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Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX500 Digital CameraThe DMC-FX500 Lumix compact digital camera features a hybrid control system that combines joystick control with touch-screen operation. Use...
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The DMC-FX500 Lumix compact digital camera features a hybrid control system that combines joystick control with touch-screen operation. Use the joystick for basic settings and the touch-screen for others like AF/AE, Manual Operation and Slideshow functions, which can be adjusted by touching or moving a slider on the screen with your finger or with the included stylus pen.
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1 Review from Shopping.com
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Touch Screen Camera with Advanced Manual Functions
| Author's Rating: |
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Pros: Please see review body above
Cons: Please see review body above
The Bottom Line:
A camera with a lot of promises but a few serious shortcomings. The best camera available when I purchased it, but now I wish I should've waited for the DMC-LX3.
I purchased this camera right after it came out on the market because it has a unique combination of small size and manual functions. Usually you only get manual adjustments on larger cameras. Also what attracted me was the HD video at 720P resolution, the touchscreen interface, and the super wide angle lens. The camera's functions are controlled by a combination of touchscreen or buttons, which is good, since I've tried touchscreen only cameras and they are annoying to use.
It has an innovative focus mode where you just touch the screen to focus on a particular thing and it will automatically track it as you move the camera.
Below are my Pros and Cons. It has a lot of other Pros that I'm not listing since I take them for granted (for example the anti shake function).
PROS:
- Large touchscreen display
- Solid high quality metal body
- Super wide angle lens. 25mm gets even more on the picture than other wide angle cameras that do 28 or 35 mm.
- 5X Optical Zoom
- High Definition 1280x720 resolution video
- Manual functions (Aperture Mode, Shutter Mode, Full Manual)
CONS:
- no zoom while filming video
- going from picture mode to video mode is an annoying multistep process of hitting the mode button and then touching the screen
- picture quality could be better - there is some graining. Maybe because the chip is packed too dense. So even at 10 MP when you zoom in at 100% it doesn't look to clear. So I'm trying not to shoot pictures above ISO 100.
- When taking flash fotos, the screen turns black after the shot for several seconds while the flash recharges. Very annoying.
- The Exposure control bracketing function only goes /- 1 EV. I wish it would do /- 2 EV so that I can take 3 shots for use in HDR.
- No RAW file format
- Uses a smaller non standard USB connector
- Battery life could be better.
- Joystick controller gets some getting used to.
- Super wide angle causes some distortion at the corners, so zoom in to prevent that
- No optical viewfinder
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