Geeks.com, the popular computer parts store, sent us in the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX150 14 megapixel digicam for a spin. This camera has been a hit in the past year, both for its still capabilities, but also for its 720p HD video at 24 fps (film speed).
The camera captures still images at 14.5 mega pixels, and it uses a large 1/1.72″ sensor. It records JPEG, RAW, and JPEG+RAW in 4:3, 3:2 & 16:9 format, and it supports SDHC cards. Here are some of the rest of the specs:
# Optical Image Stabilizer: MEGA O.I.S. (Auto/Mode1/Mode2)
# Optical Zoom: 3.6x
# Digital Zoom: 4x
# Extended Optical Zoom: 7.7x
# Image Sensor: 1/1.72-inch 15.0 Total Mega Pixels CCD, Primary Color Filter
# Focal Length: f=6.0-21.4mm (35mm Equiv.: 28-100mm)
# Lens: 28 mm Wide-Angle LEICA DC VARIO-ELMARIT
# Aperture Range: Wide: F2.8/F9.0 (2 steps) / Tele: F5.6/F18 (2 steps)
# Focusing Area: Normal: 50cm – infinity, Intelligent AUTO/ Macro: Wide 5cm/ Tele 30cm – infinity
# AF Metering: Face / AF tracking / multi-area / 1-area high speed / 1-area / spot
# Focus: Normal / Macro, Quick AF On/Off (On in Auto), AF Area Select, AF Tracking
# AF Assist Lamp
# ISO Sensitivity: Auto/100/200/400/800/1600 (High Sensitivity Mode : Auto(1600 – 6400))
# Backlight Compensation (auto in Intelligent AUTO mode)
# Auto Bracketing (AE): +/- 1/3 EV ~ 1EV step, 3 frames
# Light Metering: Intelligent Multiple / Center-weighted / Spot
# Self-timer: 2 second, 10 second
# Auto Review: 1 second, 2 second, Zoom, Hold
# Unlimited Consecutive Shooting
# Intelligent Exposure: Off/Low/Standard/High
# Digital Red Eye Correction
# Scene Mode Help Screen
# Auto Angle Detection
# Travel Date/World Time
# Built-in microphone
# Built-in Speaker
# Exposure: Program AE, Simple Manual
# Exposure Compensation: 1/3 EV Step, ± 2 EV
# P:1-1/2000sec (Selectable minimum shutter speed)
# M:60-1/2000sec
# Starry Sky Mode: 15, 30, 60 seconds
The camera has an auto mode, a Program AE mode (ISO & exposure compensation control), a manual mode (aperture, exposure compensation, shutter speed, ISO), a scene mode (Portrait, Soft Skin, Scenery, Sports, Night Portrait, Night Scenery, Self-Portrait, Food, Party, Candle Light, Fireworks, Starry Sky, Beach, Aerial Photo, Snow, High Sensitivity, Baby1&2, Sunset, Pet, Hi-Speed Burst, Multi Aspect), and a video mode (720/24p MJPEG at 25 mbps, in the .mov container).
On the top, there’s the on/off button, with a shutter button along with a rocker zoom button next to it. The 5-way joystick button has multiple functions: exposure and bracketing for the up key, macro on/off for the bottom key, burst mode on the left key, flash modes on the right key, and menu options on the center key which also functions as the “confirm” button.
Outdoors
Macro
Below the joystick buttons there is the display button that alters between the standard informational icons in the screen, a no icons screen, and guidelines. The Quick Menu button next to it enables a strip of icons on the screen that have drop-down menu items, e.g. metering area, the autofocus mode, white balance, ISO, picture size etc.
The FX150 is a small camera for all its 14.5 MP, definitely smaller than the bunch of Kodak cameras, and some Canon A-series cameras I have around in my office. It has a much better build quality than my Kodaks, with its buttons being made out of metal rather than plastic. I found the UI and picture-taking very fast, although the UI could have been more organic. The battery life with the included battery is not stellar, but I was able to capture about 120 pictures before it started complaining.
