Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
  Great camera, too much noise September 30, 2008
I bought this camera due to its compact size, its wide angle lens, its long maximum exposure (60 seconds, I'm an astronomer and amateur astrophotographer), its manual controls, targeted tracking autofocus, and 'intelligent ISO mode'.
I nearly returned this camera because the images seemed to have blurry edges and like they were covered in dirt. Eventually I realized the pictures were NOT blurry (see #2 below), and if I was careful with my exposure and noise reduction settings I could make the noise look like film grain.
Combined with a mini travel tripod, I've managed to get some pretty nice night scenery (60 seconds, "full" manual controls) and nice portraits. That 25mm is great for scenery. (Incidentally, the "Scenery" scene mode fixes the focus at infinity, which is great for taking pictures of the Moon. Unfortunately, you can't control shutter speed or aperture, but see #7)
If the noise still bothers you, resizing the pictures to 7 megapixels or less (which can be done in-camera) should basically remove the problem.
Some random notes:
1.) The on-screen review can apparently zoom in farther (16x) than 100%; your photos are sharper than they appear on screen.
2.) I've seen some noticeable distortion at the corners of images taken at the full wide-angle.
3.) Contrary to the manual, switching to 7 and 5 and 3 megapixel modes is NOT just cropping out the center; they're merely scaled down versions of the full frame just like you'd expect. On the other hand, digital zoom WILL crop out the center.
4.) The Intelligent ISO mode actually works. It seems to be like tweaking the gamma in an image editor.
5.) Targeted autofocus does NOT work well. More often than not it can't seem to lock on the object I touched. On the other hand, once locked it tracks the object well.
6.) The Mega OIS image stabilization works wonders, but in low light it's usually not enough to make up for the longer exposures you'll need to see anything.
7.) You can set the desired exposure compensation for the 'Scenery' mode (and possibly others) by going to Aperture or Shutter mode, setting the exposure compensation, and switching back.
8.) The USB connector is microUSB, not miniUSB.
9.) It works with Linux out of the box! When you plug it in to a computer, it will ask you to select (via the joystick thingy) between MTP and PC connection, which seems to be a standard USB Mass Storage mode.
10.) I actually got pretty close to what Panasonic quotes for battery life.
 Best camera I've ever got September 12, 2008
I read a lot about this camera before buying it. I found, as always, many reviews on both sides saying is great and is lame.
I found it great. The automatic mode recognizes the type of shooting almost perfectly everytime and the pictures looks great on the screen, on my laptop and on y main pc.
The noise factor is there, especially on dark pictures, but is barelly noticeable.
The camera is larger than most Panasonic models making it hard to fit in small cases.
But still, the manual controls are amazing and if you're not a pro, go ahead with this one because the auto mode is just magnifique
 It's a tough battle! September 2, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I'll try to keep it simple.
Pros:
- 25mm wide angle is UNBELIEVABLE! My previous camera was a Canon Powershot SD500. So being used to 35mm and now 25mm is a HUGE difference. So massive thumbs up to this camera for the 25mm function.
- 3.0 inch screen. I was used to a 2.0 inch screen
- Clarity and sharpness of photos are FANTASTIC when at 25mm. Otherwise not so much (I'll describe later in the CONS)
- small compact size.
- Eh??? touch screen is alright. Not all menus etc are accessable via touch. You also have to access certain menus/functions via the joystick
Cons:
- NOISE NOISE NOISE! UGH!!!!!! Using the IA shooting mode isn't as beneficial as one would think. Especially for indoor shots. It automatically puts the ISO at 400 ... and UGH!!!! at 400 the noise is awfully noticable. south of like ISO 300 is much better, but you really really have to play around with the camera to get at a lower ISO for indoor shot without flash. I've been pulling my hair out trying to find the best method to accomplish this, and for the moment, I think I did find the correct method. Use SHUTTER PRIORITY MODE, and play around with the horizontal and vertical bars and turning the flash off. Depending on the lighting in the room, for the mostpart, you can achieve non-noisy shots at lower isos. GOOD LUCK
-Movie quality. even in the 1280 x 720p 30fps mode, sound quality SUCKS and the visual quality is still quite pixelly. I'm not impressed with the video quality at all.
-OH, the zoom (talking about optical zoom ... NOT digital zoom). At 25mm photo quality is perfect. Even if you zoom in a little bit, I've found that photo quality is poor. Blurry (even is beautiful sunny weather outside). I've tried focusing and focusing, and refocusing on the same object in a higher zoom and each time, the image is blurry (non-super crisp). I've even tried putting the camera on a tripod. Same result. So, I for the most part do not zoom. Which is annoying.
