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 enlarge | Brand: Panasonic
Category: Photography
List Price: $399.95
Buy New: $244.00
You Save: $155.95 (39%)
New (41) from $244.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Color: Black
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Optical Zoom: 5
Display Size: 3
Maximum Focal Length: 125
Minimum Focal Length: 25
Maximum Resolution: 10.1
Has Red Eye Reduction: Yes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 2.1 x 1 x 3.8
MPN: DMC-FX500K
Model: DMC-FX500K
UPC: 037988987825
EAN: 0037988987825
Release Date: April 21, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 not sharp and noisy April 25, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
I have to agree with the review of "napleswill" and "Inman". The images from the IA (intelligent auto) and standard default program AE mode for indoor shots were not good, bordering on atrocious because of the blurriness and noise. I can only compare it to my previous quite old camera, the Pentax Optio WPi. I'm an amateur, point & shoot kind of photographer so my standards are not high, but the printouts from my HP photo injket and commercial photolab easily shows the low quality of the images. I don't understand how many of the reviews rate the images as "excellent". Be sure you can return the camera in case you still want to proceed with the purchase and even better if you can compare if with comparable cameras from Fuji and/or Canon.
 Excellent Camera with minor issues July 7, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I have always had canon or sony cameras and this is my first interaction with panasonic. I was very skeptical to start with as I had no exposure to panasonic cameras, but I am pleased I made a move. I was tired by looking at over saturated colors of Sony (can someone show them the real "red"?) while I had no complaints for canon products, when I compared same images of canon vs panasonic at major review sites, I liked FX35/FX500 or TZ5 much better - in terms of color and clarity. Also there are a no. of useful features (you can find more details in other reviews) that are not available in canon cameras in the same prize range. Finally I decided to go for FX500. We just returned from Disney vacation over independence day weekend and I have some great images in addition to few cool HD videos !!!
True - the noise levels in low light condition is visible but this one beats all other in day light by miles, and for 2 yr old son who goes to bed at 9 pm this is perfect.
BTW - I decided to go for FX500 and not FX35 because of 2 reasons -
looks (the black model is awesome) and combination of touchscreen and joy stick and not a 4 - way dial (that looks really old). But looking at the results I can now say for sure you can not go wrong with any of Lumix range - mainly FX35, TZ5 or FX500.
Go ahead and get it, you will not regrest it unless night photography is your major use (in which case I doubt any compact digicam would really work for you)
 Poor image quality, especially in low light August 24, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
There are many things to like about this camera (touch-screen controls, manual overrides, large viewing screen, image stabilization, Leica lens) unfortunately image quality is not one.
While daylight exposures at ISO 100 or lower are OK albeit not outstanding, the noise and fuzziness of the images at higher ISO's makes the camera unusable at those settings. The images look great on the camera screen but get them back to your laptop or printer and the lack of sharpness is appalling. It's so bad I thought something was wrong with the camera, but reading all the other reviews I see I'm not alone. I've tried overriding the factory noise reduction setting but to no avail, it produces different results of similarly poor quality. Wish I was still within my 30-day return period.
Not recommended.
Quality of pictures is first-rate! July 14, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I used this camera on a two week vacation and was very pleased with prints of the pictures taken. So, it follows that I have to disagree with those who've written about the quality of the shots taken with this camera!
It's true that "intelligent auto" isn't the best choice for shooting in low light. (That mode, however, works very well for other shots, including those with action that needs to be stopped at high speed.) But, as several have noted on the other side ... e.g. in reviews of the FX500 silver ..., there are other choices in the Mode selection that work very nicely in low light conditions.
I'm very pleased that I choose this camera instead of similar Canon or Sony models!
Noise levels are heartbreaking September 23, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
On the surface, the FX500 seems like an almost ideal point and shoot digital camera with a good balance of pocketability and breadth of function for both novice and more advanced users but it has a significant achilles heel that shouldn't be ignored. The noise levels on photos in even lightly shaded\darkened conditions are horrendous. I have a 3 yr old point and shoot digital camera that handles such conditions significantly better. Details just get blown out and I can't imagine prints ever being worth the time.
I had seen complaints online about the noise but after viewing photos taken by other FX500 owners online which didn't display much noise, I thought this was an issue that could be managed through learning to use the camera, much as with other cameras I've had before this. But I'm sincerely baffled as to how to make the best of it in this case - trying to adjust the noise reduction setting seems to make absolutely no difference in the amount of detectable noise in a photo, whether it's set to +2 noise reduction (the most noise reduction) or -2 (the least). And as for those photos I saw online - the ones which exhibited little or no noise were the ones taken with ample lighting. I should have paid more attention.
So this one is going to get returned. If it weren't for the noise, I think I'd be in love by now. But the noise levels are absolutely a dealbreaker.
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