The vendor I ordered the Panasonic DMC-FX01 from was backordered. I picked up a healthy speeding ticket not long after which convinced me to re-allocate the camera budget to a $400 Valentine 1 radar detector instead. Short review: the V1 is worth every frickin’ penny.
Truth be told, I wasn’t really feeling the love for another Panasonic. I was very happy with the DMC-FX7 but the FX9 dialed up the sensor “noise” to the point where 1:1 crops were almost never usable. From reading the reviews, all of the current-generation compact Panasonics suffer from noise issues so I decided to search for something else.
A buddy recommended the Canon PowerShot SD450. I read the reviews of the current-generation SD-series cameras, carefully studied all of the photos I could find at 1:1, and concluded that the Canon ultra-compacts are much more likely to produce usable 1:1 crops. I settled on the Canon PowerShot SD700 IS for it’s 4x zoom (vs. 3x for most ultra-compacts), optical image stabilization, and optical viewfinder. I’m kicking myself for lousy timing, the SD700 is a relatively new release that will probably cost 2/3rds as much in 3 months, but I expect that I will be highly satisfied with it. It should arrive by the end of the week.
