Panasonic DMC-FX580 Digital Camera Review

Panasonic DMC-FX580

Digital Camera Review

3.7 The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX580 is a $400 point-and-shoot that brings extensive manual controls, a touch-screen interface and wide-angle lens to the table. While we were highly impressed by the level of control while shooting, the image quality was overall sub-par.
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Sample Photos  
x Video Page 7 of 16 Playback x

 

Sample Photos


In the following sample images, clicking on the larger image will download the full resolution original. Each photo is accompanied by three actual-size crops.

Landscape Sample
x Focal length: 4.4mm
ISO: 80
Aperture: f/3.2
Shutter speed: 1/640

Taken outdoors, on a partly cloudy day. Shot in program mode with automatic white balance.
x x x Even though it was fairly bright out, the camera didn't use a smaller aperture, though it could have. The highlights in the clouds blow out.

 

Macro Sample
x

Focal length: 4.4mm
ISO: 80
Aperture: f/2.8
Shutter speed: 1/250

Just after a rainstorm, this water drop was suspended from a statue's nose, and provided a gorgeous macro shot.


Shot in program mode, with macro enabled, and a manual white balance.

x x x The maximum aperture of f/2.8 allowed for a very sharp area at the center of the image, and a soft background.

 

Noise Reduction Sample
x

Noise reduction -2

Focal length: 11.3
ISO: 1600
Aperture: f/4.0
Shutter speed: 1/4


These three shots were all taken under exactly the same shooting conditions, but with different levels of noise reduction. From this you can see if ramping it up improves anything dramatically.

In our opinion, the noise reduction does improve the image noise levels, but the sharpness loss is dramatic, especially at +2.

x Noise reduction 0
x Noise reduction +2
x x x

Noise reduction (from the left)
-2, 0, +2

 

Color Sample
x

Focal length: 6.8mm
ISO: 80
Aperture: f/8
Shutter speed: 1/2

This shot shows a
group of familiar objects with immediately recognizable colors. It was shot
under a combination of fluorescent and incandescent illumination, using
automatic white  balance.

x x x In our testing, the camera struggled with dark greens, blues and oranges.

 

 

 

Still Life Examples


Click on any of the images below to see full size shots of our still life setup, taken at each available ISO for all our comparison cameras.

  Still Life Comparisons
  x x x x
  Panasonic FX580 Canon SD970 Samsung HZ15W Sony T900
ISO 80 x x x x
ISO 100 x x x x
ISO 200 x x x x
ISO 400 x x x x
ISO 800 x x x x
ISO 1600 x x x x
ISO 3200

x x

NOTE: The images above are not used in our testing or scoring, but are included here to show real-world examples of the differences between cameras at the various ISO settings.

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