Canon PowerShot SD940 IS vs. Panasonic Lumix DMC-FP8

[ Music ] ^M00:00:06 >> Brian: What's up Prizefight fans I'm Brian Tong and if you're looking for a point and shoot camera we've got 2 great ones for you. It's a picture perfect punch-out between the Canon PowerShot SD940IS and the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FP8. Now, our judges for this fight are CNET Review's Senior Editor Lori Grunin and Senior Editor Josh Goldman. We'll take both judges' scores and average them out to the nearest 10th. The final Prizefight score will be an average of all rounds using the same decimal system. Let's have a clean fight. First round is design and interface. [sound effect] Canon brings its slimmest design to date with its rounded edges and pocket-friendly size but you might think it's a little too small and its buttons are too flat. The Lumix FP8 is larger in size. Josh feels it looks a little dated but Lori likes its design. Its internal lens tends to get blocked or shadowed by finger tips and its menus aren't the most elegant. Canon's SD940 takes this round with a 4 and the Lumix gets a 3. Next round is features. [sound effect] Panasonic's FP edges out the SD940 with a 4.6 optical zoom compared the Canon's 4X it also allows you to use the zoom while recording video but our judges didn't like its slower lens and Panasonic's non-standard sub HD movie resolution. The judges prefer the SD940's more reliable auto scene recognition, ability to focus closer in macro mode; its true 720P movie capture and the mini HDMI port to display contents compared the FP8's proprietary connection. Canon swings hard with a 4.5 and Panasonic gets a 3. So after averaging 2 rounds the SD940 leads 4.3 to 3. Next round is shooting performance. [sound effect] For point and shoot cameras the FP8 brings low shutter lag, decent shot to shot times and a snappy 1.9 frames per second in burst mode. Fast focusing good lighting is its real strength. The SD940 has slower performance across the board compared to the FP8, a 220 shot rated battery compared to the FP8's 380 shots pretty much seals the deal. Panasonic swings right back with a 4.5 and the SD940 gets a 2.5. These are cameras, picture matters; next round is [inaudible] quality. [sound effect] Canon brings punchy and more pleasing colors with a sharp center in its pictures that will make you forgive its softer edges. Josh points out it's a nice balance between image noise and smoothing from noise reduction. The FP8 takes a solid picture and Lori points out it delivers much better edge to edge sharpness but both judges say it suffers from Panasonic's JPEG compression and at ISO 800 and above you'll also see compression artifacts and some yellow blotches. The SD940 takes another round with a 4 and the FP8 gets a 2.5. So after 4 rounds the FP8 has closed the gap and only trails by half a point. The final round that decides it all is value. [sound effect] Both of these cameras are just over $300 and you can find them for lower online, so really there isn't a big price gap there. Now, the bottom line is that the Canon SD940 may not match the performance speed of the FP8 but its better photo quality, stylish design and HD video support give it the edge. Our judges give the SD940 a 4 and the FP8 a 3. So let's average out all the rounds and in a battle where Canon stayed on top of the game taking 4 out of the 5 rounds the PowerShot SD940IS is your Prizefight winner, 3.8 to 3.2. These are 2 solid cameras both earning 3 1/2 stars from our CNET editors but in the head to head the SD940 was too much to handle. I'm Brian Tong, thanks for watching. We'll catch you guys next time on another Prizefight. [sound effect] ^M00:03:50 [ Music ]