|  The Panasonic Lumix FX-07 can go anywhere with you and will quite happily slip into any pocket or purse. The front of the camera has a strong, retractable 28mm wide-angle Leica lens, which elegantly slides from the body when the power button is pressed. The front also has a finger grip, which is located on the left side and is a nice shiny chrome finish with a gold strip through the middle. The rest of the body is a matt silver finish, but is also available in sexy black. The top of the Lumix FX-07 has a power button, shutter release button, which has the mode dial surrounding it and an anti-shake button. Also at the top of the camera is the mode dial, which slightly protrudes from the body so that it can be rotated easily with your thumb and viewed from the top.
The Lumix FX-07 is a 7.2 megapixel unit that features a Leica DC Vario-Elmarit lens with a 3.6x optical zoom. And if you lower the resolution you can extend the zoom to 5.5x. This may not seem like a lot, perhaps, but it was enough in my "real world" test to bring a bear high up on a mountainside into good view. Remember, this isn't meant to be a professional camera.
The FX-07 comes with a 2.5 inch LCD monitor on its rear panel that displays 207,000 pixels, and it also features high-speed auto focus, continuous burst shooting mode and, as with most digital cameras these days, you can also use it to record video (with audio), in this case at 640 x 480 pixels (30 frames per second in 4:3 standard mode) or 848 x 480 pixels (30 fps in 16:9 widescreen mode). Panasonic claims you can get up to 320 Shots on a single charge of the lithium ion battery that's included in the box.
The Panasonic Lumix FX-07 digital camera keeps up with the rest of the class pretty well with a start up to shoot time of only 1.5 seconds and only 1.3 seconds between each shot. The shutter lag was the most impressive result at an eyebrow raising 0.6 seconds and these speeds have got to be a huge selling point for this camera along with the great list of features. Panasonic are famous, unfortunately, at producing great digital cameras with poor image results, and the Lumix FX-07 is no exception. There was significant image noise at the lowest ISO setting of 100, which is very rare, and although images were usable, they were still disappointing. As you raise the ISO setting the image noise is also raised and images began to appear as unusable. It is so frustrating to see as the Lumix FX-07 is a great camera and if Panasonic could nail the noise issue their cameras would be up there with the best around.
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