Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39527 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Panasonic
• Model: DMC-FX55EB-K
• Released on: 2007-09-30
• Display size: 3

Customer Reviews

Point & Shoot - but do you really need the 3" screen?
I love photography, and I love to have control over the image-taking process. However, control over a compact digital camera is a rather fruitless affair because there is so much depth of field to the images. So, given the creative limitations that you naturally have with compacts, what should you be looking for? Well, sharp images, good colour, ease-of-use, compactness, good build quality and a nice field of view range.

The stand-out part of this camera is probably the Leica lens. 28-100 is the perfect range. A nice wide angle for indoor and landscape shots up to a very useable telephoto end. Range aside, the lens also has a very good Image Stablisation feature (far better in the lens than on the sensor!). The lens is superb, giving lovely sharpness and colour as well as perfectly reasonable light-gathering ability in low-light conditions. That, coupled with the Image Stabilisation means that the camera is very useful in parties and other low-lit situations - with or without the flash. Speaking of the flash, it does a nice job without washing out all features. No more eyeballs and nostril pics.

Also nice are the three aspects - traditional photoframe and two "widescreen" modes -- very nice for playback on TVs/monitors and impactful panaromas.

The Panasonic doesn't offer you much by way of control, but it does offer PIC modes. These help, but I found that the full-auto iA mode is very good at working out what you're trying to achieve - especially when you enable the face detection mode. The Image Stabilisation works very well and the high ISO noise, although not as well resolved as say the Fuji F31 or Canon models, is not as bad as previous Panasonics ("Venus as a noise" as Bjork once said -- but the Venus III engine is certainly better than previous incarnations). The noise is certainly there at ISO 400, but no more than if you used ISO 400 film. On a 6x4 print, the noise would be more than acceptable. Even upto ISO1250, the noise is perfectly acceptable - especially at sensible print sizes. An ISO1250 shot might not be the best option for a 12x10 print, but then no compact would really give you that without some PC-work (and probably turning to black and white). For real world situations, I'm not put off by the noise.

Despite all these good points, I would recommend the DMC FX33 model over this model (the DMC FX55); they are identical other than a 0.5" larger viewing screen on the 55. The price difference is, I think, too much for very little extra benefit. The larger screen may help if your eyesight is weak, but otherwise, there is nothing between the functionality of the 33 and the 55.

I bought the Panasonic DMC FX33 camera for my parents who wanted a simple to use P&S camera. The 33 camera ticks all the boxes and provides very good images. The included software is more than adequate and also pretty easy to use.

If your photographic needs are to have a neat, stylish camera which takes excellent shots without any user-intervention, the DMC FX33/55 is for you. If you want full creative control, I would say that you won't really get it without going for a DSLR. Depth of field control on a compact with a small sensor is not possible - fine if you want lots of DoF, but not so for shallow DoF. So, buy the camera in the knowledge that it has loads of good points, one so-so point in the noise.

If it's a compact you want, certainly put this on your shortlist and try it out against the competition, but be sure to compare it to its equally good and cheaper stablemate, the DMC FX33!

excellent price
bought this camera to update from my casio 4mp camera purely to have luxury of bigger screen ,pictures do not look any better than my casio but it is very easy to use has limited manual functions you can just leave set on ir mode and let camera do all the work .
price now very good for one of market leading makes so would recommend to anyone looking for good basic camera

Top quality, excellent camera
I received this item within three days of having ordered it from Amazon and I am hugely impressed with it. It's easy to use and the menus are easy to operate. There are 21 scene modes which are simple to access and select.
The iA (intelligent auto) mode is brilliant as it automatically selects the correct mode, exposure, shutter speed etc taking the thought out of the entire process, taking quality pictures every time. The three inch screen is crystal clear and will automatically adjust it's brightness depending on the brightness of your environment.
On the whole, this looks and feels like a top quality well made product and I would recommend it to anyone.