Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX3 Review

The playback screen with information display enabled. Upper right corner has the image size 6M, image quality Fine, battery 2/3 charged, folder name (100) and image number (0022.) The current image 22 of 45 total images. Time and date is on the bottom status line.

Pressing the DISPLAY button will put the extended exposure information over the image and includes a histogram, the exposure mode, aperture, shutter speed, ISO speed and flash mode.

Toggling the zoom lever to the Wide angle position brings up the thumbnail index mode with nine images displayed per page. Continue to press the control and you can bring up 25 images per page or the Calendar index. This allows you to quickly sort though saved images.

Toggling the zoom lever to Telephoto allows you to enlarge the current image up to 16X in 2x steps. At any point you can use the 4-way selector to scroll around inside of the enlarged image.

Playback Menu options:

Slide Show - Auto playback of all images or just those selected for DPOF printing
Favorite - Add the image to favorite list
Rotate Display - Automatically rotate vertical images
Rotate - Manually rotates images
DPOF Print - Select one or all images for later printing
Protect - Protect/Unprotect one or all images
Audio Dub - Add up to a 10-second audio note to a still image
Resize - Make a smaller image
Trimming - Create a new smaller image from a zoom-cropped larger image.
Aspect Conv. - Change the aspect ratio of the selected image (3:2 or 4:3)
Copy - Copy images from internal memory to the SD card
Format - Format the memory card

The Rotate option lets you easily rotate images for proper display on the camera LCD and/or TV set. Rotation is in 90° increments.

The Resize option lets you "down size" larger images.

The Trim option lets you crop an image and save it as a smaller image.

Ten-second audio memos can be recorded and attached to an image. This audio can only be played back when connected to a TV, the internal speaker of the camera is only used for "beep" sounds.

Movies are played back fullscreen on the LCD or a television set if the audio-visual cable is connected.

When viewing a movie, you get VCR like controls.

As with still image playback, you can press the Display button to show extended exposure information for the movie clip.

Setup Menu (same in record or play mode):

Clock Set - Set the time and date
World Time - Set Home and Destination (if traveling) time zones
Monitor - Adjust the EVF brightness
Guide Line - Set Rec. Info (On/Off), Histogram (On/Off), and grid lines pattern
Travel Date - Set date of travel
Auto Review - Auto review after capture (off, 1s, 3s, Zoom)
Power Save - Auto power off delay, 2m, 5m, 10m, Off
Economy - Reduces the brightness of LCD to save battery power (Level 1 or 2)
Beep - Camera beep sounds, On or Off
Shutter - Set Tone and Volume of shutter release sound
Volume - Internal speaker volume control
No. Reset - Reset file numbering counter
Reset - Reset all settings to factory default
USB Mode - PC Mass Storage / PictBridge
Video Out - Video output signal format, NTSC or PAL
TV Aspect - Choose 4:3 or 16:9
Scene Menu - Display scene menu Automatically when selected or never
Language - Menu language; English, French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Japanese