The photo quality from the FX500 is overall very good. Shots taken at the camera's lower sensitivity settings of ISO 100 and ISO 200 were sharp with excellent detail. At ISO 400 noise reduction starts causing some loss of fine detail and photos begin looking more like paintings. At ISO 800 fine detail is gone and noise reduction affects color, but for Web use and smaller prints the results are acceptable, making the FX500 a decent choice for low-light shooting (not without a tripod, though).
Noise levels were average for its class and as usual, the higher the ISO setting, the more noise you'll get. But again the suppression keeps things in check without significant detail loss through ISO 400. Colors were not exceptionally accurate, but photos both indoors and outside were fairly natural looking. Exposure was good and while the auto white balance was OK on the FX500, you're better off using the presets or manual white balance--assuming you're not shooting in a scene mode or Panasonic's Intelligent Auto mode. Finally, considering it has a wide-angle 25mm lens with a 5x zoom, lens distortion was minimal, as was purple fringing.
The camera's video quality was reasonably good for a point-and-shoot camera. Unfortunately, the optical zoom does not function while recording, though the image stabilization does.
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX500 was worthy of its flagship status (and its successor, the FX580, likely will be, too). Still, its $399.95 MSRP would have made it a little tough to fully recommend, but at its current price (as low as $229 at the time of this review), it's a steal.
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