12 Million Pixels: The Panasonic FX100

Written by Russell Johnson

Veterans Day Shrine - London (Inset enlarged from frame) Photo: R. Johnson

I have never been very much for boxy things: Humvees, large suitcases, Wagnerian contraltos. I own two boxy cameras, both antiques: a 1950s Brownie movie camera and a vintage Crown Graphic, a bulky machine with bellows once favored by cigar chomping, flashbulb-popping guys who sat at the edges of boxing rings and Eisenhower-era CSI agents. In fact, the Graphic was given to me as a teenager by a friend of my father, an ex-boxer turned photographer named Ed, deaf from too many blows to the head and always reeking of stogie. My mother hated him, thought he was a bad influence. Ed taught me photography and a couple of punches with which I wasted the neighborhood bully. I hung up my gloves at age twelve but stuck with photography. I have always favored precious little Leicas with squinty viewfinders handmade by the Good Elves of the Schwartzwald, cameras with smooth, precision gears, burnished surfaces and shutters that click with the uninvasive self-confidence of European maitre d's.

fx100 I now use two digital cameras: a Nikon D80 single-lens-reflex that announces the capture of an image with a serious thwunk, and a new Panasonic FX100 with the caresseable feel of a vintage Leica, a delicate, digital click that almost passes for mechanical and millions and millions of pixels. Nikon has been my image-maker of choice since the late 60s.. I own five of them, film and digital. They are like Volvos, boxy but good. I trust my Nikon, as always, for assignments but I don't want to lug it around with me everywhere I go. But the little Panasonic is, like the little rodent in Ratatoille, by shirt pocket buddy. True, it doesn't have a viewfinder, even a squinty one, and some of its low light pictures look like I feel after a night in Cancun, but it is sharp, 12 million pixel Leica lens sharp. It is, in short, a slight trade off in quality for the joy of taking a picture on a whim, anywhere, without a heavy yoke around my neck.

This little beauty also has a lens that widens out to the equivalent of 28mm on a standard 35mm camera, great not only for interior shots but for creating depth in pictures by putting objects in the foreground. Back in the dinosaur days of film, 28mm was my favorite fixed lens.

The FX100 is also an almost perfect home movie camera. It shoots good standard resolution video and the optical image stabilization is so good, I can use my arms as a camera crane. It is almost equal to the Steadicam I have used with professional video cameras. I only wish the sound were better, so I could use it for video interviews.

If you can possibly wait, don't buy one yet. This week at the Photo Marketing Association convention, Panasonic announced a successor, the FX35 , with a lens that widens further to 25mm and HDTV video at 30 frames per second. No announcements about the crappy sound, however. If they got that fixed, this would be the perfect do-it-all little media device.

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