Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX100

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Features
Like a lot of compact cameras, the FX100 doesn't have manual exposure controls, though it does include 20 preset scene modes to help you deal with tough--or just plain unusual--shooting conditions. A pair of features helps you deal with blur.



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Panasonic's Mega OIS lens-shift stabilization helps combat hand shake, while Intelligent ISO control--a separate shooting mode available on the mode dial--analyzes motion in your subject and automatically raises the ISO to a limit you select in the menu to help prevent blur caused by a fast-moving subject.

This can come in handy if you don't want to manually set ISO to boost your shutter speed; the camera will keep the ISO as low as possible if your subject is still, thereby minimizing noise in your images when the lighting is suboptimal. Like past FX models, you can also choose from 4:3, 3:2, or 16:9 aspect ratios in case you prefer to view your images on a TV or a digital photo frame instead of making prints. You can also select 4:3 or 16:9 ratios when capturing movies, though you're limited to 15 frames per second if you opt for 1,280 x 720-pixel video.

Performance
The DMC-FX100 showed good shutter lag times but was otherwise no more than average in our lab-based performance tests. The camera took a slightly sluggish 2.4 seconds to start up and capture its first JPG image. Subsequent JPGs took 2.3 seconds between shots with the flash turned off, slowing a bit further to 2.9 seconds with the flash on.

Shutter lag measured 0.6 second in our high-contrast test and 1.1 seconds under low-contrast conditions, which mimic bright and dim shooting conditions, respectively. At 12 megapixels, the burst mode clocked an average of 1.3 frames per second, but rose to 4.4fps when we lowered the pixel resolution to VGA.

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