3.7The 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.
The Panasonic and Samsung both have a decent set of manual controls, but the Samsung is a compact ultra-zoom, a camera that packs a 10x zoom into a relatively small space. This blows away the Panasonic's comparatively paltry 5x, though both are substantial wide-angles lenses.
Performance wise, the Samsung outdoes the Panasonic in most situations. The only tests where it scored lower was image noise and video color accuracy. The noise difference is due to the Samsung's noise levels massively increasing at ISOs 800 and 1600, though it was decent below that.
Both cameras have pretty good manual controls, but the Panasonic's are markedly better. The Samsung has a manual exposure mode, but this will only let you set the aperture to a maximum or minimum, and it lacks aperture- or shutter-priority modes. It also has auto exposure bracketing (like the FX580), but again with fewer options. The Samsung has some of the manual controls that we crave, but not to the same extent as the rather impressive Panasonic.
Due to its high zoom ratio and overall better performance, the Samsung is perhaps more of a multi-purpose shooter with a good amount of manual controls. However, if you want to be able to tweak and twiddle to your hearts content (which we sometimes do), then the Panasonic is decent choice.