-Time between taking shots seems slower than I would like. I've set the Autoreview off and it's still slower than I would like.
All in all, as others have said, this is a camera that I want to love soooooo much but I just cannot. I preorderd the DMC-LX3 camera hoping that it would be less noisy. I hope amazon will come out with this camera sooner rather than later so I can try it out.
Comments and criticism are welcome. Thanks.
 Poor Image Quality July 6, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I really liked the features and specifications. The wide angle, touch screen, zoom and higher resolution video really lured me to this camera. However, the photo image quality was poor compared to my older Sony DSC-N1 or the replacement Canon I bought. (Sony N1 video is poor & jerky)
I think some reviewer are impressed with their first touch screen - as they are impressive - but I am used to them since my Sony DSC-N1 has a touch screen.
I have a critical eye for image quality, and the colors from the Lumix FX500 had a blah quality and yellow tint. I tried to compensate by setting the white balance to Warm - it helped a lot - but it still could not compete with the Sony or Canon. Also, the FX500 focus was often soft and not sharp. When in focus, FX500 resolution was equal to my Sony N1 that has 8 MegaPixels. In general the Sony Color looked better in the side-by-side shoot-out comparison. (even when tweaking the FX500 settings, and leaving the Sony on Auto). Though Sony saturates colors a bit, the overall photos just looked better. The Color was not true in DMC-FX500 photos - and the photos had a yellow tint (yuck!). I bought a Canon SD870-IS, and returned this Lumix DMC-FX500 camera. Wow, the Canon SD870 photos have great true colors and are sharp (Much better color that Lumix and truer color than Sony). The Canon video is standard 640x480 resolution - but very good quality. Living without a touch screen is fine. I am technical and did not have issues with the Canon interface. I was hesitant to buy a Canon - as I had reliability issues and experienced poor customer service 9 years ago with a high end digital Canon camcorder (broke just out of warranty with little use). A friend also had a Canon digital camera break easily and Canon repair is expensive. But the images from the Canon SD870 camera are fantastic and the video is good (much better video than the Sony N1). You can Zoom while shooting video with the Canon - but focus gets blurry with video zoom above 3.8x. The Canon SD870 has been working like a champ for the past 3 weeks with heavy daily use. I am really glad I returned the Lumix and bought the Canon. I wish the Lumix DMC-FX500 image quality was comparable to the Canon - because the Lumix features and specs are great.
I REALLY wanted to like this camera... but I don't May 27, 2008
17 out of 17 found this review helpful
I completely fell in love with my Panasonic DMC-FX01, which has taken many unbelievable photos over the last 3 years until it finally ingested too much sand and died. I badly wanted a pocketable camera with 5x optical zoom, manual controls, a wide angle lens, and above all, great image quality. I have been so happy with Panasonic compacts that I decided to wait 2 months for the DMC-FX500, but I feel like that was a complete waste of time. With all its bells and whistles, and the promise of full manual settings, this camera just doesn't take good photos.
For the steep $350, I expected the camera to at least somewhat approach the image quality of my Canon G7, which has near-DSLR IQ. This camera sadly doesn't even hold a candle to my wife's DMC-FX03, an older, low/middle-range Panasonic. Photos are generally very soft, and lacking focus. Highlights are often blown out, and lack vibrant colors. About 1 in 4 photos actually comes out decent, with somewhat acceptable focus. The 9-point auto focus setting turned in the best results, but even those were spotty.
I spent much of a 3-day weekend trying to tweak the manual settings, white balance, megapixel levels, sharpness and noise reduction controls, and came up with about the quality I'd expect from a $100 camera. Neither close-ups nor wide shots lacked sufficient detail. The "intelligent" auto setting is odd b/c there seems to be nothing intelligent about it - the results are almost random - some are way under-exposed and others are badly blown out. Some shots are relatively well-focused, while others are soft/blurry. Almost none approach a "great" shot.
I keep wondering if I've gotten a bum unit, but I'm so disappointed with this camera that I don't feel like bothering. Even with the Canon SD870IS' questionable reliability (our friends had trouble with theirs), I'd rather drop down to 4x zoom and 8 megapixels, which will be better anyway due to not having to stuff too many MP into a small image sensor. I don't have any doubt it will take the quality of photos I expect from a higher-end compact, and for about $90 less than this one.
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