Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS15 -Black – A Mixed Bag In Terms For Performace

Sum and Substance:

Thumbs Up:

Inexpensive, good features offered at a low price, 5x wide angle zoom lens.

Thumbs Down:

Low in performance.

Inside the Trunk:

Drivers & Utilities, A/V cable, USB cable, Battery case, Hand strap.

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS15 (black)  is a 12.1 megapixels camera. Light sensitivity options include ISO auto (1600-6400), ISO auto, ISO 1600, ISO 800, ISO 400, ISO 200, ISO 100, ISO 80.

Shooting programs included are pet, snow, baby, candle, scenery, fireworks, film grain, flash burst, sports mode, party/indoor, self-portrait, night portrait, food, sunset, pin hole, soft skin, starry sky, night scene, aerial photo, portrait mode, hi-speed burst, high sensitivity.

It has 4x digital zoom and special effects include warm, cool, vivid, sepia, black and white, neutral. The videos are stored in MJPEG or QuickTime format and images are stored in JPEG format. For video, the resolutions are MPEG – 848 x 480, MPEG – 320 x 240, MPEG – 640 x 480. Supported flash memory cards are SD Memory Card and MultiMediaCard. It has 50 MB of integrated memory.

For photos the resolutions are JPEG 640 x 480, JPEG 1600 x 1200, JPEG 1920 x 1080, JPEG 2048 x 1360, JPEG 2048 x 1536, JPEG 2560 x 1440, JPEG 2560 x 1712, JPEG 2560 x 1920, JPEG 3264 x 1840, JPEG 3264 x 2176, JPEG 3264 x 2448, JPEG 4000 x 2248, JPEG 4000 x 2672, JPEG 4000 x 3000

Lens are Zoom lens – 5.2 mm – 26 mm – F/3.3-5.9 with focal length of 5.2 mm – 26 mm. It has minimum focus range of 19.7 in and macro focus range of 5cm. Lens aperture is F/3.3-5.9, has 5x optical zoom.

Additional features include DPOF support, Audio recording, Face detection, Date/time stamp, Resizing an image, Built-in speaker, PictBridge support, Face Detection AF/AE, Built-in help guide, USB 2.0 compatibility, Digital noise reduction, Digital image rotation, RGB primary color filter, Camera orientation detection, In-camera red-eye removal, Audio recording, Resizing an image.

LCD display of the camera is TFT active matrix – 2.7 inch big. Connectors on the camera include Composite video/audio output, USB and DC power input and there is an expansion slot for SD Memory Card

The camera is powered by li-ion rechargeable battery – 940 mAh

Razzle Dazzle:

You get three color options for the FS15 of black, blue and silver. We got a black model in our test centers which had a black chrome accent to it. There is nothing spectacular about the look of the phone; the blue model looks the most beautiful of all three. The camera is light and thin so it won’t be much struggle putting it in pockets or a tiny bag.

Inside Dope:

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS15 is a simple camera with simple functions and so is the photo quality, quite simple. It is for newbies or for people who don’t look for high end features in a camera. Considering the price that it is offered for, this is a good camera for basic photography. The features worth mentioning here are 5x zoom and 29mm-equivalent wide-angle lens. Shutter lag makes this camera churn inferior quality photos but if your prints are small, then you won’t be disappointed by this camera’s photos.

The controls on the camera are simple and it shouldn’t bother you too much if you are used to using digital cameras. On the top there is a power button and shutter release and zoom ring sit right next to it. There is also a button for Panasonic’s Intelligent Auto mode (iA) which is decides the best Scene mode and is used resolving issues of brightness, focus and blurring. The iA button also lets you switch between movie and photograph mode.

You don’t get many controls over the shutter speed or aperture since this camera is has more emphasis on the auto shooting mode. In the normal picture mode there are all the settings that you usually find like color effects, light metering, focus, white balance, exposure and ISO. When it comes to sensitivity, the quality of photos is really bad at ISO 1600, so we would recommend you to use ISO MAX 400 for in good light conditions and ISO Max 800 for conditions of dim light.

There are 26 scene modes in the FS15 like landscape, portrait, night scenery, etc. If you use options like Film Grain and Pinhole then the shots are limited to 3 MP or less. You can also shoot movies with the camera through but the VGA quality is passable and you cannot use the optical zoom.

The FS15 takes two seconds to boot and takes about 3.1 seconds without the flash and with the flash turned on it takes about 3.3 seconds. In bright light conditions it takes about 0.7 seconds from focus to capture and in low light conditions, it takes about a second more. These times are a bit high as compared to what other cameras in the market are capable of. The only thing that didn’t disappoint us was the burst shooting speed which is at 1.8 frames per second.

As said earlier, the camera is good for light photography and heavy users or shutter bug freaks will stay away from such devices. Even at ISO 400 there is yellow coloring and visible noise. Picture quality is the worst at ISO 1600 and they are unusable with the yellow splotches and lots of noise. Photo quality is the best when in Macro mode, the pictures are sharper at the center but the corners suffer with softness.

Nitty Gritty:

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS15 is good for basic photography. Considering the price we were happy with the photo quality and performance. However stay away from this camera if you take a lot of pictures with the subject in motion, take large prints or do a lot of low light shooting. The phone is extremely poor in these three departments.