I’ve just published my review of the Panasonic Lumix FX37, a nice camera with an ultra-wide 5X optical zoom lens. Be sure to check out full-sized photos taken straight out of the camera in the Panasonic Lumix FX37 photo gallery as well.

DPInterface Panasonic Lumix FX37 Review

Brad Soo – February 5th, 2009

The Lumix FX37 is Panasonic’s latest offering in the wide-angle compact camera market. The FX37 features 10 megapixels, a VERY wide 5X zoom lens that starts at 25 mm and lots of other features. How does the FX37 stand up against the competition? Find out now.

The Panasonic Lumix FX37 also sells under the name Lumix FX38 so in case you see an FX38 on store shelves and start wondering, they’re the same camera.

Size and Weight

(174.2) 93.8 x 56.8 x 23.6 mm (155 g) – Canon PowerShot SD880 IS Digital ELPH
(177.5) 96.9 x 57.6 x 23.0 mm (131 g) – Casio Exilim Z300
(180.0) 97.7 x 58.9 x 23.4 mm (153 g) – Fujifilm FinePix F100fd
(172.2) 93.3 x 57.9 x 21.0 mm (148 g) – Kodak EasyShare V1073
(176.0) 96.5 x 57.0 x 22.5 mm (130 g) – Nikon Coolpix S610c
(175.8) 93.6 x 60.9 x 21.3 mm (170 g) – Olympus Stylus 1030SW
(168.8) 94.7 x 51.9 x 22.0 mm (125 g) – Panasonic Lumix FX37
(165.8) 93.6 x 57.2 x 15.0 mm (126 g) – Sony Cyber-shot T77
All the weight figures above show when the camera is empty without a battery or memory card

The Lumix FX37 is one of the smaller cameras and the lightest of the bunch. The camera is both smaller and lighter than its direct competitor, the Canon SD880 Digital ELPH.

Box packaging

The Panasonic Lumix FX37 includes a set of pretty standard digital camera accessories:

• Rechargeable lithium-ion battery (with case)
• Battery charger
• Wrist strap
• USB and A/V cables
• Camera software CD (Photo Fun Studio viewer, ArcSoft Media Impression & Panorama Maker, Quick Time and a USB driver)
• User’s manual

Like Panasonic’s other cameras, the Lumix FX37 has 50 MB of internal memory which is useful as emergency storage or holding your favorite photos. If you really wanna go out there and take some photos, I’d suggest getting hold of at least a 2 GB SD card. The FX37 supports SD, SDHC and MMC cards, though with MMC cards, you cannot record movies (too slow). A high-speed SD/SDHC memory card (anything from 60X to 90X speed would be good) helps in making the camera perform faster so consider one.

310 shots – Canon PowerShot SD880 IS Digital ELPH
300 shots – Casio Exilim Z300
230 shots – Fujifilm FinePix F100fd
170 shots – Kodak EasyShare V1073
290 shots – Nikon Coolpix S610c
260 shots – Olympus Stylus 1030SW
310 shots – Panasonic Lumix FX37
220 shots – Sony Cyber-shot T77
All the cameras above are rated with rechargeable batteries according to CIPA Standard

The Panasonic Lumix FX37 comes with a rechargeable lithium-ion battery and a charger. In terms of battery life, the Lumix FX37 is at the top of the list with 310 shots per charge (CIPA Standard), tied neck-in-neck with its direct competitor, the Canon SD880.

Accessories

There aren’t many accessories available for the Panasonic FX37; you’ll find an AC adapter and camera cases.

Camera Tour

If you’ve previously owned or seen any of the Panasonic FX-series cameras, then you’ve seen Panasonic Lumix FX37. The Lumix FX37 looks like and shares the same kind of build quality you’ll get in Panasonic’s other cameras; compact and fairly sturdy (except the battery/card compartment door). As I mentioned, the FX37 is small, light and innocently like any compact camera; you wouldn’t even suspect it contains an ultra-wide angle 5X lens in its tiny shell.

There are very few buttons on the back of the camera and it should be easy to hold with one or both hands. The Panasonic Lumix FX37 comes in your choice of three colors: silver, black or chocolate brown. The one here is obviously the plain silver edition.

The Panasonic Lumix FX37 features a very interesting 5X zoom lens. Unlike other cameras whose lenses start at 35 or 28 mm, the one here starts at an ultra-wide 25 mm! The telephoto end hasn’t been compromised either, in fact, it reaches a bit further than most lenses at 125 mm. That means you’re getting a lens equivalent to 25-125 mm and it has a decent aperture range of f2.8 – f5.9 (a little slow on the telephoto end). The lens has optical image stabilization too, which contributes to reduce blurring caused by camera shake.

