From another post:
In trying figure out whether the FZ1000 would offer more reach than the FZ200 for wildlife photography, I stumbled across this thread
Comparing Superzooms by a Figure of Merit: FZ1000 vs. FZ200: Panasonic Compact Camera Talk Forum: Digital Photography Reviewwhich provides a mathematical way of factoring in equivalent focal length and megapixels to compare the "reach" that cameras could have.
The calculation is explained here
http://www.digicamhistory.com/Figure of Merit.htmlbut basically it is equivalent focal lengthsquaredmultiplied by the number of megapixels.
So, for the Fz200, you get 600mm x 600mm x 12 megapixels = 4.320 million
I worked through the math for a variety of configurations, and (if I have the figures right) here are the results (the bigger the number, the better the reach):
FZ200 -- 4.320
FZ1000 -- 3.216
D3300 with 70-300 -- 4.860
Olympus M5 with 100-300 -- 5.760
Nikon D810 with 400mm tele -- 5.760
Nikon 1 V3 with 70-300CX -- 14.580
Nikon P900 -- 64.000 million
I did notice in the promotional video that a tripod was used to photograph the surfer.
Cheers, Jock