FX9 vx FX8

[cp3508]

A couple months back, I had tested a Panasonic FX8, and was blown away by its detail and extreme sharpness. I recently went on a trip to Asia, and was taken by the red version of the FX9, which is only available in Asia. But after comparing test pictures, I find that the FX8 is much sharper than my FX9, even though the FX9 has more megapixels. Has anyone else encountered this, or have I just received a bad one? And because I bought an Asia-only red camera, I don't think there's anything I could do about it in the US.

[WildWinds]

You've probably already checked this but what about the resolution and compression rate settings?

Hope it helps.

[cp3508]

Thanks for your response. I did check the settings. I tried it on 6 megapixels and on the next lower setting of 3 megapixels. The quality is set on the highest level. I believe for the FX8, I used both the max of 5 megapixels and the next setting of 2 or 3 megapixels. That's why it seems odd to me, that I wonder if I got a "bad egg." Is there anything I could do about it to check on that? Is there a camera store that could check or fix it?

[coldrain]

The FX9 offers 6mp in the same camera and same sensor size as the FX8 (5mp). The FX9 is a lot more noisy and loses detail because of noise reduction procedures, and therefore I always say the FX8 is the better choice, all of the plusses of the FX9 (compact, stylish, image stabilized) without its minusses (lesser image quality, more noise).

The FX8's sensor is just the better sensor, it is just that megapixels sell (they do not necessarily give better results).

Here you can see the difference:
Full size photo from Jeff Keller's review of the FX7 (FX8 is an updated FX7):
http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/panasonic/dmc_fx7-review/P1000029.JPG

Full size photo from Jeff Keller's review of the FX9:
http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/panasonic/dmc_fx9-review/P1000099.JPG

You will notice that in sharpness, CA, colours, the FX8 is better.. it just is the better camera (and in all a very nice compact camera).