Panasonic DMC-FX07S 7.2MP Digital Camera with 3.6x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Silver)

All of a sudden, this camera turns on, but no buttons work. If you search on google you will find that several have reported this issue. Panasonic must recall this model. I'm never buying a panasonic again. The picture quality, like many reported are very dark and makes everyone look oily ... THE WORST DIGITAL CAMERA I HAVE EVER OWNED. The only reason I got this was because I could put the SD card directly into my panasonic TV. What a bad mistake. I should have just stuck with Sony cybershots which gave great pictures and lasted atleast 3 yrs.

When I got this I took a series of pictures inside with flash/no flash and compared to my old sony cybershot P150.

When I looked at images on camera screens I was suprised. The sony's looked better when I zoomed it in. Sharper, less noise.

However when I uploaded them to PC I found sony's may have less noise and were slightly better with flash. But without flash the Fx07 was the best. All shots in focus and sony's were blurry. Image stabilisation is great for when you can't use a flash inside.

Also, after experimenting with a few settings (switch slow shutter speed to 1/4 or 1/2 (not 1/8) and images were no longer dark in low light. Better still is intelligent ISO which does all this for you. Most of the time it will pick something sensible that results in a reasonably quick shutter speed to prevent shake and acceptable ISO so not too much noise. Hint avoid ISO 800/1250 if possible. Photo's are very noisy at these settings. 400 is OK, 200 better, 100 brilliant but only really can be used outside.

Seems good so far, gonna have to take it somewhere nice and try it outside.

I must say this camera has been a huge disappointment. The noise is terrible as has already been mentioned. Ease of use is very simple though. I'm going to have to save this for just video. Does a decent job of that. I bought it because the wide angle is a very nice a feature & when I was looking at point & shoots a year a so ago there wasn't a whole lot out there. That has changed a bit.

If picture quality doesn't matter to you, than go ahead & buy this camera.

Panasonic DMC-FX07R 7.2MP Digital Camera with 3.6x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Red)
I have own this fabulous little camera for over a year now and I just love how well all of my pictures have turned out. I read in some other reviews how it doesn't seem to do well when it comes to places with limited light. I beg to differ...in Feb. 2008, I went to the rodeo to enjoy the show and and concert. For those of you who have gone before to a concert at the rodeo, you know just how much light is displayed and usually if you try to pictures and/ or record it, the quality is very poor. However, with this little camera, not only were my pictures clear and well-lit, the two video clips I did at the concert came out awesome! I just couldn't believe how clear the bnd looked from where I was sitting and later when I uploaded it to my computer, you could clearly hear all the words of the song being sung. This had been my first time using this option and I just wish I had started using it sooner.

So for those of you who are interested in purchasing this camera, you will not regret it. For being such a tiny camera, the outcomes of pictures and video will leave you pleased.

I know that almost every critical review on this camera talks about the noise. I don't have a FX07 myself, but my boss has one that I used for office work after my Canon A85's CCD crapped out after 3 years of rigorous service.

There is normal noise and then there is FX07 noise. Normal noise (at low ISO anyway) is manageable - throw image into Noise Ninja noise reduction program, Auto-Profile, set Chrominance filtering to Max, fiddle around with Luminance filtering, process, save. Rinse and repeat.

At low ISOs, the FX07's noise is coarse and non-uniform. Which blows the Auto-Profiling - the Luma and Chroma noise level readings come out low - the noise is too coarse to be recognized. Even with maximum filtering in Chroma and Luma, you see lots of huge individual noise specks. So you run up the "Smoothness" to squelch them (like the program recommends) and lose half the detail in an photo. That's at ISO 100.

At higher ISOs, say oh 200 or 400, the noise is even coarser and more uniform. Luma and Chroma estimates remains low (for the ISOs), but the noise covers up the image in huge coarse grains. Any attempt to recover detail from said grains is futile. The image details don't just turn "plasticy", they are obliterated.

Results at ISO800 or 1250 are unusable, but since that's true of even a Powershot G9 I guess I shouldn't complain about that - it's the poor low-ISO results that are the killer.

After some painful lessons, I came to the conclusion that this is at best a 5MP camera (even at low ISO), not a 7MP. By admitting this fact and setting your camera to 5MP, the noise grains become small enough that Noise Ninja actually recognizes them as noise (the measured noise levels actually rise) and you can squelch them without destroying the image. If the image was taken in 7MP, the only real chance for usability is to scale it to 50% - that is turning it into a ~1.8MP image before putting it into Noise Ninja (Noise Ninja NR is theoretically done before downsizing but theory obviously did not factor in the Lumix FX07).

On the positive, it is a OK 2-5MP camera. It is small, colors are good, optical stabilizer works - just read the 4/5 star reviews. But do you want to pay the listed price for a 5MP (at best) camera? As for me, after 4 months of the above torture I went to buy a Canon G9 camera for use at work and home.