If you’re looking for a decent point-and-shoot camera that is sleek, fashionable and boasts of a wide-angle lens option, high speed focused images and 25 preset scene selections for easy shooting then Panasonic Lumix DMC-FP1A is the camera for you. This camera, which did fairly well in this camera review, is priced at US$150.

THE CAMERA DESIGN

Leading the way for ultra-compact digital camera is Panasonic Lumix DMC-FP1.  If you’re a fan of trendy cameras that fit in your tiny handbag then you’ll like the Panasonic FP1A’s flat design made of high-quality aluminum. It has a slide lens cover that protects the lens from scratches.

MEGAPIXELS AND LENS

The camera boasts of a 12.1 effective megapixel resolution and a Lumix DC Vario branded 4x optical zoom lens. It also has a tight 35mm-equivalent wide angle option which is good for those mountain and beach photos.

In terms of aperture Panasonic DMC-FP1 has a two-step aperture which presents F3.5 and F5.6 at wide angle or F5.9 and F7.1 at telephoto. The focused distance with the camera is 30 centimeters ordinarily but lowers down to 10 centimeters when it is on wide angle mode or Macro mode.

ELIMINATES BLURRY PHOTO

The Panasonic DMC-FP1 isn’t lying when it says it has true optical image stabilization system which means it effectively fights blur caused by shaky hands.

NO VIEWFINDER

Unfortunately, Panasonic FP1 has no viewfinder so you see pictures using the 2.7 LCD display. If you do much shooting under the sun and hate the fact that you can’t see the image in the viewfinder because of the sun’s glare you might want to think twice before buying this camera.

CAMERA FOCUS

In the autofocus system area, the Panasonic DMC-FP1  has a 9-point multi-area autofocus system that includes a single-point ‘high-speed’ focusing mode. This allows you to take group pictures in a party with all of the faces sharply recorded.

Get moving subject photos with the FP1A technology

You can also shoot moving objects and the camera focuses on the subject in spite the motion.

The Sonic Speed AF system in the DMC-FP1 has a maximum speed of approx. 0.33 second for auto focusing. It includes numerous re-engineering enhancements, including a higher-speed actuator, optimized algorithms and parallel software processing. The result is fast and accurate AF performance. You can quickly get moving subjects in focus, such as when you’re shooting sports scenes.

SHOOTING AT NIGHT

For the night shots, this has a typical point-and-shoot camera ISO option of 80-1600 and extends to 6400 equivalent in High Sensitivity mode. It also has fast shutter speed and offers 6 white balance settings via Panasonic’s Intelligent Multiple metering mode.

CAMERA SHOOTING MODE

Although Panasonic FP1 has no aperture priority mode, no shutter-priority, nor any manual mode it has an Intelligent Scene Selection function that automatically subsets common scene modes. It also has a generous 25 scene mode that allows users to tailor the looks of their images.

MAKING MOVIES FROM YOUR CAMERA

The Panasonic DMC-FP1 ’s  high definition movie mode is 30 frames-per-second with monaural sound at resolutions of 1280 x 720 pixels.

EXTRA FEATURES

Panasonic DMC-FP1’s bonus features include a generous 40 MB internal memory. It can also use both SD, SDHC and SDXC memory cards. It has a rechargeable Lithium Ion battery which is rated good for 300 shots, a good number. It comes with a software bundle that has PHOTOfunSTUDIO v5.0, Quicktime, and Adobe Reader.