We can always count on the manufacturers of digital cameras to continually come out with products that have a higher pixel count. Today Panasonic kicked it up a notch by announcing the Lumix DMC-FX100 12.2 megapixel point and shoot camera featuring a wider angle shot than most point and shoots available today.

The new Lumix digital camera has a 3.6x zoom that spans the equivalent of 28mm to 100mm with the wider angle pictures. The camera also features something Panasonic called “Extra Optical Zoom” which extends the range to around 196mm, but the catch is that pictures taken at this zoom level are only 3 megapixels, and not the full 12.2 that the camera is capable of with the standard shots.

Panasonic made a point to remind consumers that the zoom available with this new camera is not a digital-zoom feature. Optical zoom is an actual zoom using the lenses while digital zoom narrows in on the center pixels of an image while discarding the outer ones to give the appearance of zoom.

Like most cameras recently released the Lumix DMC-FX100 features an image stabilization feature for shaky situations and has a cool shooting mode that allows a high-speed burst of images at 8 pictures per second to catch that action shot. If 8 photos per second is not enough it will also record VGA and WVGA movies at 30FPS.

In this continuously increasing megapixel race, the launch of the DMC-FX100 coincided with a similar-megapixel camera from Casio, but both companies have yet to release dates for availability or pricing.

via LetsGoDigital