Panasonic Lumix FX90

While the FX series was once Panasonic's flagship compact range, it's been somewhat overshadowed by the higher-end TZ superzoom series and the cheaper, lower-end FS series. However, Panasonic is determined to make the Lumix FX90 stand out as a high-tech compact, so while the main tech specs are nothing new (24-120 mm zoom, 12 Mpx CCD), this updated camera has a Wi-Fi chip, so you can publish photos online or to send them to a smartphone or touchscreen tablet.

Handling

Last year, Panasonic streamlined its range of FX cameras with the FX77, which combined the slim design of the FX66 and the touchscreen interface of the FX700. To that basic formula, the FX90 brings Wi-Fi connectivity. This in turn adds extra bulk to the right-hand side of the camera's screen, and also sees the arrival of a Wi-Fi button.

The FX90 looks similar to its predecessors, but this tired-and-tested design is starting to show its age. The FX90 is clearly a descendant of the FX100 and the FX33, but the design that we liked a lot just a couple of years ago is starting to look dated. In today's market, pocket-sized mini-bricks with rounded edges are ten a penny, and the chrome-effect detail around the lens is nothing out of the ordinary.

One rather annoying change, however, is that the zoom control around the shutter release button has been ditched in favour of a minuscule lever on the top corner of the camera, which is a bit fiddly to use.

The screen is fairly pleasant, with decent viewing angles and a sufficiently high resolution to keep things looking sharp. Just bear in mind that colours aren't reproduced accurately when you're viewing back photos—check the results on a calibrated computer monitor before you delete your snaps. What's more, light greys tend to look white and mid-tones have slight a blue tinge onscreen.

The touchscreen interface works well. You don't have to press too hard on the screen and the movement of your finger is tracked reasonably accurately—even if it's still a far cry from the sleek, finger-gliding controls you'd get from a capacitive touchscreen. Note that you can chose two of your most frequently used settings to add to onscreen shortcut buttons in shooting mode (ISO, flash, self-timer, resolution, stabilisation etc.).

In playback mode the menu becomes more confusing. The problem is that there are just too many options onscreen, with buttons to switch back to shooting mode, set the image playback layout (slideshow, calendar etc.), access the menu, display thumbnails, delete a picture and access the photo editing options (skin smoothing, adjusting brightness and saturation, and the super-cure stamp tool for decorating shots with little hearts, paw prints, flowers etc.). All of these options end up covering the image in a whole load of icons that aren't always that explicit.

Whatever mode you're in, the menus can be rather tricky to get your head around at first, as they're entirely icon based. Since there's no text explaining each mode or setting (see inset), this isn't the most user-friendly menu around.

The Wi-Fi functions can be a bit laborious too. First of all, you have to install a specific application on your computer if you want to transfer pictures to it wirelessly (you can't just use shared folders in Windows). Similarly, you have to sign up to Panasonic's Lumix Club to set up the picture publication options in the camera (for uploading shots to Facebook etc.). There's an option for sharing pictures with a smartphone or tablet too, which is relatively handy and well designed, although, again, it's a bit painstaking to set up.

Instructions for setting up the Wi-Fi functions in the Panasonic FX90 - apparently that's a 'Quick Start' guide!

Responsiveness

The FX90 is like an old diesel motor in that it's slow to start up but does a good job once it gets going. With 2.7 seconds before you can take a first photo, it's a little bit slow for a superzoom compact, and actually pretty poor compared with basic pocket snappers like the Canon Ixus 310, Sony TX9 or many other compacts.

Once it gets going, though, the FX90 is like a different camera. The autofocus is fast in all conditions, photos are saved quickly, and the burst mode of three frames per second for two seconds is perfectly good. In fact, the FX90 is on the better side of average in most respects, it's just the start-up time that lets it down

Picture Quality

The FX90 has a 12-Megapixel sensor. However, instead of using the very nice CMOS sensor seen in the FZ150, Panasonic has chosen to stick with high-speed CCD used in the FT3. We therefore wouldn't expect sensitivity to be a strong point for this camera.

In fact, it turns out that the ISO test results are slightly worse than those obtained with the FT3! Smoothing is stronger at 800 ISO—so much so that the contour lines on the map in our test scene are barely even visible. Compared with the FZ150 or the best compacts of the moment, there's easily one ISO settings' difference in quality. Settings above 800 ISO aren't for the faint hearted.

Compare the Panasonic Lumix FX90 to other cameras in the Face-Off

Lenses are usually pretty good in Panasonic compacts, and at wide-angle settings, the FX90 doesn't disappoint. The image isn't perfect—we've definitely seen sharper results in the middle of the frame—but this Panasonic lens has the advantage of consistency. In other words, the edges of the frame hold up very well indeed.

The lens isn't as sharp at telephoto settings, however, particularly in the centre. While quality is still consistent across the frame, on the whole, the Canon Ixus 310 HS does a better job.

Video

Like the FT3, which has the same sensor, the FX90 films Full HD video at 25 fames per second. The picture is reasonably detailed and exposure is decent enough, even if the dynamic range could be better (bright, light shades tend to be overexposed). Otherwise, speckling noise is kept under control nicely. In fact, picture quality really isn't bad at all.

The real problem is the sound, as the FX90 only has one microphone (which means mono sound), which is OK quality but it's certainly nothing special. That's particularly disappointing since Panasonic was the first brand to bring decent stereo sound to a compact camera. In fact, if stereo sound was such a strong selling point for the TZ7, it's difficult to see why that should no longer the case two years down the line with the FX90 ...