Video: Hands-on Panasonic's DMC-FX500 with 3-inch touchscreen and 720p video

No doubt, we liked Samsung's 10 megapixel NV24HD camera with 720p video. But we loves us some Panasonic DMC-FX500. It shoots 720p video and 10 megapixel stills just like its Korean competitor only with a 5x, 25-mm wide-angle Leica DC Vario-Elmarit lens instead of the 24-mm 3.6x zoomer found on the Sammy. Oh, and it brings a bigger 3.0-inch touchscreen too. With the unit already making its way out the door in the US for about $400, we're just waiting to hear about the image quality before grabbing one for ourselves. Reviews please, somebody... Bueller? Video hands-on after the break.

[Down @ Apr 18th 2008 11:38AM]

Do Pannys still record movies in .MOV format?

Hopefully not, cuz thats the ONLY reason why I didn't buy one.

[TedB @ Apr 18th 2008 11:43AM]

Yep, this one still uses the "QuickTime Motion JPEG" video format.

[LondonConsultant @ Apr 18th 2008 1:25PM]

Well, it looks like there's an example MOV video (1280x720, 30 FPS) from this compact at:
http://panasonic.co.jp/pavc/global/lumix/popup/fx35_motion_picture_mode/P1000566.MOV

[LondonConsultant @ Apr 18th 2008 1:28PM]

Ignore my link above: it was on Panasonic's FX500 page but, from the link address, it looks like just a FX35 video...

[Casper42 @ Apr 18th 2008 1:29PM]

Ugh, Quicktime - thats a deal breaker.

DIVX or XVID or h264 would have been a better choice IMHO.

[phanbouy @ Apr 18th 2008 1:35PM]

casper, quicktime is a container, not a compression algorithm. quicktime was one of the first adopters of h264. kthxbai

[OSnix*-geek @ Apr 18th 2008 3:46PM]

I agree with phanbouy... it's just a container people...and guess what your AVC, DIVX, MPEG-4... blah blah..is based on QUICKTIME's "container"... what a shocker!

This issue with quicktime is unfounded and IGNINT (yes I said that!)

[phanbouy @ Apr 18th 2008 3:55PM]

i think it's because of apple association.

reminds me of this satire cartoon i read that shoes a fat redneck couple in a supermarket picking out coffee and the husband reads "100% arabica coffee. WHAT? I'M NOT BUYIN NO A-RAB COFFEE"

[macegr @ Apr 18th 2008 7:53PM]

I have another HD camera that records in the MOV container. That's really not a huge hardship. If you have a Mac, of course it's a no-brainer to use iMovie. But on Windows, I use MP4cam2AVI (http://sourceforge.net/projects/mp4cam2avi/) in Expert mode and select a direct copy (no transcoding). The resulting file is the same quality as the original, and can be edited in other applications. I currently use VirtualDub for re-encoding, scaling, trimming, and a few filters if necessary. But you could use whatever movie editing application floats your boat. If you use Windows Movie Maker, be aware that Microsoft has crippled its ability to output HD video on anything except Vista Ultimate.

[Mehul @ Apr 18th 2008 11:40AM]

Why bring touch screens on these things?? I want my camera to have easily accessible dedicated buttons like flash, ISO, self timer. Most the touch screen cameras I have seen are not at all user friendly.

That being said, 5X zoom with 25mm sounds good. We'll have to see how it actually performs.

[James @ Apr 18th 2008 12:16PM]

The touch screen on this is helpful with the auto focus, you get to just touch the item you want the auto focus to work on.

Looks like there is dedicated buttons for the other stuff.

Seems like a neat camera to me.

[cheaplikeafox @ Apr 18th 2008 3:12PM]

mehul, it does have buttons on the sides to navigate flash, iso, self-timer etc...so it has both a touchscreen and buttons which makes it pretty easy since you can use the touchscreen for focusing

[Dustin Wyatt @ Apr 18th 2008 12:17PM]

Don't every say Sammy. Ever.

[Dustin Wyatt @ Apr 18th 2008 12:19PM]

*ever

[phanbouy @ Apr 18th 2008 1:34PM]

thanks for the correction. i was all confused until you corrected Ever as ever.

[Lowest Ranked @ Apr 18th 2008 1:44PM]

Actually, its spelled ever.

[Thermopyle @ Apr 18th 2008 1:47PM]

What about when I corrected "every" as "ever"?

[phanbouy @ Apr 18th 2008 2:10PM]

play it again sammy. ever.

[W00ter @ Apr 18th 2008 12:21PM]

Amazon says US availability is June 20, 2008. There is also a black version, that model ends with "K."

