Product Tour
The DMC-FX48 looks like a basic point-and-shoot. It's average sized; it could easily fit in your pocket, but it would likely be noticeable. The flash is to the left and the autofocus illuminator is off in the top right corner.
Front
The DMC-FX48's face has three main features: the lens, the flash, and the autofocus assist lamp (in the top right). When not in use, the lens retracts into the camera's body.
Back
Like any good point-and-shoot, the main feature on the DMC-FX48's back is its LCD. To the right are the majority of the camera's controls. Although it's hard to see, there's a three-by-three array of dots above the four-way controller, to the left of the mode selection switch. This is the camera's speaker; we're not sure why it's placed right in the thick of the camera's control panel. Since the camera really doesn't have many controls, however, the speaker's odd placement doesn't get in the way of usability.
The mode selection switch toggles between shooting mode and playback mode. The four-way controller contains typical shortcuts: up is exposure compensation, left is selftimer, right is flash mode, down is macro, and the center button is menu. Of course, the four-way controller will serve as your main means of navigating menus. The final two buttons on the back side are the display and quick menu buttons. In playback mode, the quick menu button will open up deletion options.
Sides
Point-and-shoot cameras often have relatively featureless sides, and the DMC-FX48 is no exception.. The one noteworthy feature is a hatch on the right side. The curious will undoubtedly discover the hatch covers the data and power ports.
Top
The top of the DMC-FX48 starts off with some branding and follows it up with the camera's mic. Continuing on towards the right, you'll see the on/off switch, shutter button and zoom ring, and control dial. The dial is located under the surface of the top, so you can only see the bottom-most portion.
Bottom
The bottom of the DMC-FX48 has two features: the tripod socket, and the cavity where the battery and memory card are kept. While these are standard features, it's atypical to see the tripod socket so far off to the side: usually it's located towards the center.
Hardware
LCD
The DMC-FX48's LCD is a 2.5-inch TFT LCD display with a resolution of 230,000 dots. The LCD screen will perform the duties of viewfinder, and can be set to display gridlines. There is also a power LCD mode that boosts brightness dramatically and auto power LCD mode, which adjusts brightness based on shooting conditions. We didn't see any issues with viewing angle.
Flash
The flash is located on the front of the camera, to the left of the lens. The low positioning of the flash means there's a greater risk of red-eye than if the flash was elevated. Fortunately, the camera comes with an automatic red-eye fix tool.
Lens
The DMC-FX48's lens has 5x optical zoom, ranging from 4.4-22mm (equivalent to 25-125mm on a 35mm camera). The aperture range is from f/2.8-5.9, making it a relatively fast lens.
Jacks, Ports & Plugs
The DMC-FX48's ports are located under a spring-loaded panel on its right side. The top port is a DC input for an optional AC adapater and the bottom port is a standard mini USB port, which is used for both computer connection and AV output using supplied cables..
Battery
The DMC-FX48 uses a rechargeable lithium ion battery (3.6V, 940mAh) that it stows away in a compartment on its base. Depending on which spec sheet you're looking at, the battery life is either 320 or 350 shots.
Memory
The DMC-FX48 has 40MB of built-in memory and accepts SD/SDHC cards. It will also accept an MMC card, but will only be able to store stills on it. The memory card slot is next to the battery cavity, which is located on the bottom of the camera, under a hatch.
Design & Layout
Design & Appearance
The DMC-FX48 looks like a standard point-and-shoot. It's small, boxy, and its surface area is dominated by its lens and LCD. We liked this version's black coloration with metallic, red, and gray details. This being said, it's still basically a palette swap of any other point-and-shoot design. We liked the positioning of the controls. The DMC-FX48 will be available in black and silver color schemes.
Size & Handling
The DMC-FX48 is on the smaller side of point-and-shoots. Like its brethren, you'll need to employ the fingertip grip while shooting since the camera itself has no grip. The camera is about as portable as the average clamshell cell phone, maybe slightly thicker. Overall, we liked how the DMC-FX48 handled. It was small, portable, and its controls were laid out well.
Menu
The DMC-FX48's menu structure is very basic. The main menu contains two tabs: one tab contains options pertinent to the mode you're in and the second tab comtains a settings menu. Pushing right on the four-way controller will expand an item into its submenu, and left serves as a back button; the menu button itself will exit.
There is also a quick menu, accessed by pressing the Fn key. The quick menu is a highly efficient way to access key shooting-mode settings, including image stabilization, burst mode, autofocus mode, intelligent ISO and regular ISO, intelligent contrast, picture size, and LCD mode.