To the upper right of the lens is the camera’s autofocus assist/self-timer countdown lamp which helps the FX37 to focus in low-light conditions. Opposite the AF assist lamp is the camera’s flash which is powerful at wide-angle with a range of 60 cm to 6.0 m but slightly weak at telephoto, covering 10 cm to 2.8 m (Auto ISO).

The Lumix FX37 also features a 2.5 inch LCD with 230,000 pixels (the Canon SD880 has a 3 inch one). The screen is sharp and viewable in both indoor (it brightens the image automatically) and outdoor (via the Power LCD function) conditions. The Power LCD function brightens the LCD so you can see the display under bright light – it can be toggled manually or you can set the camera to do it automatically.

There’s a mode switch to the upper right side of the Lumix FX37, which toggles you between shooting and playback mode, followed by a five-way navigation pad:

• Up – Exposure compensation (+/-2 EV in 1/3 steps)/Exposure bracketing
• Down – Macro mode (On, off)
• Left – Self timer (Off, 2 seconds, 10 seconds)
• Right – Flash setting (Auto, auto with red-eye reduction, on, slow sync with red-eye reduction, off)
• Center – Main menu/Set

The camera has an exposure bracketing feature which can take three photos in a row, each with a different exposure value (adjustable to +/- 1 EV in 1/3 steps).

Lastly, we have the DISPLAY and QUICK MENU buttons. The DISPLAY button toggles the information displayed on-screen while the QUICK MENU button which brings up a menu with several shooting settings you can access quickly. The quick menu button doubles to delete photos in playback mode.

On the top of the camera, there are several more items but not too many to cover. There’s the speaker (the four holes) and microphone (the single hole) which you should be careful to not block with your finger.

Towards the right side is the on/off switch, shutter button with a wrapped around zoom lever and the FX37’s mode dial:

• Intelligent Auto – Fully automatic with Panasonic’s “Intelligent” features activated
• Program mode – All the settings are unlocked but the camera still decides exposure for you. Program shift is available so you can select different aperture/shutter speed combinations
• Movie mode
• Scene modes
• Clipboard – Allows you to store and quickly access photos of things like road maps, schedules, etc

Whenever you rotate the mode dial, a virtual on-screen one appears on the LCD which is handy in the dark/so you don’t have to look at the dial itself. Intelligent Auto mode is Panasonic’s replacement for the “regular old” Auto and Simple modes on previous models. In Intelligent Auto mode, the camera activates face detection, subject tracking, Intelligent Exposure, Intelligent ISO, optical image stabilization and backlight compensation are both set to automatic (Thus, the camera handles everything).

There’s nothing on this side of the Panasonic Lumix FX37 but on the other side, there are three connectivity ports covered by a plastic door. They are: HD-component out, A/V out + USB and DC-IN ports. The camera supports USB 2.0 High-speed connectivity.

Finally, we have the battery/memory card compartment and a metal tripod mount down here. The door over the compartment is plastic and spring hinge, and it feels quite flimsy.

Taking pictures (Shooting mode)

The Panasonic Lumix FX37 has a rather detailed display of shooting information which shows camera settings, exposure info, a live histogram and a simple 4-step battery indicator. There are also two framing grid line patterns available along with an on-screen zoom indicator when you use the zoom lens.

The Panasonic Lumix FX37 has a LOT of combinations of image resolution, compression and aspect ratio available that you can choose from. Image resolution choices include 10 MP, 7 MP, 5 MP, 3 MP 2 MP and VGA; while the aspect ratios available are traditional 4:3, print 3:2 or widescreen 16:9). There are two image compression settings available for pictures as well: Fine and Standard.

Selecting lower JPEG image resolutions on the Lumix FX37 automatically enables “Extra/Extended Optical Zoom”, which is essentially cropping, so you can get additional reach without lowering image quality (unlike traditional digital zoom). You can extend the FX37’s zoom range up to 8.9X when you select the 3 megapixel setting on the camera.

Some of the FX37’s main settings can be adjusted via the Quick Menu, but now let’s head on to the full menu of the camera:

• Picture size, quality and aspect ratio
• Intelligent ISO
• ISO sensitivity (Auto, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600)
• White balance (Auto, daylight, cloudy, shade, flash, halogen, custom, white balance adjustment)
• Autofocus mode (Face detection, AF tracking, 11 multi-area, center, center high-speed, spot)
• Quick AF
• Burst mode
• Intelligent Exposure (Off, low, standard, high)
• Digital zoom
• Color mode (Standard, natural, vivid, black & white, sepia, cool, warm)
• Optical image stabilization mode (Off, auto, mode 1, mode 2)
• Minimum shutter speed – Set the slowest shutter speed the camera will use
• Audio record – Record a 5 second audio clip every time a photo is taken
• Autofocus assist lamp
• Clock set

Intelligent ISO mode on the FX37 automatically adjusts ISO according to the amount of movement in the frame. More movement would mean a higher ISO setting to freeze action while a static scene will make the camera choose a low ISO setting. Intelligent Exposure is just like D-Lighting, iContrast and Shadow Adjustment on other cameras, and brightens dark areas of your photo at the cost of some increased noise.

