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To compare noise levels under real-life conditions we shot this scene with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX500 and the Fujifilm FinePix F30 within a few moments of each other using each of their ISO settings in Auto modes. The lenses on each camera were adjusted to deliver the same field of view. The image left was taken with the Pansasonic Lumix DMC-FX500 at 7mm f4.5 and with a sensitivity of 100 ISO; the original JPEG measured 4.47 MB. The crops are taken from an area just below and to the left of the centre and presented here at 100%.

We've compared the Lumix FX500 against the Fujifilm FinePix F30 below - the F30 is an older model, but remains a benchmark in compact performance, so it's interesting to see how newer models measure-up. Note, with more than 50% more Megapixels than the F30, the FX500's crops show a smaller area.

Sharing the same sensor and image processor as the Lumix FX35, the results below for the FX500 are essentially the same. Both cameras unsurprisingly delivers the best results at their lowest 100 ISO sensitivities, although if you examine shadow areas or portions with flat colour at 100%, you can already see noise and processing artefacts even at this setting. With the sensitivity doubled to 200 ISO, there's a softening across the images from both cameras with the finest details becoming smeared and processing artefacts more obvious.

At 400 ISO there's a significant drop in quality and another big fall at 800 ISO. Fine detail is smeared-out, noise becomes obtrusive and the result ain't pretty for anyone who likes to examine images at 100%. 1600 ISO is for emergency use only, and the less said about the High Sensitivity modes, operating up to 6400 ISO at 3 Megapixels, the better.

This is of course nothing we haven't seen before, and the Fujifilm F30 is no angel either, but like our first real-life results page, it arguably captures similar degrees of real-life detail despite having 6 Megapixels to the FX500's ten. As for the FX500 and FX35, like so many compacts these days, try and use them almost exclusively at 100 ISO, and 200 at a push.

The FX500 does however have one trick up its sleeve that's missing from the FX35: adjustable noise reduction, and you can see the effect by scrolling to the bottom of this page. Alternatively, if you're ready for some more real-life examples across its sensitivity range, including several in low light conditions, check out our Panasonic FX500 sample images page.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX500		Fujifilm FinePix F30
100 ISO		100 ISO
200 ISO		200 ISO
400 ISO		400 ISO
800 ISO		800 ISO
1600 ISO		1600 ISO
3200 ISO not available under these conditions		3200 ISO