Ease of Use
The DMC-LX48 is a fairly easy to use camera. It has some good automatic modes and intuitive layout, both in its menus and controls. There's also a demonstration mode in the settings menu. This being said, we've seen point-and-shoots with more easily accessible tools and help menus. The demo mode is buried in the settings menu, which is an unintuitive location. The DMC-FX48 is a step above the most basic entry-level cameras, allowing some creative freedom beyond the basic full-auto mode.
Modes
Auto Mode
Since many point-and-shoots are aimed at beginners, they often have a bevy of automatic options. While the DMC-LX48 isn't the most beginner-friendly camera we've seen, it still has a good array of automatic user assistance. There's face detection and facial recognition, auto ISO, and an automatic scene mode selection.
Movie Mode
The DMC-LX48's has some interesting options in its movie mode. You can also shoot in HD (1280x720) at 30fps. If you prefer standard def, you can choose to shoot in VGA (640x480) or QVGA (320x240) at 30 fps. If you prefer 16:9, you can shoot in WVGA (848x480) at 30fps. All videos captured are stored in Motion JPEG files, which tend to be bulky when shooting at high resolutions.
Drive/Burst Mode
There are a few burst mode options. According to Panasonic, you can capture a full-res image at 2.3 frames per second for a maximum 5 images in standard mode or 3 in fine mode. There are also two high-speed burst modes that chug along at 6 fps or 10 fps, with lowered resolution. Of course, there's a vanilla continuous shoot mode that captures at 1.8 frames per second with no limit but memory capacity on the number of shots taken in a row..
Playback Mode
In addition to normal playback mode, there is a slideshow option, category playback mode, and favorites playback mode. Category playback lets you sort your photos based on the scene mode used. It also has cross functionality with the face recognition feature, allowing you to sort photos by the person in the image.
In addition to these playback modes there are red eye correction, resizing, cropping, and leveling tools. The camera also has PictBridge support for easy direct printing to a compatible printer.
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Custom Image Presets**
There are a good number of scene modes present on the DMC-LX48, totaling 21 in all. The modes include: Portrait, Soft Skin, Self-Portrait, Scenery, Sports, Night Portrait, Night Scenery, Food, Party, Candle Light, Baby1, Baby2, Pet, Sunset, High sensitivity, Hi-Speed Burst, Starry Sky, Fireworks, Beach, Snow, and Aerial Photo.
Controls
Manual Controls
As a point-and-shoot, the DMC-LX48 doesn't have many manual controls. You can adjust the exposure compensation, metering, ISO settings and create a custom white balance.
Focus
The DMC-LX48 does not have manual focus. It does feature autofocus tracking, which can be turned on and off, and quick autofocus, which is always on. On the pre-production model we saw, the quick autofocus feature didn't seem particularly effective, but this could improve in the final version.
ISO
You can manually set the ISO to 100, 200, 400, 800, 1250, or 1600. There's also a high-sensitivity mode that allows you to set the ISO as high as 6400.
White Balance
In addition to the automatic and custom options for white balance, there are five presets: daylight, cloudy, shade, and halogen. Many point-and-shoots have more presets, such as multiple fluorescent settings.
Metering
There are a few metering options available on the DMC-LX48. You can choose either multiple or spot metering, and set exposure compensation within a ±2 EV range in 1/3 step increments.
Shutter Speed
The DMC-LX48 has a shutter speed range from 8 seconds to 1/2000 second. In Starry Sky Mode, you can set the shutter speed to 15, 30, or 60. seconds.
Aperture
The maximum aperture ranges from f/2.8 at the widest setting to 5.9 at full telephoto zoom.
Image Stabilization
The DMC-LX48 has an optical image stabilization system called MEGA O.I.S. It can either be set to automatic, or one of two different modes: Mode1 will allow for a more stable live preview, while Mode2 gives a better-stabilized capture.
Picture Quality & Size Options
There are quite a few image size options on the DMC-LX48. First of all, there are two quality options: fine and standard. The highest available resolution is 4000 x 3000 and the lowest is 640 x 480. These two resolutions bookend another 12 different resolutions, in 4:3, 3:2, and 16:9 formats.
Picture Effects
There are a handful of picture effects possible: Natural, Vivid, Black & White, Sepia, Cool, and Warm.
Conclusion
Meet the tester
Mark Brezinski works on the Home Team, reviewing refrigerators, minifridges, dishwashers, washing machines, dryers, air conditioners, air purifiers, and fans.
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