The Panasonic Lumix FX37 has a custom white balance mode as well as white balance adjustment. The white balance adjustment feature isn’t as advanced as on some of Panasonic’s other cameras but it’s still pretty useful. You can adjust the white balance color tone towards the “warm” or “cool” side up to 10 steps in each direction.

The Panasonic Lumix FX37 is mainly a point-and-shoot camera. Besides the program and Intelligent Auto modes earlier, the FX37 also features numerous scene modes such as portrait, soft skin, transform, self-portrait, scenery, sports, night portrait, night scenery, food, party, candle light, baby 1 & 2, pet, sunset, high sensitivity, high-speed burst, underwater, starry sky, fireworks, beach, snow, aerial photo, flash burst, film grain and pin hole.

• High sensitivity mode reduces resolution to 3 megapixels while automatically selecting an ISO speed between 1600 – 6400
• High speed burst lowers resolution to 3 megapixels and allows you to take up to 100 photos at 6 FPS
• Flash burst lowers image resolution and boosts ISO to take several flash photos in quick succession
• Starry sky mode allows you to select a preset long shutter speed (15, 30 or 60 seconds)

The Panasonic Lumix FX37 does display a tooltip for each of its scene modes; telling you a brief description of what every mode is suited for. The Panasonic Lumix FX37 has a good macro mode which allows you to go as close as 5 cm to a subject at wide-angle and from 100 cm at telephoto.

Finally, there’s optical image stabilization on the Panasonic Lumix FX37 with two modes: Mode 1 and Mode 2 (You can opt to turn the system off as well). The image stabilization system is more active in mode 1 to help you compose your photos steadily while mode 2 is more effective, activating the Mega OIS system only when the photo is taken. There’s also an “Automatic” option which allows the camera to pick an image stabilization mode for you, depending on the zoom position of the camera’s lens.

Video Recording

The Panasonic Lumix FX37 features a HD movie mode which enables you to record 720p videos (1280 x 720) at 30 FPS with sound. There are also regular VGA 30 FPS (640 X 480) and WVGA 30 FPS (848 X 480) options available; plus a QVGA resolution (320 X 240) which allows you to choose between 10 or 30 FPS recording. All movies are recorded in Quick Time Motion JPEG format.

There’s a “2 GB per movie clip” limitation on the FX37 so each clip would be around 10 minutes at most in the 720p mode, while using the VGA setting, 2 GB would mean almost 25 minutes worth of recording time.

You cannot use zoom or focus (you can pre set it before recording, however) while recording a movie but you can use optical image stabilization. Why can’t Panasonic just implement its “Extended optical zoom” feature in shooting mode in movie mode so we can have movie zoom?

The Panasonic Lumix FX37 produced good quality movie clips with acceptable sound. I think most people will find the Lumix FX37’s HD movie mode more than adequate for most purposes.

Performance

All performance testing of the Panasonic Lumix FX37 was performed using a high-speed 4 GB SanDisk Ultra II SDHC (90X) card.

The Panasonic Lumix FX37 has a fairly fast startup time of just 1.3 seconds. Autofocus is fast too, the camera takes 1/6 to 1/2 second most of the time to focus; up to a full second in low-light. Low-light focusing was good thanks to the FX37’s autofocus assist lamp.

• Shot-to-shot speed – 1 shot every 1.8 seconds, above average
• Flash recharge time using a fully charged battery – 4 seconds on average

The Panasonic Lumix FX37 features an impressive continuous shooting mode which shoots at 2.5 frames per second at full resolution up to three Fine photos or until the memory fills up with Normal photos. If that’s not enough, a high-speed burst mode (classified as a Scene Mode) shoots at 6 frames per second up to 100 photos (albeit at a lowered resolution of 3 megapixels).

The camera’s lens moves silently from wide-angle to telephoto in under 2 seconds and powers down with the lens at telephoto in 2.5 seconds. The Panasonic Lumix FX37 performs quickly and is above average compared to other cameras; especially with a high-seed memory card.

