Another Pixelmonster: Panasonic Lumix with 12.2 MegaPix
Japanese CE giant Panasonic just announced their latest addition to their Lumix digital camera family, the DMC-FX100. The company claims the new Lumix is the world’s first 12.2Mp digital camera with a 28mm wide-angle lens. We just heard a similar claim from Casio following the introduction (see Gizmonistas! report below) of their first 12.1 Megapixel compact digital camera. Panasonic’s announcement as well as Casio’s step again raise the question, if it make sense to equip a compact digital camera with a (low-quality) 12 Megapixel sensor. Certainly these cameras can deliver large images - but of questionable quality.
Panasonic’s DMC-FX100 is equipped with a 28mm wide-angle lens featuring f/2.8 brightness, a 3.6x optical zoom and a 12.2Mp CCD.
The 28mm wide-angle lens should allow photographers to easily capture a large group of people, or expansive architectural structures and landscapes with dynamic width and rich perspective. Panasonic squeezed the 28mm wide-angle lens and large CCD into a compact body.
The new lens unit comprises seven elements in six groups, including an EA (extra-high refractive index aspherical) lens and four lenses with five aspherical surfaces to generate high optical performance.
The zoom ratio can be extended up to 7x in 3Mp resolution mode with minimal deterioration thanks to the Extra Optical Zoom.
Panasonic has also squeezed an image stabiliser into the compact DMC-FX100. This minimises the jitter from shaky hands that causes photos to look blurred.
The DMC-FX100 can shoot hi-definition 1,920×1,080 pixel photos that are ideal for full-screen viewing on a wide-screen (16:9) TV.