Panasonic Lumix DMC FX550 Camera Review

July 26, 2009

The famous Lumix range of Panasonic has always proved to be an excellent choice for photographers going on a holiday or on outdoor trips since the cameras in this league are strong, robust and easy to carry. Enjoy these summers with yet another exciting offer from the house of Panasonic; the Lumix DMC FX550. It is a compact digital camera with reliable performance and options to make the user more comfortable with the latest technology.

DMC FX550 is a 12.1 mega pixel camera with a 5x optical zoom lens offering the best quality pictures and movies. Though sharing the same 3- inch 230k-dot touch screen with the Sony’s T900 and an equal price to that of Sony T90 (£294 in the UK), still DMC FX550 distinctively stands among the rest with the convenience it offers to the user. For example the Side panel of the camera at the rear end comprises of a host of buttons and keys within the range of your thumb that represent an ample control over your camera.

The screen itself is a wonder being able to adjust itself to the various types of lighting conditions, it may be exposed to and also makes use of the 11 different settings available for you to select. With the touch screen, you can not only select the proper settings but can also shoot and play back the images. In the play back mode, the touch screen can produce high resolution and excellent quality images that can be played back with the touch scroll provided.

Moreover, the Easy Organization menu gives you the liberty to organize the images, scroll them, edit, resize and customize them by adding text or titles to the images, mark them as your favorites or can just simply delete them if you desire. Every thing right under your thumb!

Coming to the image processing, the Venus Engine has enhanced the speed of processing to around 2.4x the speed of its forerunner. That’s another point of competition between DMC FX550 and T90. At this speed, it offers picture capturing at the rate of 10fps at an image ratio of 4:3. The astounding Leica DC VARIO-ELMARIT high-quality lens is an ultra-wide 25mm zoom(equivalent to 25-125mm on a 35mm film camera) having F2.8 brightness and the best possible image integration without any deteriorating effects on the image in case of extra zooming.

With the Image Stabilization option to support the image integrity and prevent blurring, the picture eminence is simply brilliant and in case of low light when you don’t want to use the Flash, the ISO sensitivity ranging from 80 to 640 comes to your help.

The camera also enables you to make High Definition movies at 30fps that can be replayed on the desktop in Quick Time. Though the maximum resolution for movies is 1920×1080 pixels, you can reduce it to 848×480, 640×480 or 320×240 pixels in order to record a longer footage in lesser memory space.

Talking of memory, the DMC FX 550 supports SD and SDHC cards. However, an optional removable media with a built in 40MB space is available, so is the optional HDTV cable. Another negative aspect to the camera is the inability to use the amazing zoom option while shooting movies. But all in all, the camera still stands higher than its competitors due to the user friendly features and its efficiency.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC FX550 is a solid 167g digi cam with a powerful look owing to the metal face plate. The traditional appearance may not make it an ultimate style statement but a slim and sleek body gives a sophisticated aura to the gadget. Available in black and silver colour, the camera is well built to firmly fit into your palm.

With features like Intelligent Auto mode that helps the camera to remember familiar faces, the agony of missing spontaneous and beautiful shots is very well avoided. It includes AF tracking for better focus and clearer image, Auto Face Detection and Recognition. Other smart features in DMC FX550 include Mega O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabilizer), Intelligent ISO Control, Intelligent Scene Selector, and Intelligent Exposure, so that all you have to do is target and shoot!