Picture quality is very good considering the price. Definitely better than my Kodaks (I am swimming on Kodaks you see), and without that extreme “mushy” look found on cheaper cameras. I was happy to see that there were no blurry corners, the picture was pretty much sharp throughout. Low light support was normal, not exceptional. One thing I didn’t appreciate though was the lack of good dynamic range as it’s evident on one of my pictures. In some cases there’s some fringing too, but not too evident. There is quite some noise in higher ISO values, more than other high-end digicams. The on-board flash did a good job to provide the needed light when needed. The various focusing algorithms were very helpful and got it right most of the time.
Disappointing dynamic range (16:9)
Flash (16:9 mode)
There are three things that I don’t like in this camera though:
– In manual mode, the aperture value can only be set as F2.8 and F9, with no values in between.
– Only 3.6x zoom. A 5x would have been welcoming.
And the biggest bummer: no exposure locking in video mode. There is exposure compensation, but I can’t seem to find an exposure locking ability. Hence, when panning, the exposure jumps left and right (example), destroying the footage’s professional look.
At least, we get manual white balance support in video mode. And speaking of the video mode, there is also QVGA, VGA and 480p recording modes in addition to the 720/24p mode. The quality of the video is on par with the Kodak HD digicams (that record in MPEG4-SP), but it is not better than the h.264 video found in the new Canon digicams. Compared to Canon cameras, the video is grainy, and with lower dynamic range and color accuracy. The only thing it has going for it is ease of editing on PC editors (MJPEG is faster to decode than mpeg4). Here’s an 11 MB sample (right click to save and watch offline).
Overall, this is a great still digicam, very good for the price, but the video mode needed more love: exposure locking, and why not, some shutter speed support. The higher end and more popular Panasonic model, the LX3, barely fixes some of the problems discussed here, so if you are after solid results, either a DSLR, or a Canon digicam might be a better option.
Rating: 7/10
It always gives me a good chuckle when I see how many pixels are crammed onto the sensor of a consumer grade point and shoot.
Maybe, one day they’ll learn …
The problem is that bigger sensors mean bigger and heavier lenses/bodies. And if you try to make them smaller, you will have to make them primes and not have any zoom at all. So it’s all a balance game. The real point is, which manufacturer plays that balance game better.
Eugenia, you’re missing the point, which is that cramming that many pixels onto a sensor that small has virtually no advantages. The picture isn’t any better than if it had half that many pixels, but the file sizes are much larger and the operation is slower.
However, this particular model is precisely meant for clueless people (who think more pixels means better quality pictures). Panasonic’s other, more expensive cameras have lower pixel densities.
Oh, but I know very well what you are saying. Thing is, people think they need more than 5 MP.
Actually, they do need more than 5MP if they want to develop large portrait photos otherwise the image will look pixilated.
No, although photos might be a bit blurry they are never pixellated, no matter how much you enlarge them, as long as you don’t do it in some extremely stupid way, such as using nearest-neighbour.
I have good looking A4-size prints of crops of photos taken with my old 2MP uzi.
Edited 2009-04-16 11:45 UTC
You tell that to the thousands of sports and action photographers who used the Canon EOS1D (4mp) for several years, doing magazine shoots, poster shoots etc.
5mp is enough for most people, at least ordinary people – it’ll do nice A4 prints, unless you’re doing very heavy cropping, then it’s not so good. 8mp is a better balance for the average pro photographer. 12mp is about as much as you’d want to go with a FF (full frame) sensor imho – it’s about the right balance in terms of pixel size, noise performance, dynamic range etc. That’s why the Nikon D3 has been such a huge hit – large pixels, plenty of resolution, awesome noise performance. ISO 6400 is very much usable now.
Dave
I kinda agree with you on that as for a normal user 5 MP is more than enough, the 30″ Apple Display is 4 MP, and how many people have that. I am not talking about professional grade photographers just talking about people who want to have a digital camera to take pictures of their family, a trip they went to, etc. I would think that Optical Zoom should also be one of the important factors to be looked into before purchasing a camera, the optical zoom of this camera is pretty low just 3.6x. I understand the camera is capable of recording video in 720p, but I would purchase a digital camera for it photo taking capabilities not for its video recording capabilities (thats just added advantage not a primary motive while buying a digital camera).
