Our first sample image was taken with the FX30 zoomed all the way in to an equivalent of 100mm. This has allowed us to grab this shot of two boats sailing into the distance. The crops show the optics are very sharp, but the sensor is letting the side down with quite visible noise even at the lowest sensitivity of 100 ISO. Remember this is the FX30 working in bright light at its best quality settings.

Building: 3.41MB, Normal, 1/200, f8, ISO 100, 4.6-16.4mm at 4.6mm (equivalent to 28mm)

The subject matter is more forgiving here, with noise only really apparent in darker areas.

The crops show the lens is also sharp when zoomed-out, even when examining an extreme corner, such as in the crop of the roof tile.

The resulting exposure is natural-looking and very well-balanced, but the increase in sensitivity to 200 ISO has resulted in further noise and noise reduction artefacts – indeed any detail which was present in the crop of the hat has been smeared out.

The optics again do the FX30 proud, but an increase in sensitivity to 400 ISO has resulted in a further fall in overall image quality.

Noise is quite obvious when viewed at 100%, although at least there’s still some detail remaining.

As with the previous example, noise is quite visible when viewed at 100%, especially in darker areas, but there’s still a decent amount of detail remaining. The magazine cover-lines are quite clear.

Like most compacts, these higher sensitivities are best avoided except for emergency use or on smaller prints.

Unsurprisingly the noise levels are higher still than the 800 ISO sample, although on the plus side at least the FX30 isn’t applying too much noise reduction here and losing all the detail.

As with the 800 ISO sample though, this is best used only in emergencies or for smaller prints.