Toby Keller - Night Photography Blog

Panasonic LX3 Review

Ok, I've spent a day with the LX3, and have a few example photos to share. Let me say up front that I am very happy with the results - with a couple caveats. All in all, the LX3 is light years beyond the last compact cameras I've used (waaaay back in '05). Also, I've only shot jpeg so far, as I don't feel like installing the RAW software that came with the LX3, and Adobe doesn't yet support the LX3 RAW files. On to the good stuff:

I took the camera out to the beach for a sunset walkabout. It wasn't a very strenuous test - light was good, no need for high ISOs, etc. But I was able to get a sense of the handling and responsiveness of the camera after taking about 100 shots. I bought a Sandisk 4GB SDHC card at Costco for 17.99 (after some sort of discount at the register), as I had already filled up the meager internal memory playing around.

I was impressed by the LX3's dynamic range. It didn't seem that far off from my D70 and D300 DSLRs - not as good, obviously, but not night-and-day, either. The image above is a .jpg straight out of the camera, no adjustments at all. You can see some purple flare in the bottom left corner, and the area around the sun is blown out. But overall, the dynamic range is very good, and far beyond that of any compacts I've used to date.

Here's a photo taken using the "Dynamic B&W" film mode. Very nice even tonal gradation in the sky, and good tonal range within the image. No detail is lost in the rocks in the foreground, and at the same time there is good detail in the shrubs beneath the deck. This photo also is an unaltered .jpg from the camera, with the exception of a platinum tone added in Lightroom.

One of the benefits of a compact camera is good native macro capability. I have a 55mm macro lens for my D300, but it's a bit of a hassle to dig it out every time I want to do a quick detail shot. It's not a lens I bring with me very often, so it doesn't get used much. The LX3 at 24mm can focus just a couple centimeters in front of the lens, yielding amazingly sharp and detailed close-ups like the one above of my wife's eye. The image is a 100% crop from a shot at ISO 100, f/5.6 at 24mm.

This shot is the nearest thing I have to an illustration of how shallow the DOF gets at 60mm f/2.8. Not very, I'm afraid, compared to a larger-sensor DSLR, but still aesthetically pleasing, I think.

Finally, the image above is a crop from a shot at ISO 800 at f/2.8. It is about 1/4 of the total image, just to give a sense of what the noise looks like. I was very impressed - I was prepared for everything over ISO 400 to be unusable, but it turns out ISO 800 looks just fine for my purposes. I'm not intending to print these large, so I don't see it even being a factor in a printed image, really. Below is a 100% crop showing a shadow area - pretty much the worst case scenario in this image:

So, what's not to like about the camera? Mainly, I'm trying to get used to the ergonomics. It's a really small camera! My D300 fits my hand like an extension of my body. The LX3 crams too many controls into too small a place. That's not really its fault, though - that would be the same for any compact. Besides the size, I had some issues with the "Dynamic" and "Vibrant" film styles - these tend to render skin tones with too much red/orange to them. People just look unnatural with these modes. It's much better in "Standard" mode, but still, the color rendition is nowhere near as good as my D300. I can live with that, though, as I plan to shoot mostly B&W with this camera. The "Dynamic B&W" mode is quite nice, giving good contrast while preserving a wide tonal range.

Other than those two minor points, I'm a pretty satisfied customer... I think the LX3 will work out just fine for my purposes, and I can give it a solid recommendation for those looking to supplement a DSLR or for anyone who just wants a good solid compact camera.

Labels: lx3, review

New camera - Panasonic LX3

The UPS man just brought me a new toy: the Panasonic Lumix LX3 compact digital camera. Now, I'm primarily a landscape shooter, and happily use my D300 for that. In fact it's not even possible to take the sort of night shots I specialize in using my new toy. So why get it? Well, there's a few reasons. One, I enjoy carrying a camera with me daily just in case I come across something worth shooting. I ride a motorcycle, and have wanted a small camera to bring on riding trips - the D300 takes up almost my entire tank bag. I've wanted to rig up a bracket that I could use to attach the camera to the bike to take pictures while riding - of myself and of the scenery. This is way easier with a compact camera than a bulky DSLR (and probably safer too). Recently, my wife Jade and I got back from our honeymoon in Costa Rica. I brought along a "basic" kit of the D300 and three lenses. It took up the better part of half my backpack, and was a constant source of apprehension whenever I had to leave it somewhere. All my gear is insured, but I still didn't want to lose any of the photos I had taken. Not to mention, the D300 is no pocket camera. It is a heavy beast, and requires a certain level of commitment to haul it around all the time.

So I was hankering for something small and light that would still produce good images. I wanted something with a bright wide angle lens - most of my photos are shot as wide as I can get. I also didn't want anything made of flimsy plastic - I've been spoiled silly by the tank that is the D300 (not to mention all my film cameras), and "feel" has always been important to me when it comes to my tools.

Enter the Panasonic LX3. I read about it a couple months ago, and from the specs it sounded like it would do the trick. Solid metal body, bright (f/2!) wide lens, and touting very high quality images for a compact. I waited around to read the first reviews, which seemed rather positive... then J&R camera offered a $100 discount for pre-orders, so I went ahead and ordered mine.

Well, as I just received it, I haven't been able to test it out yet, but it definitely feels like a quality tool. There's a good heft to it, thanks to the metal body. It's really really small, too - smaller than I thought. It makes a Leica rangefinder seem enormous in comparison. I'll be doing some shooting later today, and I'll report back with my impressions of image quality. So far, it seems like exactly what I wanted!