By Leonard Goh
12/05/2008
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/digitalcameras/0,39005881,42835199p,00.htm

Until now, touchscreen has always been associated with Sony's Cyber-shot DSC-T300 and Cyber-shot DSC-T70. But with a new challenger on the block, the competition is heating up. Panasonic announced the Lumix DMC-FX520 in March and it recently won the prestigious TIPA (Technical Press Image Association) award for Best Compact Camera of 2008 with the FX520. So how did this camera fare in the contest of touchscreen compacts? We find out.

Design

The FX520 takes on a minimalist approach for its design. Encased in a sleek brushed-metal chassis, it's easy to pick out the point-and-shoot from the lot of compact cameras that have flooded the scene. It looks silent, pretty much like a good-looking broody actor who doesn't talk much.

The camera offers a firm grip and is complemented by a small strip of metal that runs down the right side of the shooter. Even with sweaty palms, the sturdy build of the shooter offers assurance that it won't slip out of our hands.

A stylus comes with this touchscreen device. But if you are thinking a conventional pen-shaped stick, think again. It is a round, flat piece of plastic with a protruding side that acts as the tip of the stylus. We attached it to the other end of the strap as the manual stated and we don't think it looks good when paired with the camera. We hope Panasonic can improvise on this aspect and probably have a slot for a normal stylus instead.

Tipping the scales at 175g with battery and memory card, this digicam is not a lightweight champion. It is a matter of preference, because some of us prefer the more solid feel that a camera should have.

Features

The biggest selling point of the 10-megapixel FX520 would be its 3-inch touchscreen. Although it is recommended to use the stylus, we find it more convenient to poke with our fingers instead. An AF/AE option at the bottom right triggers the option for us to touch the subject we want the lens to focus on, as well as to optimize the exposure. It will also track and adjust the focus on moving subjects. This AF/AE option worked in all shooting modes, including the 21 scene modes which we will touch on in a bit.

Unlike Sony's T300, not all the features can be accessed via touchscreen. To sift through the camera's menu, we had to use the four-directional joystick. Switching between shooting modes also required us to press the Mode button, before we could tap the screen for the feature.

In Playback mode, we zoomed in to a designated spot by touching that area, which was a time-saving feature when we needed to check the sharpness of our subject.

Like most touchscreen devices, there is an option to calibrate the display. The shooter prompted us to tap on five small crosses, and for that we used the stylus instead.

What will really please advanced shutterbugs is the extensive shooting modes that Panasonic has included for the FX520. It comes with Program (P), Shutter-priority (S), Aperture-priority (A) and Manual (M) shooting mode. Besides P, in the rest of the mode we moved the slider to select the shutter and/or aperture. In M mode, the minimum shutter speed is 60 seconds, which is sure to please those who are looking to take night sceneries.

Like its more compact sibling, the Lumix DMC-FX36, the FX520 sports an ultra-wide-angle 25mm lens which, according to Panasonic, gives two times more view than a conventional 35mm lens. The optical zoom is rated at 5x, giving the shooter a total zoom range of 25-125mm.

Panasonic's proprietary Intelligent Auto (iA) mode is now made even more intuitive with the touchscreen. Usually, the iA mode can be easily fooled into selecting the wrong scene settings. But now, we just have to tap the subject on the screen and the camera automatically went into the appropriate scene mode. We tapped a face on the screen and the camera automatically went into Portrait scene mode. This is a good marriage of two features and we think it will assist amateurs to capture better shots.

The 21 scene modes cover a broad range of shooting conditions, but what really tickled us was the Pet and Baby mode. When set, the camera would prompt us to input the baby's or pet's age. Unfortunately we didn't have any babies or dogs in our Labs, but we figured that different age settings would affect the speed at which the camera tracks and follows the subject around.

The point-and-shoot also features 720p HD video recording. We plugged in the camera to an HDTV with a component cable provided with the review set to see how the HD video's quality fared. We recorded a short 10-second clip of moving vehicles and the playback was smooth and detailed. However, do note that the visuals will differ on different televisions.

The shooter comes with 50MB of built-in memory and expansion slot for a SD/SDHC card. If you are looking to shoot more HD clips with this camera, prepare a flash card with bigger capacity as the video files generated are memory-intensive.

Performance

Like the FX36, the dynamic range on the FX520 was quite impressive with Intelligent Exposure activated. When faced with a scene of high contrast, the image captured still rendered a good amount of details in the highlight and shadow regions.

Autofocus speed was acceptable, but for those who want their machines faster they can choose the Quick AF mode. The camera will then constantly check the focus on the scene and adjust accordingly for quick snapping. Although we had some issues with the Quick AF on some of Panasonic's previous digicams, the FX520 didn't disappoint. The point-and-shoot was quick to focus when we shifted the lens from a macro subject to scenery.

Face Detection worked well when we tested it, easily recognizing the faces placed in front of the shooter. However, one exception was that the camera tended not to detect faces wearing spectacles. Although the official word from Panasonic was that it had no problems with the face detection feature, we'll like to state that user's experience may vary in different situations.

At 2.1 seconds, the startup time for the FX520 wasn't the fastest we'd seen. It took a full second for the camera to take the first shot immediately after powering up. In terms of speed, it didn't quite make the mark. If you are looking for a speedy shooter with quick response time, Nikon's S600 might fit the bill better.

The shutter lag for the shooter clocked in at near to 1 second, which we felt was pretty acceptable for a compact camera.

According to Panasonic's specifications sheets, the Lithium-ion battery will give about 280 shots on a full charge. This is 10 less than then FX36, but we attribute it to the touchscreen which saps a bit more power. On this note, the battery life for digicams differs according to usage. If you activate features like the Quick AF, it will drain the battery faster due to the constant software processing and hardware shifting.

Image Quality

We used to have gripes with Panasonic's image quality being slightly softer than we were comfortable with. For the FX520, this issue is rectified and the edges of focused objects are more well-defined. The Venus Engine IV image processing engine probably had a hand in this, and we were certainly more satisfied with the overall quality of the picture.

As we can tell from the ISO comparison chart, images captured at ISO sensitivity of 800 and below are clean and almost free of noise. Bumping it up to ISO 1,600 will produce images with slight film-like softness, but it shouldn't show up much on a print.

The shooter was accurate in detecting different light sources and automatically adjusting the white balance for the picture. When we shifted the camera from a candlelight source to fluorescent, the point-and-shoot was quick to change the white balance for natural-looking colors.

Conclusion

The FX520 exceeded our expectations in terms of image quality and features. In the field of touchscreen shooters that was previously dominated by Sony, Panasonic has developed a shooter that can appease even the advanced photographers. At S$649, it will be available in Asia from May.