Our first shot was taken with the FX500 fully zoomed-out to an equivalent of 25mm on a sunny day at a sensitivity of 100 ISO – as such, it represents ideal conditions. Lower water levels meant we couldn’t grab the same composition seen in our FX35 Gallery, but the same effect is possible with the extra-wide 25mm coverage. Optically the lens is performing well here, but look closely at the crops and there’s already some processing artefacts visible even at 100 ISO.

Landscape: 4.82MB, Program mode, 1/640, f3.5, ISO 100, 4.4-22mm at 4.4mm (equivalent to 25mm)

						Our second shot was taken under similarly bright conditions at 100 ISO, so again represents the FX500’s best potential quality. Once again there’s no optical issues with the lens to mention and there’s plenty of detail in there if you’d prefer to increase the sharpening by a notch to coax it out. But doing so will also make the faint smattering of noise and processing artefacts that’s already visible that more apparent.

Landscape: 3.84MB, Program mode, 1/800, f8, ISO 200, 4.4-22mm at 22mm (equivalent to 125mm)

Again there’s no optical issues with the lens, but the increase in sensitivity has certainly had an impact on noise and processing artefacts.

Speckles and smearing of fine detail is apparent in the crops when viewed at 100%.

The FX500’s face detection easily locked-onto the subject and the camera’s done a good job of balancing natural light with that from the flash.

Even with the aperture wide open at its maximum focal length though, the depth of field remains quite large.

The lighting and subject matter here can be quite forgiving on noise and processing artefacts, although look closely and you’ll see the drop in quality resulted from the increase in sensitivity.

However the optics again perform well and at 5cm you can enjoy some decent close-up results.

The camera locked onto the subject, although at 400 ISO, there’s significant noise and processing artefacts when viewed at 100%.

Flat areas of colour show noticeable speckling, while fine details have been lost due to smearing from processing.

Pixel peepers will notice greater smearing and loss of fine detail when viewed on-screen at 100%, although it has to be said this and the examples at 400 ISO can be acceptable at smaller print sizes. Just don’t look too closely.

Noise has now become quite obtrusive with a significant loss in fine detail. Like other compacts, 1600 ISO on the FX500 remains an overly ambitious sensitivity, that’s best used for emergencies only.

Ultimately as expected, the image quality of the FX500 is essentially identical to the Lumix FX35, which shares the same sensor and image processor.