Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX500 Review

The Panasonic DMC-FX500 is a new 10 megapixel compact camera with an official price of £330 / $399. Sure, you can find it cheaper if you shop around online, but why such a lot for what is just a 10 megapixel camera? The answers lie within the stylish and diminutive metal shell of the FX500. A 25-125mm, 5x optical zoom lens, innovative touch-screen interface, 720p high-definition movies, and full range of creative exposure modes all add up to make this one of the most unique compacts available today. And it’s not very often, in a year of copy-cat cameras, that we get to say that. Mark Goldstein finds out if the new Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX500 can live up to its impressive specification…

Website: Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX500 Review

Published: Monday, July 07, 2008

Reader Comments

1. Any word on shutter/af lag on this camera? It sounds fantastic, but I want a really fast point-n-shoot for impromptu street photography...

   Charles Bandes at 06:52pm on Monday, July 07, 2008

2. Charles, there's no shutter-lag to speak of, and the auto-focus is very quick.

   Mark Goldstein at 07:08am on Tuesday, July 08, 2008

3. I am enormously pleased with the FX500, astounded in fact at some of the pictures I have been able to take with it under difficult conditions. On the other hand, there is no way to lock the focus to take advantage of depth of field without holding the button half-way down, there is no stereo sound with video, and you cannot zoom while filming video.

   Peter Solmssen at 04:12pm on Tuesday, July 08, 2008

4. Very comprehensive test, thank you.
   I have the camera has been in a few months daily use and the judgement "Highly Recommended" is correct. I, too, lacks a manual focus, as it around the Ricoh GX100 has very much.
   
   Sorry, but the practice photos of this test are not very convincing and do not really know what the camera. Allow me, therefore, to a few
   my practice to refer:
   
   http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterlueck/sets/72157604895187560/
   
   http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterlueck/sets/72157605106150098/
   
   Best Regards
   Peter Lück

   Peter Lück at 08:05am on Wednesday, July 09, 2008

5. I find it very hard to judge noise on the basis of those image extracts. The image sections are relatively bright overall, with only very narrow bands of dark tones. Let's have some images with larger areas of darker values, please, since these are where noise is typically more intrusive. Your images allow any noise to hide, in the same way the JPEG compression artefacts hide, and in fact get read from a distance almost as sharpening. Your sample shots also fail to take shutter speed into account, although sensors deliver worse noise with slower shutter speeds such as are common with indoor or low light shots.

   Harry at 03:00pm on Friday, July 11, 2008

6. @ "Your sample shots also fail to take shutter speed into account, although
   sensors deliver worse noise with slower shutter speeds such as are common with indoor or low light shots."
   
   Well Harry, would you help this? Under the following link you can also find long time exposures and recordings to ISO800:
   
   http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterlueck/sets/72157604916939316/
   
   Best Regards
   Peter Lück

   Peter Lück at 09:34am on Monday, July 14, 2008

7. "you can take a photo at a faster ISO speed and therefore a slower shutter speed"
   
   Surely shome mistake?

   Tom C at 07:13am on Thursday, August 07, 2008