Introducing the Supremely Stylish LUMIX FX77 Digital Camera

With F2.5 Super Bright 24mm Ultra Wide Angle LEICA DC VARIO-SUMMARIT Lens* and 1920 x 1080 Full-HD Movie Recording

Beautifully designed and packed with high-end features, Panasonic is pleased to announce the addition of the FX77 to the elegant LUMIX FX series. Featuring an all new 3.5-inch large LCD with Smart Touch operation, complete control is possible with a simple touch.  Beyond this, Touch Auto Focus, Touch Zoom and Touch Shutter during recording, plus various Touch playback functions and 3D Photo mode are welcome additions to the award winning Lumix compact camera range.

The FX77 features a new high quality LEICA DC VARIO-SUMMARIT 24mm ultra wide angle lens with 5x optical zoom and F2.5 brightness. The lens especially excels not only in shooting dynamic landscapes with its wide angle of view but also in capturing moving subjects even in low-light situations such as indoors or at night with its outstanding brightness. Comprising 7 elements in 6 groups, including 3 aspherical lenses with 5 aspherical surfaces, the lens unit in the FX77 is miniaturised both in total length and diameter to fit into a slim and compact body. This is thanks to a new internal mechanism and a World’s first use of a new material* for an Extra High Index Low Dispersion Meniscus Aspherical Lens as thin as 0.3mm.

This advanced lens passes Leica’s stringent standards to deliver exceptional optical performance right to the edge of the frame. Thanks to the newly incorporated Intelligent Resolution technology, Intelligent Zoom is available with the FX77 which extends the zoom ratio by approx.1.3x whilst maintaining the picture quality even when combined with the digital zoom. This means the 5x optical zoom can virtually extend to 6.5x equivalent. Furthermore, the Extra Optical Zoom function extends the zoom power to 9.8x (at 3-megapixel resolution) by using the centre part of the 12.1-megapixel high resolution CCD - bringing subjects even closer.

The compact lens unit contributes to a stunning slimmer, sleeker profile compared with previous Lumix FX models and is arguably the most luxurious ever Lumix compact camera.

Advanced Signal Processing, high performance Venus Engine FHD
Incorporating a newly developed 12.1-megapixel Hi-Speed CCD sensor and high-speed, high-performance Venus Engine FHD, the FX77 processes a large amount of signals at high speed, making it possible to record 1,920 x 1,080 full-HD movie recording and high resolution consecutive shots at 3.7 fps in 12.1-megapixel full resolution and max.10 fps at 3-megapixel recording.

With Intelligent Resolution technology, 3 areas –outlines, detailed texture areas and soft gradation areas are automatically detected. The outline parts are enhanced to give edges more clarity while giving a moderate accentuation to the textured areas that look more finely detailed. To the soft gradation part, the superior noise reduction system of the Venus Engine FHD is applied making it smoother.  Apart from the uniform enhancement of sharpness, the innovative Intelligent Resolution technology precisely performs signal processing pixel by pixel, the most effective way.  As a result, images are naturally clear and crisp in both photo and movie recording.

At the same time, the multi-task image-processing engine Venus Engine HD FHD supports a super-fast response time. The super quick shutter release time lag is as short as approx. 0.005 seconds and the camera's quick response makes it easier to capture sudden, spur-of-the-moment photo opportunities together with the Sonic Speed AF (Auto Focus) which boasts approximately 33% faster speed compared with the earlier released FX70.

Enjoy 1920 x 1080 Full-HD Movie Recording in AVCHD
With the ever growing popularity of capturing movies with digital cameras, the FX77 features the excellent recording capability of AVCHD movie in 1920 x 1080 full-HD. The AVCHD format allows almost double the recording time in HD quality compared with the conventional Motion JPEG and the picture quality is greatly enhanced thanks to Intelligent Resolution technology. The rugged camera also boasts a number of options to enhance personal movies such as Dolby Digital Creator to record high quality audio, 5x optical zoom and a Wind Cut function to block out most of the noise from background wind. These choices of settings enhance the usability and fun of recording high quality full-HD movie.

In addition, with the included software PHOTOfunSTUDIO 6.1 HD Lite Edition, it is easy to view and edit your recorded contents. You may also choose to upload your videos to YouTube or burn them to a DVD disc for archiving.

3.5-inch Large Smart Touch Screen for Intuitive Touch-Control Shooting and Additional Fun
The stylish FX77 adopts full touch-screen operation with a new Smart Touch Screen. Auto Focus (AF) can be immediately set to the subject simply by touching it on the large LCD and then followed by touching or holding to release the shutter. - Thanks to the sonic speed AF, with approx.33% higher speed, setting the focus and releasing the shutter is now dramatically faster.

A 3.5-inch in 16:9 aspect large screen reflects fine details, making it easy to check the focus before shooting. It also serves as a great photo and video viewer, allowing the pleasure of viewing the still and motion images back instantly when on the move.

