Well less than 24hrs after ordering, my camera arrived. Following on from my last  post, I went for the Panasonic Lumix FX550. As to why, I’ll explain a little more. There are masses of compact cameras out there, I could spend a rather large part of my life just looking at cameras, So I narrowed it down  Panasonic.  Why the Panasonic? Its as simple as this, In the camera shop I tried Olympus, Sony, Fuji, Canon, and Panasonic, and preferred the Panasonic. Some one else may prefer the Fuji. I won’t ever recommend a particular camera for a particular person, you HAVE to go and try them for yourself. People are different.

Anyway, back to the camera. There are loads of review sites that go into much more depth, so I’ll keep this brief.

My Panasonic Lumix FX550. Sexy.

First impressions were good. I had already fiddled with one in the shop, so I knew what to expect. The camera feels solid, even for a small camera its has some weight behind it, and no creaking or flexing in the ‘twist test’. The body is metal, and the battery/card door is plastic, but has a positive feel to the catch, and the battery has another catch holding it in.

As for operation, the on/off is a nice clicky switch, not a button. Startup time, like the zoom is fast enough for most people who have better things to worry about. First things was to turn off all the annoying beeps that cameras (even DSLRS) come with.  The FX550 has a touch screen, so things like adjusting the shutter, aparture, exposure, focus, selecting things, etc etc can all be done on the screen rather than through a menu, and I found it perfect for thumb operation with the right hand.  A stylus is provided to stop grasy paw prints on the screen, but I don’t think that will be used. The Usual Program, Apature, Shutter and Manual modes are all there, so no real difference to most cameras in this price range.

There are tons of other things like face recognition, loads of scene modes that I won’t ever use, (the pin hole one is pretty cool though) and it also shoots 720p HD, aswell as a few more conventional resolutions at 30fps with sound.

As for image quality, its more than adequate for what it is. Suffice to say that if you actually use it to shot real everyday situations, as opposed to pushing it to find weeknesses, then its more that capable. Yes, other cameras are available, and like I have said in my last post, I already have a ‘proper’ camera, I just want something to have fun with, and I think this camera delivers.