Panasonic Lumix DMC-FH7: Its Newest Stylish Compact with a Touch-Screen

Camera Review

Secaucus, NJ—Panasonic’s slim, 16.1 megapixel Lumix DMC-FH7 features intuitive touch controls for ease of use, a retractable 28mm wide-angle Leica DC lens with 4x optical zoom, and high-definition video capabilities that record in 1,280x720p at a cinematic 24 frames per sec.

The DMC-FH7 features a 3.0-inch smart touch screen to provide users with touch autofocus (AF), touch zoom, touch shutter and intelligent scene selector when they touch the screen. All menu setting options are also available with touch control, and in playback mode, users can drag images across the screen with a finger to browse the collection of photos, as if turning a page in a book. Additionally, the FH7 has three modes that let users get creative by manually (with the touch of a finger) editing their photos on-camera: beauty retouch, to touch up faces; esthetic, which creates effects on faces such as clearing skin texture and whitening teeth; and makeup, which gives color options such as foundation, eye shadow or coloring for the lips and cheeks.

“Panasonic continues to offer consumers choice in the digital camera they use, and with Lumix we want to ensure there are stylish, compact options that still maintain Panasonic’s high standards of image quality, both in still photos and HD videos,” said David Briganti, senior product manager, Imaging, Panasonic Consumer Electronics. “With the new FH7, we’re confident that this small and attractive digital camera will produce photos and videos that users are proud to share, and with new seamless uploading features, they can do so easily to sites, such as Facebook and YouTube.”

The camera includes Panasonic’s Lumix Image Uploader, to instantly share images via Facebook and video via YouTube when the digital camera is connected to a computer or its SD card is inserted and the on-screen instructions are followed.

Also provided is iA mode, a suite of technologies that engage automatically—with no setting changes needed by the user—via a dedicated iA button, and which include: Mega OIS (optical image stabilization) to reduce blurry photos due to hand-shake; intelligent ISO control to reduce blur when the subject is moving; face detection, which ensures registered faces are captured in focus with appropriate exposure and digitally corrects unwanted red-eye; intelligent scene selector where the camera selects the best option from macro, portrait, scenery, night portrait, night scenery and sunset; and intelligent exposure, which optimizes the exposure for each part of an image, preventing blocked shadows and blown highlights.

Other features include: 0.006-sec shutter release time lag; an intelligent LCD that detects the lighting conditions and controls the brightness level in 11 steps; Panasonic’s intelligent zoom, developed to extend the FH7’s zoom to a 5x equivalent; 84MB of built-in memory; and an image stamp mode that lets users decorate photos with 32 different stamps.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FH7 is available in black. panasonic.com