Panasonic goes wider with FX35

It's not easy to find a compact camera with a wide zoom lens. Panasonic has been good about offering cameras with a 28mm wide angle in the past, but its new Lumix DMC-FX35 offers an even wider 25mm wide-angle zoom lens. The 10.1-megapixel Lumix DMC-FX35 boasts a 4X optical, 25-100mm f/2.8-5.6 Leica DC Vario-Elmarit zoom lens with optical image stabilization. It also sports a 2.5-inch LCD screen, a 2.5fps (up to 5 images in Standard JPG, or 3 images in Fine JPG) burst mode at full resolution, and a video mode that can capture up to 720p High-Definition video clips at 30fps. Sensitivity ranges from ISO 100 to ISO 1,600 at full resolution.

The FX35 also includes Panasonic's suite of automatic shooting options, including Intelligent ISO, which changes ISO based on the shutter speeds available with the amount of light in a given scene, Intelligent Scene Selector, which analyzes a scene and tries to choose the appropriate scene mode to deal with that situation, and Intelligent Exposure, which analyzes a scene and adjusts the exposure to achieve what the camera thinks is the optimal brightness for the given scene. The FX35 also includes digital red-eye correction-- Panasonic's term for a red-eye reducing pre-flash, as well as face detection, which can see up to 15 faces and adjusts focus and exposure to keep those faces in focus and properly exposed.

Panasonic will offer the Lumix DMC-FX35 in silver, black, and blue colors, for about $350 when it hits stores this March.