Panasonic DMC-FX01

Reviewed February 2006

Image Quality

Metallic, sleek, small, and equipped with a 6-megapixel resolution and a 3.6X zoom that starts with a wide angle equivalent to a 28 mm, the Panasonic DMC-FX01 is in many ways typical of the best compact digital cameras, and of the way they have revitalized the photographic industry by rekindling people's interest in taking photos.

The FX01 is easy to use, easy to carry, and yet quite capable.

By design, the DMC-FX01 is a point and shoot, and the only access the user has to a "manual" photographic setting is when the Starry Sky scene mode is used which allows selecting one of 3 exposure times (15, 30 or 60 seconds).

The most advanced mode is the Normal shooting mode, which provides some basic controls for white balance, exposure compensation, CCD sensitivity, and saturation, making it possible to tweak the way the camera captures the photo.

However, while the DMC-FX01 is quite an ordinary camera in terms of the user control it provides, it does stand out for three specific features.

First, the FX01 has a built-in optical stabilizer, a complex system to compensate for the inadvertent movements of the photographer — something that is being gradually introduced by other manufacturers on some of their compact cameras — but which has been a standard on all recent Panasonic cameras.

The value of the optical stabilizer is that it helps compensate for the relatively dark maximum aperture available at the telephoto end of the zoom, which is a limitation for many compact cameras.

Equipped with a stabilizer, the fact that the brightest aperture at the full telephoto setting of the zoom is only f5.6 becomes less noticeable. Where many telephoto shots would have likely been affected by camera shake without a stabilizer, it is a rare occurrence with the FX01.

The second unusual feature the DMC-FX01 offers is a control over the aspect ratio of the image. Beyond offering a 3:2 aspect ratio to make 4 x 6 or even 5 x 7 prints without cropping, the FX01 can capture photos with a 16:9 aspect ratio. Clearly an acknowledgement that the 16:9 aspect ratio of HDTV is going to supplant the 4:3 ratio of standard television, the FX01 can capture 4.5-megapixel images in that format by cropping the top and bottom of its 6-megapixel frame. This feature, which on some new cameras from the same manufacturer actually crops the sides of a 16:9 frame to achieve a 4:3 aspect ratio and are by default 16:9, is able to fill the screen of a new HD television.

One drawback, as it is implemented on the FX01, is that when the camera is connected directly to an HDTV the connection is via the analogue A/V out, which is of poor quality. Furthermore, the camera appears to display the JPEG image's thumbnail, as it would on its own low resolution LCD monitor, instead of the full image. So, while the concept is excellent, the result is less than satisfactory when the camera is plugged in directly to an HD television.

The third unusual feature of the FX01 is its Starry Sky scene mode. Generally speaking, most compact cameras have limited long-exposure capabilities, and few ever go as far as offering a 30 second exposure. The FX01, on the other hand, offers not only 15 seconds, but also 30 and 60 seconds, all of it with noise reduction. (See the end of the Test Photos section of the review for a sample image.)

At the least compressed level, Fine, the compression still averages around 6:1 at best, and can occasionally be as much as 8:1, which lessens detail when the images are seen at 100% scale on a monitor.

The effect on the image quality is that when shots are captured with lots of light, or contain lots of detail, the compression's work is not too noticeable. But when the photos are shot indoor and with flash — a type of image that tends to be noisier — or are captured under poor light, the compression can noticeably emphasize noise.

In fact, noise is present at all sensitivity settings with the FX01, but remains in the acceptable range until 400 ISO. With the High Sensitivity Scene mode, while it allows capturing an image where lower sensitivities would not, noise is omnipresent and impossible to avoid at both 800 and 1600 ISO. Worth noting, however, is that photos captured in this mode tend to look better if the maximum image size of 6 megapixel is reduced to 4, or even 3 megapixels, or if the images are printed out to a 4x6 size.

As with most cameras, the FX01 yields its best images when the subject is well lit, sunlight being the best source of light. Shutter lag, which under normal conditions is hardly an issue, can become more pronounced if the camera has some difficulty finding a focus point. The solution in this case, is to switch to the 1-Area Centre focus, lessening the difficulty the FX01 has in finding a sufficiently contrasted area on which to focus.

While we would have liked to have seen more options when it comes to compression, and a lesser susceptibility to noise, in some respects the DMC-FX01 breaks new ground while carrying on with some of the best features we have come to expect from Panasonic cameras. Overall, when compared to previous models, the FX01 brings new flexibility and abilities that should make it as popular as its predecessors have been.