Image Quality

Let’s check out how the Panasonic Lumix FX37 performs in terms of image quality:

ISO 100 (f2.8, 1/5 sec)

ISO 200 (f2.8, 1/8 sec)

ISO 400 (f2.8, 1/15 sec)

ISO 800 (f2.8, 1/30 sec)

ISO 1600 (f2.8, 1/60 sec)

The Panasonic Lumix FX37 takes good quality photos from ISO 100 to ISO 400 that you can use for mid to large size display and prints. At ISO 800, there’s a lot more visible noise and the effects of noise reduction so you might not want to use this setting too often. The camera’s noise reduction tends to smudge fine details (throughout most of the ISO range) at times though, so you’ve been warned. Hopefully the next generation of imaging processors from Panasonic (Venus 5 and Venus HD processors) will take care of that quibble. At ISO 1600, the image quality is unacceptable as there’s a lot of noise and most detail has already been pounded to mush.

Both barrel distortion and pincushion distortion levels are surprisingly low, considering the amount of zoom of the lens paired with the ultra-wide angle element, 25 mm. Chromatic aberration (color fringing) is just about non-existent since the camera’s processor removes it automatically and there’s little vignetting to be found in photos, a testament to the Leica lens. The camera automatically removes redeye from photos with flash but after the photo is taken and in the event there IS any redeye, there’s no tool in playback to remove it.

Overall the Panasonic Lumix FX37 takes good quality pictures with low amounts of distortion and acceptable amounts of noise to ISO 400 (Though you could push it to 800 if you’re prepared for the results). The only thing you need to watch out for is the camera’s tendency to occasionally smudge details away with noise reduction.

Photo gallery

Check out full-sized photos taken by the camera in the Panasonic Lumix FX37 photo gallery.

Playback

The Panasonic Lumix FX37 has a fairly standard playback mode. You can browse through pictures and play back video with sound. There are three sub-playback modes: normal playback is your typical playback mode; you can also play back photos by category or via the slideshow feature (complete with music and effects).

You can playback photos in sets of 12 or 30 thumbnails or by date in calendar view. Then there are the usual playback features such as print marking, voice clip attachment, image protection and the ability to tag photos as “favorites”. Photos can be enlarged by 16X so you can inspect details or check focus.

The FX37 features several other tools like title editing, resizing, trimming (aka cropping), image leveling, aspect ratio conversion, image rotation and the ability to add text stamps to photos. There aren’t any movie editing features in the camera but you can “grab” any frame from a movie clip and make it into a photo. The FX37 lacks a manual redeye reduction tool in playback as well as Intelligent Exposure in playback.

The Panasonic Lumix FX37 shows you exposure information and shooting details about your photos but lacks a histogram.

Conclusion

The Panasonic Lumix FX37 is a very capable and very small digital camera with 10 megapixels, an ultra-wide 5X zoom lens and 2.5 inch LCD. I would say the FX37 has an advantage over the competition with its 5X zoom lens that starts at 25 mm. If you like snapping landscapes, big group shots or “self portraits” with mates in the pub, then don’t underestimate the potential of this lens – its 3 mm difference makes it about 10% more wide-angle than a conventional 28 mm wide lens.

In addition, the Lumix FX37 offers class-leading battery life figures (along with its competitor, the Canon SD880), quick performance and Intelligent Auto, which is more “automatic” than ever. Did I mention the camera has a HD movie mode as well? Despite that, the downsides to the camera in these areas are the lack of manual control and movie zoom.

Both build quality and image quality of the Panasonic Lumix FX37 were good with some slight quibbles. The FX37 is compact and sturdy everywhere except the battery/card compartment door; and the camera takes good pictures in most cases, save for the occasional detail smudging of the imaging processor. The Venus 4 processor isn’t all that bad though; it does automatically remove color fringing.

The Panasonic Lumix FX37 earns a recommendation from me for offering good image quality in general, great performance in terms of speed, battery life and movie mode and with a really wide 25 mm lens you won’t find on any other camera this small.

What’s hot:

• Very good image quality; automatic color fringing and redeye removal
• 25 mm wide-angle stabilized 5X zoom lens
• Ultra-compact design; very usable 2.5 inch LCD
• Excellent battery life
• Speedy performance, very good continuous shooting
• Many scene modes and Intelligent Auto; custom white balance adjustment
• 720p HD movie mode

What’s not:

• Some detail loss from noise reduction
• No red-eye removal or image brighten features in playback mode
• Flimsy battery/card compartment door
• No manual controls or movie zoom

Recommended Accessories:

2 GB or 4 GB high-speed SD/SDHC memory card

Related articles:

• Panasonic compacts announced
• Panasonic introduces four new cameras, and Power OIS system
• Panasonic Lumix LS80 Review
• Panasonic Lumix FX150 Review
• Panasonic releases six new cameras