outdoor scene

The zoom lenses of each camera were adjusted to deliver the same field of view; the Fujifilm F30 crops show a slightly larger field due to its slightly lower resolution.

The image left was taken with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX30 at 6mm f9 and with a sensitivity of 100 ISO; the original JPEG measured 3.36MB. The crops are taken from the top left, centre and lower right areas.

The Panasonic FX30 may have the advantage of an extra Megapixel over the Fujifilm F30, but that doesn’t translate into any additional detail in the crops below – both cameras appear to resolve roughly similar degrees of detail.

It’s also clear the Fuji F30 has the upper hand when it comes to other optical and processing issues. The mountain ridge crop on the F30 is far sharper, and fine detail better preserved in foliage areas on the bottom crop. To be fair we should note the FX30 selected a smaller aperture than the Fujifilm for this shot, so its results here are potentially not as sharp as it could be – but then there’s no manual control over the aperture on the FX30 and this is what it selected given the composition and conditions.

Despite using its lowest 100 ISO sensitivity for this shot, the Panasonic FX30 also already reveals quite apparent noise when viewed at 100%. As we’ll see, this is the major problem facing it in terms of image quality, although to be fair, it’s not isolated to this single model. Most compacts suffer in this regard, although Panasonic is sadly earning a reputation for it. For more outdoor results against the Fujifilm F30, check our FX30 Outdoor noise page.