Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX50

By Lori Grunin, CNET.com
Jan 31, 2007

It's not easy being a 7-megapixel snapshot camera. You have to be fast, cute, cheap, smart, and talented just to get noticed. If you're lucky, your company will give you a clear spot in the lineup with your siblings; if not, you've got to duke it out with a cheaper version of yourself. By these standards, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX50 has a hard life. Forced to share a spot in the line with the marginally less-expensive, nearly identical DMC-FX07, which comes in a peacockish array of colors, the DMC-FX50 has only its slightly larger, 3-inch LCD to jazz up its black (DMC-FX50K) and silver (DMC-FX50S) bodies. And though it has a few things going for it--it's stylish and smart--its poor photo quality and nondescript performance leave it destined to be a wallflower.

Editors' note: This review is based on tests done by our sister site CNET.com. As such, please note that there may be slight differences in the testing procedure and ratings system. For more information on the actual tests conducted on the product, please inquire directly at the site where the article was originally published.

Design
It's not just attractive, it's smartly designed. A highly legible menu system with the occasionally helpful descriptor (under Aerial Photo, it cautions Please turn off the camera when taking off or landing) plus a large joystick control make it easy to use and navigate, no matter how challenged your eyesight or coordination. The buttons are a bit small, on the other hand, and some features you'll probably never discover without the manual. For instance, you can tweak the white balance presets toward red or blue, which you get to by selecting the up arrow--exposure compensation--three times.

Features
For operation, you have a choice among automatic, more automatic (a Simple mode with plain-English options), and preset automatic (18 scene modes, including the aforementioned Aerial Photo for shooting from airplane windows and two Baby modes, which store a birth date each for age-stamping your kids' photos). It has two automatic ISO setting modes, the typical mode which optimizes for the scene exposure, and Intelligent ISO, which also takes into account subject motion, and therefore selects from a higher set of ISO speeds.

Other Panasonic niceties include optical image stabilization and an LCD High Angle mode for shooting overhead. The lens is a limited 28mm-to-102mm, 3.6x zoom, though the wide-angle certainly comes in handy for vertical applications, such as real estate.

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