Review Date December 01, 2010

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX700

  • Pros

    Great still images. Powerful video recording options. Bright lens (f/2.2). Touch-screen interface. Automatic and manual shooting. Negligible shutter lag. Fast burst mode.

  • Cons Expensive. Dull LCD. Marginal high-ISO performance. Proprietary USB port.
  • Bottom Line

    The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX700 has a hefty price comes but also a hefty features set including great-looking still images, blazing fast speed, a touch-screen LCD, a bright lens, and powerful HD video recording.

By PJ Jacobowitz

The 14.1-megapixel Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX700 delivers a generous feature set, but with a hefty $399.95 (list) price tag. This little digital camera can deliver great still images and surprisingly high-quality 1080i HD video, and it's extremely fast, to boot. Panasonic also throws in a bright f/2.2 lens with a 5x optical zoom--great for shooting without a flash. The high ISO performance isn't as impressive as some of its less-expensive competitors, like the Sony Cyber-Shot WX1 ($299.99, 4 stars) and Canon PowerShot SD4000 ($349.99, 3.5 stars) but the broad feature set makes up for it.

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Design and Features
Its lens is one of the FX700's biggest selling points. Panasonic gave the FX700 a 5x (24-120mm, 35mm equivalent), f/2.2 (at the widest position) lens that can let in a lot of light to take better shots without a flash. The similarly-priced Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7 ($399.95, 4 stars) has a 12x lens (25-300mm, 35mm equivalent), but it can only open up to just f/3.3 at its widest position. The wider aperture (the lower f-stop number) means it can shoot in lower light under similar sensitivity settings, or shoot under the same light at lower ISO sensitivity than the ZS7 (lower ISO sensitivities produce better image quality.)

Despite having a big, bright lens, the FX700 is very light and pocketable. It weighs just 6.2 ounces and measures 2.2 by 4.1 by 1 inches (HWD). The Samsung TL500 ($449, 3 stars) has an even brighter (f/1.8), but it weighs twice as much and measures nearly an inch larger on every side.

The 3-inch touch screen feels really responsive, like a capacitive screen (the type used on high-end smartphones). The Nikon S4000 ($179.99, 3 stars) uses a resistive touch screen, which requires a bit of pressure when you press each virtual button, while the FX700 needs only light presses. You can tap your subject on the touch screen to focus, and you can even shoot using the touch screen instead of the standard shutter release button. Besides the standard automatic shooting mode, the FX700 features manual, shutter priority and aperture priority modes.

Besides the touch-screen controls, the 3-inch LCD on the FX700 is not particularly impressive. It only displays 230K pixels, and doesn't display much in the way of contrast. The LCD is on par with a camera half its price, like the Editor's Choice Kodak M580 ($199.95, 4 stars).

The FX700 feels responsive and fast. It can power up and shoot in an average of 2 seconds, and spends an average of just 1.4 seconds between shots (without flash). It also averages just .4 seconds of shutter lag (the time between pressing the shutter release and what is actually captured), fast for any compact camera. If you want something faster, you'll have to move to a D-SLR.

If you want to capture action, like sports games, the FX700 has some useful high-speed shooting options. In continuous shooting mode, the camera can pump out 5 frames per second, or 2 fps while autofocusing between shots. There's also an option for shooting a whopping 60 frames per second, but only at 3.5 megapixels.

The FX700 is an amazing camera for recording video. You can use optical zoom and refocus while recording, an option many digital cameras don't allow because of noise from the lens motor. Panasonic slows down zooming during recording so the noise is extremely faint; you have to be really listening for it.

We used Imatest in the lab to collect objective data about the camera's image quality. In the lab tests it produced a center-weighted average of 1817 line per picture height (2,024 in the center region and 1,302 in the corner regions.) The Sony WX1 ($299, 4 stars) and Canon SD4000 ($300, 3.5 stars) both have centers that are a little more sharp, averaging 2,360 lines and 2,191 lines (respectively).

Besides opening the lens aperture very wide, the FX700 can crank up its ISO sensitivity to capture more light. Unfortunately, this can result in noise (the grain or fuzz that appears in a photo). The camera can shoot at up to ISO 400 without producing noticeable image noise. The Sony WX1 can do better, delivering low noise at ISO 800 (it also includes optional ways to reduce noise via in-camera software.) The Canon SD4000 IS currently offers the best ISO performance; it can shoot at ISO 1600 with low noise.

Video looks fantastic. The FX700 shoots at 1080i using AVCHD codec, or 720p with AVCHD or Motion JPEG formats. The audio sounds terrific thanks to the built-in stereo microphones. Since AVCHD video isn't compatible with YouTube and Facebook, the FX700 allows you to downgrade the quality of recordings to files that are smaller and natively compatible with the services.

The FX700 uses SD/SDHC/SDXC cards to store photos and videos, and if you want to play them back on an HDTV, a mini-HDMI port lets you easily hook it up. The FX700 connects to computers with an included proprietary USB cable, and you can't just grab a mini- or micro-USB cable if you lose it. The Canon SD4000 has both mini-HDMI and mini-USB, you won't have trouble finding compatible cables for it (if you don't already own a few). Like most cameras over $200 dollars, the FX700 is powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery.

The $399.95 Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX700 is a powerful camera with several useful features. If you want good-looking pictures, speed, strong video-recording capabilities, and a bright lens, don't hesitate to pick up the FX700—if you can afford it. If you can give up a few of these features for better ISO performance and a lower price tag, consider the Sony WX1 or the Canon SD4000.

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PJ Jacobowitz
By PJ Jacobowitz Analyst, Digital Cameras


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