I would be purchasing a digital camera soon, I am inclined towards Canon Powershot SX10 IS digital camera its 10 MP and 20x optical zoom.
Edited 2009-04-16 13:25 UTC
Not necessarily so Eugenia. Let’s look at Canon’s very popular 300D/350D cameras – very small, very light. I personally consider them far too small, and far too light, but then I’m used to a 1 series body.
Dave
That’s for sure. At work, we have a trio of Canon Rebel XT / EOS 305 cameras. They’re “only” 6MP and the oldest is getting close to 3 years old. Yet the pictures still look much, much nicer (to my eye) than the majority of what I’ve seen from the current crop of 12/14 MP consumer cameras – even with a newb like me shooting, on full auto.
IMO, anyone who is truly serious about photography would be better off looking for a used DSLR (used Rebels go for about $400-500USD these days), rather than any of the newer “OMG more megapixels means more better” cameras.
Unlikely…but then, DSLR manufacturers (yes, you Canon) are abusing it as well now…
It’s a shame that most humans are stupid enough to value quantity over quality…
Dave
Well, I have the FX-100 and it perfectly satisfies my needs. What I don’t like is the noise in the photos, maybe that’s the biggest problem with Lumix.
Noise is in all the compact cameras who cram 10MP+ on a very tiny sensor. The Canon IXUS 870 IS has a lot of noise at ISO400, at ISO200 it gets soft already.
Noise will be in all cameras period. Since CCDs are sensitive to infrared wavelengths you will get noise regardless of the size of your sensor. Unless you keep your CCD cool with liquid nitrogen (and even then you’ll get some noise due to the inherent statistical probability that *something* could excite a pixel), like they do for telescopes and such, you will have some noise.
True, very true. That said, noise below a certain level is not that intrusive to the eye, and the eye is quite tolerant. There’s no real need to be super cooling modern DSLRs with liquid nitrogen, it’s over kill.
Now for scopes, that’s an entirely *different* story – you’re picking up very faint detail, and the pixel MUST be very sensitive. Since noise kills detail, noise must be reduced. Hence liquid cooling. Cameras like SBIG, Atik, Apogee, Finger Lakes Instruments, etc mostly employ cooling for this very reason.
A lot of astro imagers will taken many subs (shorter exposures) and stack them in something like DSS (deep sky stacker). For astro shots, you don’t necessarily have to have really long exposures, stacking will bring out lots of details. Just make sure to take flats, darks etc.
Dave
What does the noise in the photo have to do with Linux? That has to do with the image sensor and the ISO setting you have it on.
By the way, look at greycstoration… http://cimg.sourceforge.net/greycstoration/
It works awesome and they even have a GIMP plugin. In Gentoo all I had to do was “emerge gimp-greycstoration”. I think the plugin is a little too aggressive by default so I always tone it down but it is remarkable for removing digital noise.
If you want proprietary NeatImage works just fine under WINE.
But again, the noise has nothing to do with Linux.
He said Lumix (i.e. the Panasonic camera) not Linux.
And for the record, GreyCStoration is not a viable noise reduction plug-in since it takes far too long to process a single photo. A better alternative is to download the wavelet denoise plug-in for GIMP or run Neat Image/Noise Ninja/etc in wine.
I havn’t tested this particular model, but I have a FX35, and have tested some other compact cameras like this.
The main problem I have with these cameras is that they are far too slow. You press the button but when the picture finally is taken a half a second or so later the picture is long gone, especially if you are trying to things like portraits where a smile or a look can be gone much faster than that.
What I would like to see is a camera that records continously and keeps say half a second in storage, that continously gets overwritten. When I press the trigger it saves 10 or so pictures from say half second before I pressed it. That way it could compensate for my onw slow time to react from that I see the picture until I actually press the trigger.
Most decent DSLR cameras will do that. IIRC, they usually have a few MB worth of built in buffer memory – when you hit the shutter, the image gets written to the buffer right away, then gets written to the memory card.
That way, you’re not limited by how fast the camera can write the images to the memory card – or the speed of the card itself.