Panasonic Lumix FT3

It's no surprise to see that the annual wave of waterproof compacts has washed up the Panasonic Lumix FT3—a new and improved version of the brand's all-terrain camera. Like the FT2 only brought minor changes to the original FT1, the FT3 is clearly a variation on the same theme. It's a little tougher than the FT2 (waterproof to 12 metres), has a few less pixels, a slightly different design ... oh, and there's a built-in GPS.

Handling

While the FT2 was very nearly identical to the FT1, some more notable changes have been made in the FT3. It still has the same robust, 'Land Rover' style design as the previous two cameras, but the design and handling aren't quite the same. For starters, a small, rounded grip handle has appeared, on which the middle finger rests perfectly naturally. Next, the mode-selection dial has been ditched and replaced by a button and the video-record button has been moved next to the shutter-release on the top of the camera (in line with other cameras in the Lumix range). One more annoying change is that the zoom controls have been moved onto the back of the camera so that instead of zooming with your index finger (with the middle finger and thumb gripping firmly onto the camera), you now have to use your thumb to work the zoom buttons. That obviously means you won't have quite such a strong grip on the camera while zooming ...  it's a good job there's that small grip handle now, then!


One good thing about this camera is that the battery, memory card and connections have all been grouped together in one single compartment on the right-hand edge of the camera. Apart form the fact that it's reassuring to have the same level of protection for all these features (the twin locking system), this compartment unfortunately can't be opened when the camera is on a tripod. Admittedly, that won't be a big deal for many users, but don't forget that a tripod can come in handy for night-time photography or for still-life scenes.

One bad thing about this camera is its low-quality screen. The FT3 has the same 2.6-inch (6.7 cm) screen with 230,000 dots as seen in the FT2. Although the viewing angles are excellent, colour reproduction is verging on crazy (deltaE = 10) and the grey scale is no better. In fact, even without a sensor, you can see that there's a problem as it's pretty much impossible to tell a light grey apart from white. We think it's difficult to justify such a low-quality screen in a £300 camera.

Finally, the new GPS is nothing to write home about. As expected, it's slow to find locations and it runs down the battery.

Responsiveness

Good news—the FT3 has been completely revamped on this front. Start-up takes under two seconds, which isn't excellent but is still perfectly acceptable, but the time it takes to save a photo has been halved. In fact, with just 1.2 seconds to wait, the FT3 is one of the best compacts around for speedy photo saving. The burst mode is pretty good too, shooting 2.5 fps for six frames. Cameras with CMOS sensors can clearly do better, but the new 'high-speed' CCD can still hold its own.

The autofocus has had the same treatment as the rest of the cameras in Panasonic's 2011 Lumix range, and now focuses extremely quickly in good light but proves much slower in low-light conditions.

Picture Quality

There are no surprises in this section of the review. The lens is the same as in previous models of the camera and the sensor is a 12-Megapixel CCD, which although has a new design (twice as many signal channels for faster data transfer), brings no major changes when it comes to capturing light.



The ISO sensitivity tests are fairly typical stuff, with granularity visible at 400 ISO and becoming heavier at 800 ISO (where smoothing is also visible and purple patches appear in dark or shadowy areas).


The lens gives accurate results in the middle of the frame in wide-angle mode. Quality isn't quite as good around the edges though, and also noticeably drops in telephoto mode. On the whole, you're better off not printing shots any larger than 8" x 10" (20 x 27 cm), but prints this size are still very good quality. In fact, compared with other current waterproof compacts, the FT3 probably has the best lens of the bunch.

Video

There are two ways of seeing things here. The optimist would stress that the FT3 films Full HD video in the AVCHD format, which is something of a first for a CCD sensor thanks to doubled signal channels and some impressive electronics. The picture is sharp, the optical zoom is active and very quiet and the continuous autofocus works well.

The pessimist would point out that there's no point having great picture quality without high-quality sound to match. The FT3 records mono sound of a quality that leaves something to be desired. Anyone who'll be adding a soundtrack to their videos afterwards will be perfectly satisfied, but to capture the atmosphere of that beach bar or the sound of your kinds splashing around, the FT3 doesn't do a very good job. Here too, on a £150 compact that's no big deal, but it's a bit more difficult to swallow in a high-end model.

What's more, the field covered in video mode is much tighter than the field of view in photo mode. At the shortest focal length, the horizontal angle loses almost four degrees and, with the switch to 16:9, the equivalent focal length climbs from 28 mm to 33 mm!