Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX150

Is interesting how many people make a review about , in this case, a little and portable camera making his judgement like if they are handling an SLR.
Im a profesional photographer and i like to have a nice and portable camera "just in case", and i found this camera ( i had first the 12 megapixel fx100) almost perfect. wonderfull design and remarcable results. everybody knows about noise in this cameras over 400 iso. ALL THE CAMERAS in this range have the same limitation about noise;the small size of the sensor and the "race" of megapixels make this. You can bet that the next step in this class of cameras (2009 generation) will be increase the size of the sensor.
So you should consider the differences between them. Color rendition of the panasonic: beautifull...quality lens.. leica,and deserves the name. video in hd.. love it.. options of settings: a lot... construccion: excelent... easy of use control.. cant beat it, and... RAW format.. oh yes!! the first one in this range with this privilege. if you consider what are you buying (and what for) and how much are you paying (!!) i recomend this camera with out reservations.
Update. Well i still recomend this camera but... with reservations. After some time and many pics i must agree about the noise. More than usual and more than the previous model fx100. If you want to take pictures under a good day light is ok, and the quality of the balance of the flash is excelent, but under low light.. hmmm.. just for the monitor or (nice)"pictoric efect"..





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I purchased this camera for three main reasons its RAW capablities the 14.7 megapixels it offers and the Leica lens. It has a few nice options, one which I particularly like is the SCN mode for low light portraits. It has a delayed double flash which allows you to balance ambient light with the flash for a more pleasing look. The one dissapointment I've been able to discern is its low light capabilities. Anything past iso 400 is virtually useless on this camera. The noise is so pronounced I would steer clear of anything higher than iso 200 if you want to print larger than 8x10. Other than that it should suit my needs. I would not consider this any kind of replacement for a good digital SLR but if you happen to need something small and discreet which allows you to enlarge you pictures beyond 8 x 10 this should fit the bill.

Camera has all the bells and whisles-I don't think the manual is sufficient enough to help u distinguish between all the really good features. it's my fourth Lumix so u probably guessed I like the mfg.-has a good mega pixel rating at 14.7- get the case it sometimes turns on in my pocket with other junk nudging it. If you have large fingers, the camera may be cumbersome to use especially in the one handed mode. Screen always needs to be cleaned because the camera is so small with the screen taking almost all the back side. Screen is good in all except facing bright sun. I believe there is an adjustment for such, but I have not got around to that in the manual. Just came back from Caribbean and the electronic markets down there have not seen this model yet. I believe the pricing thru amazon was competitive. The face tracking recognition feature is cool. I'm a click and shoot photographer and do not want to wait to change settings or go to manual mode to get the perfect picture. I'll shot 10 picts to get one good one and maybe fix it up in PhotoShop. Flash seems better than other comprobables. Batter last a long time on one charge. Charger is compact and takes almost no room in the luggage. Shot over 500 picts in this last week's trip. A lot of good features more than the average Joe or Jill would want.
I like it and would recommend it. Get the case!

This camera has the capability to be a legend. The lens is tack sharp (besides the fact that it only has two aperture settings), and pictures look great in the day time. The auto white balance performance is better than my LX3, and the RAW capability is very cool (now with support in Adobe Photoshop Raw!). The 720/24p video is more than excellent, although it would have been nicer if it were H.264 video. The camera looks great in silver (it is actually a bit of a gunmetal color).

That's where the good ends.

You can see noise even at the lowest ISO setting, and chroma noise renders even ISO 800 images unusable for anything except thumbnails. Before you solely blame the minuscule sensor, remember that Ricoh Caplios have a smaller size sensor that they have been packing more pixels on for a few years now. The high ISO output from a Ricoh Caplio may be lacking in detail, but it doesn't have awful chroma noise infecting every inch of your photograph. Yes, I know the Caplios top out at 10 megapixels, and this camera tosses 15 insane megapixels, but still the density on the Caplio R10 is nearly identical! There's no reason the FX150 should be so underperforming.

The RAW capability is nice to have. However, Panasonic saw it fit to make sure you can't EV bracket in raw. Speaking of bracketing, you can't do +2 and -2 EV bracketing either, which I feel shames both the FX150 and the LX3 (and I'm not the only one who feels this way). Another issue with RAW is that the dynamic range of the camera is so narrow that it really doesn't matter that it is there.

This camera could have been a classic, and I really want to like it. But unfortunately, it doesn't win my heart.

Many reviews point to the limits of this camera.
Yes, a reflex is better in extreme condition,
but for the everyday usage, this 14.7 mega pixel,
wide angle lens compact camera is superb... at this price
and size. Even the movie features are outstanding.