Performance - How well does it take pictures?
Although certain cameras have usability deal-breakers, potentially like this one's LCD preview inaccuracy, it frequently comes down to this, image quality. The final decision is personal, but these issues can be just as important as image quality.
At first glance, on the LCD, outdoor images from the Panasonic FX30 appear quite pleasing, although noticeably more vivid than reality. Colors are bright and saturated, exposure is good and focus is generally accurate. This is decent in terms of quality but not great.
While the color over-saturation can be pleasing to some, images from the FX30 are overly contrasty and lack dynamic range compared to most digital cameras. Dark areas become deep-black much faster than usual and highlights burn faster too.
The FX30's white-balance system is fairly good in outdoor daylight. Under artificial light, however, it leaves a stronger than average yellow color-cast. There were some focus errors during testing. In other words, the camera incorrectly confirmed focus rather than admitting it could not lock focus. It happened occasionally, but only a few times. A close inspection of the FX30's images shows a smudging of low-contrast details. On the right-column of this page, there is an example of the same image taken with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX30 and Fuji Finepix F10. The details reveal some of the FX30's shortcomings. Plus the F10 and its more recent replacement, the Fuji Finepix F20, are much cheaper. Of course, neither of these cameras have a 28mm wide-angle lens. Speaking of the lens, it shows strong barrel distortion near wide-angle but very little distortion at other focal-lengths.
Image noise levels on the Panasonic FX30 are above average at all ISO sensitivities. From ISO 100 to 200 noise is not noticeable except when viewed close to 100%. There is some fine noise but it should not be a problem for common print sizes up to 12"x9". Starting at ISO 400, noise increases rapidly. Dark areas suffer much more than bright areas. Shadows can be objectionable at ISO 400 but bright areas, particularly textured ones, can be decent even at ISO 800. As for the mid tones, save ISO 800 and 1250 for small prints. Along with increased noise, details start disappearing. This can be clearly seen in the indoor day crops and the outdoor night crops.
In terms of speed, the Panasonic FX30 is a mixed bag. Startup and shutdown is average. Shot-to-shot speed is a little slow but the continuous-drive modes are quite fast for an ultra-compact digital camera. The zoom controller could be faster though. Focus speed range from fast in good light near wide-angle to very slow in low-light near the telephoto end. The fact that the lens has a F5.6 maximum aperture on the telephoto end seems to significantly slow down focusing. |
Conclusion
In the end the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX30 turns out to be an average ultra-compact camera with a wide-angle lens. Unfortunately for the FX30, there are other such cameras, like the better Canon Powershot SD800 IS. Images from this digital camera are overly contrasty, lack dynamic range and show visibly more noise than its competitors. At ISO 100 and 200, noise is only slightly noticeable but starting at ISO 400 it gets worse. Another image quality problem is the smudging of low-contrast details present even at ISO 100. One major problem that cannot easily be overlooked is that the FX30's LCD does not accurately represent exposure. Most point-and-shoot cameras are designed to provide foolproof simplicity and not having a WYSIWYG live-preview is problematic for its target users.
Overall Score
Average
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