[Jakob Henner @ Apr 18th 2008 12:21PM]

Looks nice, especially the 720p recording.

[tommykatz @ Apr 18th 2008 12:37PM]

i for one have been waiting for a touch screen camera. for my point and shoot that is. i gave a higher end camera i use for portfolio shots for work. But sometimes for vacations or the holidays or things like that i want a simple to use camera that takes decent pics.

[Pete @ Apr 18th 2008 12:42PM]

What is the point of 720p mode if it still uses .MOV as the format?!?

Come on Panasonic! You even sell AVCHD camcorders... can't you use the same processor in this camera?

No go on this until they record in the AVCHD H.264 standard (like the Sammy does at least).

[OSnix*-geek @ Apr 18th 2008 1:16PM]

Why do all of you think .MOV doesn't support 720p h.264... I use that res, with that codec in .mov quicktime files ALL DAY LONG... and they look freaking great!

BTW MPEG-4 which is AVC is based on... is BASED ON FREAKIN QUICKTIME...

As hard as it is to believe... Apple played a big part in h.264 picking up traction.

[Wwhat @ Apr 19th 2008 7:42PM]

Quicktime's playing ability is the slowest ever on a windows computer, I'm really astounded by it every time, these people should learn how to write fast code already.
And OK even if .mov is a container, the question is is this MJPEG or H.264?
Obviously MJPEG is much easier to implement because it's just a lot of consecutive jpegs strung together, whereas other formats need some specialised circuitry.

[Ridgecity @ Apr 18th 2008 1:15PM]

I got a panasonic and all the shot are very blurry...

[phanbouy @ Apr 18th 2008 1:16PM]

probably because one of your eyes is punched out

[Lowest Ranked @ Apr 18th 2008 1:45PM]

I'm thinking he's the black guy.

[TIMMAH! @ Apr 18th 2008 1:55PM]

Hey does anyone have a good AVCHD workflow suggestion? My friend just got a new Panny HD camcorder and is having a hell of a time getting video edited. Apparently the bundled software that came with the unit doesn't work at all.

[David Goldwasser @ Apr 18th 2008 2:23PM]

Here is a link to my comments on camera, and sample pictures/videos.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1033&thread=27435033

Since I normally use a DSLR, all of the shots look noise, but is what I expected. Pretty nice in bright light, not so good in dark. I'm happy with the video quality, but disappointed that I can't zoom, and that focus is fixed. Despite fixed focus things look OK, but it just seems needles to do this.

Two big selling points for me were that it had wide angle lens, and that it made use if the touch screen to allow me to set focus point. Target tracking is really cool. You can lock in on your two year old running around the room and it will keep him in focus until you take the shot. Hmm, why not for video! I also like that it has full manual controls that are easy to use.

[rtdunham @ Apr 18th 2008 3:10PM]

no optical viewfinder is a disappointment.

[turban @ Apr 18th 2008 3:13PM]

puts my razr camera to shame.

[hq @ Apr 18th 2008 3:37PM]

oh yes, please bigger touchscreens on the cameras and even less battery life....

[Danny @ Apr 18th 2008 4:27PM]

>With the unit already making its way out the door in the US for about $400

Is the unit making its way out the door? I've been waiting for weeks. But I'm disappointed that there is no zoom in 720p. The TZ5 might be the one after all.

[ecobore @ Apr 18th 2008 5:47PM]

you can bet your butt that it is going to be super noisy over 400iso - All Pannys are unfortunately... Time they rectified that!

[peestandingup @ Apr 18th 2008 8:25PM]

Uh, no zoom OR focus when doing video? What's the freakin' point??

Yeah, you can keep it, Panny.

[Wwhat @ Apr 19th 2008 8:15PM]

Yeah that does seem a little odd and outdated, surely we have the technology by now? How come so many cameras can't zoom while doing video, why don't they make some parallelism on their chips.
But no zoom and no focus, I dunno.. that's just not right.

[Mike @ Apr 19th 2008 12:16AM]

THIS is the camera I want. A small point and shoot camera with many manual options. There's more details on it at this link.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0803/08031802panasonicfx500.asp

I actually like them using the .mov files, I find them to be higher quality. Sure, they might be a little but more of a pain in the ass to deal with. But I'll work with it.

[DP @ Apr 21st 2008 10:22AM]

It is available for sale now - http://www.mangoxl.com/blog/?p=6

[riko @ Apr 22nd 2008 2:35AM]

I like the part which is the 25-mm wide-angle! Good shot for scenic view!