The DMC-FX01 has the advantage
of being equipped with a large 2.5-inch monitor that not only
has a crisp image, but a wide range of brightness adjustments,
making it comfortable to use irrespective of the ambient light.
The icons and text used for the menus are very legible, and
when the Simple mode is used, they are presented even larger
than with the other modes. Moreover, navigation of menus and
options, which is assured by the 4-direction Cursor control,
is sure-footed and precise.
Similarly, the menus of the FX01 flow quite logically and
are readily understandable, all of which goes a long way to
making the camera very user-friendly, with the exception of
the Simple mode. The most basic settings of the FX01
are contained within the pages of the Setup menu, itself
accessed through a separate tab of the main menu offered in
all the major modes:
Clock Set: allows setting the time on the FX01.
Monitor: makes it possible to adjust the brightness
of the LCD monitor over 7 steps.
Travel Date: Set or Off. Decides whether or not
the date on which a photo is captured is recorded.
Power Save: sets the delay until the camera automatically
shuts down (1, 2, 5 or 10 minutes), or Off.
Economy serves to choose the battery saving modes
for the FX01:
Level 1: turns off the LCD monitor after 15
seconds of inactivity.
Level 2: turns off the LCD screen after a 15
second period of inactivity or after 5 seconds after
an image has been captured.
Off: cancels the Economy mode.
Auto Review: serves to decide if and for how long
a just-captured image will be displayed on the monitor.
Four options are available:
Off,
1 second,
3 seconds,
Zoom, intended to check the focus of a shot,
displays the image full-screen for 1 second, then zooms
it to 4X for another second.
Beep sets the operation sound for the FX01: Soft,
Loud or Off.
Shutter: selects the noise produced when the shutter
release is pressed (3 sounds), and its volume (Soft, Loud
or Off).
Volume: allows adjusting the playback volume over
7 steps.
No. Reset: selects whether photo files will be incremented,
or reset to 1, when the card is formatted or a new card is
inserted.
Reset: returns all menu options, with the exception
of the date and time and the folder name, to their original
factory settings.
USB Mode: controls the USB protocol. PC
is to communicate with a personal computer; PictBridge
is to print photos when the camera is connected directly
to a PictBridge compatible printer.
Video Out (Playback mode only) decides the video
out signal: NTSC or PAL.
TV Aspect (Playback mode only): allows setting
the output aspect to either 4:3 or 16:9, depending on the
TV to which the camera is connected.
Scene Menu: decides whether or not the scene menu
is shown when the Mode dial is set to SCN. Alternatively,
pressing the Menu button once displays the Scene menu.
Language serves to select the interface language:
English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, or Japanese.
Panasonic includes a printed version of the camera manual (it
can also be downloaded as a PDF (Adobe Acrobat format) from
various Panasonic web sites). The manual is complete and covers
every part and function of the camera, albeit occasionally a
bit too succinctly.
Software
In North America, Panasonic supplies
a single CD with the DMC-FX01 containing Lumix Simple Viewer,
QuickTime, Acrobat Reader, the drivers necessary
for older operating systems and ArcSoft's PhotoImpression
5, Panorama Maker 3 and PhotoBase 4.5.
Lumix Simple Viewer is,
as its name indicates, primarily an image viewer and does not
allow any image editing. The program starts by presenting a
menu which offers options to Acquire Images to PC, View, Print,
or Send by E-mail. To view images, these must be "registered"
with the program first, a process that involves either importing
photos from a memory card or the camera while it is connected
to the computer, or from the hard disk.
Once imported, images can be viewed
easily, either in the presentation shown above, or in a slide
show-like mode that even allows seeing the image at 100% scale.
As Lumix Simple Viewer does
not offer any Image editing, the task is left up to PhotoImpression
5 which provides tools to modify sharpness, brightness,
contrast, saturation, and colour tone. Moreover, the program
can also be used to resize or crop images, and even automatically
eliminate red-eye.
PhotoImpression can also be used to add text and borders
to images, and a wide variety of templates to use, or modify,
are included with the program.
Worth noting however, is that PhotoImpression
5 is not dual monitor compatible, and with a Windows system
and dual monitors, the program's window cannot be moved to a
monitor other than the primary monitor.
PanoramaMaker 3 is designed
to stitch together a series of contiguous photos so they can
be assembled into a single large image horizontally, vertically
or as a mosaic.
PhotoBase 4.5 is intended to organize still images and
video clips, and manage them through a database.
QuickTime is to view the video clips recorded with the
FX01.
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Interface & Software
