ins of Photoshop CS3, but its operation is not always intuitive, so users should expect to spend time exploring its capabilities.

The remaining software supplied with the FZ18 as it is sold in North America is provided by Arcsoft. Media Impression 1, allows making adjustments and editing JPEG images, but not Panasonic's proprietary RAW format. The program can be used to adjust images for brightness, contrast or sharpness, or used to resize or crop photos, adjust their colour tone, or eliminate red-eye. Moreover, it can also be used to add borders or graphics to photos.

The ArcSoft software suite also includes Panorama Maker 4, a program designed to create panoramic images by assembling series of overlapping photos captured with the same exposure parameters.

Although the FZ18 does not offer a Panorama mode, with some practice the Manual mode can be used instead, maintaining the exposure parameters so that images can be stitched together without too great a variation in brightness from frame to frame.