Wide-angle, 5x zoom, HD video and all this in a camera that’s only two centimetres thick: the Lumix FX40 looks as if it might be the ideal camera, one you can take everywhere that's both perfect for both family use and a compact you can use when your reflex seems too bulky.

Handling

The FX40 is in keeping with what you usually get from the Panasonic brand and there’s a reason for this: it is virtually identical to the previous FX37. The construction is high quality and it has a sobre and pleasant look. Battery and card doors close nicely and the lens is not allowed too much play. The handling is pretty good, the camera fitting nicely onto your thumb and benefitting from the limited weight.


The interface is standard and we have no particular comments to make. This also goes for the functions: everything is there, scene recognition (Intelligent Auto mode) included and all still just as efficient. The only innovation is face recognition (see inset).

Responsiveness is more problematic. Although previous models were in the top half of their contemporaries, the FX40 has not progressed; even worse, it is sometimes even slower than the FX37 (in particular when saving photos). Even the start-up is quite a bit longer (a good second’s difference), which will annoy those who like to keep their camera out of sight and want it to start straight up when they get it out of their pocket or bag.

Image quality

A new 12 megapixel sensor, a new image processing Venus Engine V chip, but a lens totally identical to the previous model. We are then well aware of the image quality; at low sensitivity the image is good and detailed.



It's when you increase ISO that the innovations come into play. Unfortunately, not always to the good. Although the general line is the same (good quality up to 400 ISO, with the beginnings of a loss in precision and progressive increase in noise before a more pronounced degradation at 800 ISO), it is noticeable that the FX40 suffers from marked noise in the shadows, as if excessive accentuation had been applied.

Comparison with 20x30 cm prints taken with the FX37 shows that the advantage is clearly with the older model, less noisy but not less detailed (in concrete terms, after 6 megapixels, it is difficult to see any difference in prints at this size).
Moreover, in artificial light (and therefore inside), the FX40 suffers from marked colour distorsion: the photos are too “warm” – the images seem yellow – and purplish zones are visible in the darker areas, something you don't get with the FX37.


Video is in 720p HD, but still in Mjpeg, with a mono sound and no zoom during recording. Those who want to use this function would be better going for the TZ7, that also has 720 p HD but with the better performance AVCHD codec and also comes with a much better quality stereo microphone.