Once locked on the subject by a touch, the camera tracks the subject with the AF tracking function even if it moves. With the Intelligent Scene Selector in iA mode, the camera automatically switches to the appropriate mode according to the subject touched, for example, a touch on a human face switches to the portrait mode and a touch on the background or scenery to the scenery mode.

All menu settings are now also available with touch control and even in the shooting screen you can directly touch the icon to change the settings quickly. The functions used most often, such as Optical Image stabilisation, consecutive shooting, auto focus point, white balance setting, ISO sensitivity level, are quickly and easily accessed via the shortcut setting by just dragging the icon to the main menu area.

Taking advantage of the touch operation, new functions are incorporated to add more fun to FX77. My Photo Album function allows photographers to sort images into separate folders making possible quick, direct playback of the images they want without searching a huge collection of photos.

The Art Retouch function offers the options to add different impressions to an image, brightness can be changed with exposure adjustment and the colour with saturation control. Additional modes include, The Beauty Retouch mode which cosmetically enhances faces in the photos. In Aesthetic mode, various effects can be applied to the face including clearing the skin texture, lifting up the face, whitening of teeth and so on. Finally, in the Make-up mode for additional effect, the colour of foundation, lips, cheeks or eye-shadow can be selected.

The touch-screen operation excels not only for shooting but also for playing back images with outstanding clarity. You can play back the image you want from all those availabile  simply by touching the thumbnails. To play back images one by one in order, you can drag the image over the screen with a finger to browse the collection of photos as you would flip over the pages of a book. The screen brightness automatically adjusts in 11 steps as the surrounding brightness level changes, ensuring easy visibility at all times.

Evolving iA (Intelligent Auto) Mode Makes Every Photo and Movie More Beautiful
Panasonic’s well renowned iA (Intelligent Auto) mode is also evolved within the FX77. For more correction effect in movie recording, Active Mode is added to the conventional MEGA O.I.S (optical image stabilisation). It excels in suppressing blur when recording movies at a wide angle and when walking or moving around. Together with the MEGA O.I.S. for photo and the outstanding brightness of the lens, the FX77 cleverly prevents all kinds of blur - whether the blur is caused by hand-shake or the subject's movement in both photo and movie recording.

A new Motion Deblur mode* is also available following an update of the motion detection (Intelligent ISO Control) and brightness control (Intelligent Exposure) to achieve the maximum effective shutter speed possible. The Face Recognition system identifies registered human faces to set appropriate focus and exposure on the person even showing his/her name on the LCD. The Intelligent Scene Selector automatically sets the scene mode among frequently used scene mode - Scenery, Portrait, Macro, Night Portrait, Night Scenery or Sunset. Also, Face Recognition, AF Tracking, Intelligent ISO Control, Intelligent Scene Selector and Intelligent Exposure work appropriately just by entering the iA mode allowing any photographer to take beautiful photos with maximum ease.

Exciting Features for More Fun of Photography
The FX77 comes not only equipped with high performance but also with a host of entertainment features that adds fun to photography such as new Beauty Retouch, Art Retouch and My Photo Album. Thanks to newly integrated LUMIX Image Uploader you can instantly share your images via Facebook or video to YouTube (movie) with any PC on the spot. All you have to do is checkmark the photos you want to share and connect the camera to a PC. Uploading starts just by following the simple instructions, allowing you to add a comment and notify your friends via e-mail. Facebook can be used for photos and YouTube for movies.

In addition, the FX77 also features an exciting 3D Photo mode which produces a realistic, low-distortion 3D images from a selection of 20 consecutive images shot when panning. The 3D image can be viewed on VIERA 3D HDTV or other MPO-compatible 3D equipment such as TV, Digital Photo Frame or Printer.

Delicate in design but bold in performance – The FX77 looks sleek and elegant with its new streamline design but is an outstandingly high performance hybrid digital compact camera.

*1
Recording conditions by CIPA standard
• CIPA is an abbreviation of [Camera & Imaging Products Association].
• Temperature: 23 oC (73.4 oF)/Humidity: 50% when LCD monitor is on.
• Using a Panasonic SD Memory Card (32 MB).
• Using the supplied battery.
• Starting recording 30 seconds after the camera is turned on. (When the optical image stabilizer function is set to [AUTO].)
• Recording once every 30 seconds with full flash every second recording.
• Rotating the zoom lever from Tele to Wide or vice versa in every recording.
• Turning the camera off every 10 recordings and leaving it until the temperature of the battery decreases.
• The number of recordable pictures decreases in Auto Power LCD Mode and Power LCD Mode.

*2
・Motion images can be recorded continuously for up to 29 min 59 sec.
・If [Rec Quality] is set to [FSH], and if the surrounding temperature is high, or motion picture is recorded continuously, is displayed, and the recording may be stopped halfway through.