http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/14/panasonic-lumix-dmc-fx55-reviewed/ Engadget Comments for Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX55 reviewed http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2008 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/14/panasonic-lumix-dmc-fx55-reviewed/http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/14/panasonic-lumix-dmc-fx55-reviewed/
Sensor noise (which results in unuseable ISO800/1600) is a result of using CCD chips that are too small. Small chips have denser and smaller pixels, which means the surface area for light gathering is reduced per pixel, which means higher snr. That's what happens when you try to cram 8MP into a 1/2.5" CCD for marketing purposes. The (discontinued) fuji f30/f31fd uses a 1/1.7" CCD and is only 6MP. Its ISO1600 is comparable to that of entry-level DSLR's.

A good lens is a good lens, which is great.

But there's no reason why Panasonic couldn't put in a 6MP/7MP 1/1.6"/1/1.7" CCD instead of the ridiculous 8MP 1/2.5" CCD to actually produce decent high ISO images. Except for marketing purposes. A high MP sounds so much better, and if they actually increased the CCD size and reduced the MP, they'd be cannibalizing their own entry-level DSLR sales. Note it's the same for every other company, including Canon, Nikon, and Olympus. Put the good wide-angle lens on top of a good sensor, and it'd be an amazing camera.

So no, the drawbacks are not a compromise. It's a business decision and has nothing to do with limitations in technology.]]>Sep 14th 2007 4:49PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/09/14/panasonic-lumix-dmc-fx55-reviewed/http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/14/panasonic-lumix-dmc-fx55-reviewed/
What Point and Shoot compact handles anything close to ISO 800 without noise? Right. Any high ISO mode is more or less a gimmick on a P&S compact as the pixel density on the tiny sensors are so so high, noise is inevitable. Are the results really unusable though? I've seen "unusable" results as 100% blow ups. They look like crap on your monitor. Printed they look like super high ISO images which they're not i.e. 800 looks like 3200! Expecting low noise at high ISO with a pixel dense sensor on a compact camera is a bit unreasonable.]]>Sep 14th 2007 6:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/09/14/panasonic-lumix-dmc-fx55-reviewed/http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/14/panasonic-lumix-dmc-fx55-reviewed/
I mostly agree with you, probably about 95%.

The thing about using a bigger sensor, i think it means you have to use a bigger lens, which is going to compromise size and cost.

But yeah, my dream small digital camera would be a current gen canon G series (the one found in the 7/9 models) with its large 1.8" sensor somewhere around 4-6 megapixels, with a 4-5x wide angle zoom and RAW. that would be an amazing camera.

cheers]]>Sep 14th 2007 7:06PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/09/14/panasonic-lumix-dmc-fx55-reviewed/http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/14/panasonic-lumix-dmc-fx55-reviewed/http://www.dpnotes.com/panasonic-fx55-reviews-and-samples/#bob]]>Sep 19th 2007 1:56AM