Digital SLRs may be making all the headlines but rumours of the death of the compact camera have been greatly exaggerated.

Panasonic's latest super-zoom revitalises the category with a mighty 18x optical zoom, spanning a range from useful wide-angle (28mm) to frankly disturbing telephoto (504mm) focal lengths.

As usual, the lens bears the Leica marque and, as usual, it employs Panasonic's Mega OIS optical stabilisation system, which we rate among the best in its class.

Like previous FZ cameras, the DMC-FZ18 presents a right-hand grip design, with a traditional mode dial and navi-pad, joined here by a small thumb-stick.

The stick is used for adjusting exposure and focus settings, and while it's better than the spongy pads Canon favours, it has problems rivalling a decent brace of jog dials for speed or accuracy; it's also positioned annoyingly close to the electronic viewfinder for anyone with a traditional centre-mounted nose.

The all-plastic construction is light and just about stable enough for one-handed use if you feel the urge to really test the stabilisation system.

The front-facing zoom lever is small and slow, but smooth and accurate. Focus, flash and drive each get dedicated buttons, although the lack of quick access to ISO, quality and white balance settings feels anachronistic on such a modern enthusiast's camera. The menus are staid, text-only affairs.

The 2.5-inch LCD matches Canon's S5 IS for size and pixels, although it fades out much earlier in dim conditions. Colours and sharpness in both the LCD and EVF are above average, making manual focusing less of a hit-and-miss affair than on many compacts.

But both have the inevitable 'exposure lag' when moving from framing light to dark scenes that SLR users in particular will find irritating. At least you can boost LCD power on bright days, or choose a High Angle setting for angled shots.

Full to bursting

Panasonic has stuffed the DMC-FZ18 with more scene modes than ever before - we stopped counting at 30. But don't worry if you're not sure of the precise difference between Creative Night Portrait, Candle Light and High Sensitivity modes, as a new Intelligent Auto mode analyses the scene and chooses a suitable mode for you.

It can use face detection, adjust the ISO and even activate the image stabiliser for you - although we'd recommend simply leaving this turned on all the time.