Panasonic FZ18 Thoughts

[hightech]

I am considering getting the Panasonic FZ18: http://www.panasonic.ca/english/audiovideo/camerascamcorders/digitalstill/DMCFZ18.asp

Has anyone played around with this or read any negative things about it?

[KorruptioN]

I really dislike Panasonic's high-ISO noise reduction algorithms in their compacts.

[hightech]

I really dislike Panasonic's high-ISO noise reduction algorithms in their compacts.

Yea, their noise reduction leaves a lot to be desired for high ISO. I generally take images at 80 to 100 ISO and use flash or external lights. With the exception of a few Fuji camera models, most high ISO images I have seen look pretty bad.

[goofball]

The good thing is you can record in raw and avoid the Venus III processing. From what I have seen, the jpg's still lack the same sharpness compared to the raw image.
The Venus III does quite a bit of processing. It removes barrel distortion and attempts to fix vignetting as well.