A brief review of the Panasonic LX-3

I wanted to buy one in Sydney yesterday. All the shops were out of them. However for Australian buyers, if you buy between Oct 13-Oct 31, you are entitled to a free 7" digital photo frame by redemption. Hopefully the stores will have some on Sunday.
 
BTW, I took the unprecedented step of actually buying the fitted leather case for this camera. I can't imagine needing one for my Bessa or R-D1, but I have to say, this case makes the camera much, much more comfortable to hold. The removable top fits snugly, and the camera fits nicely in the bottom...it makes an already solid little camera feel great. Kind of pricey--$99--but not Luigi pricey. I really recommend it.
 
LX3 distortion & cropping in raw

LX3 distortion & cropping in raw

This is very very interesting. I really care about straight lines, and if they're correcting distortion in the camera, maybe others will too sometime soon... also maybe Lightroom will at last learn how to do so.

I have a request: Do you think you could post a similar picture of something like a building, with straight lines & detail near the edges? It's hard to see quite how much distortion there is on the shot below, with the volvo.

On that one, you're also losing quite a bit at the corners - distortion correction alone wouldn't do that. I wonder why? Ah maybe that's because the sensor has to cover all those different aspect ratios? So it would be cool to see crops from the corner too - how fuzzy is the lens outside the official image circle?

Good work on the review!
Michael


mabelsound said:
So I went online and downloaded dcraw and RawDrop. This gives you ABSOLUTELY UNPROCESSED TIFFs, albeit extremely flat ones. I actually put together a quickie web page illustrating this:

http://inverseroom.creotia.com/lx3

OK, so, the colors and white balance and contrast and gamma and what have you are way off on my hastily processed TIFF. But check out the detail in that (yes, heavily shapened) crop. There really is a ton of it, and you can't get at it in SilkyPix. I have no idea why.

This experiment caused me to realize, as well, that the lens suffers from tremendous barrel distortion--you need to go to +15 in Photoshop to fix it. The JPEG engine does this automatically, and so, interestingly, does SilkyPix. What I'm waiting for, of course, is for Adobe to add the camera to ACR, and I'm hoping the profile will include a lens correction but will NOT obliterate the nice RAW detail. Time will tell.
Click to expand...
 
Answering my own question, someone posted a nice comparison on dpreview:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1033&message=29603595&changemode=1

Bizarre that they correct most of the distortion, but leave a little. As if people like it, or something, do they?

I was wrong about this, by the way:
improbable said:
On that one, you're also losing quite a bit at the corners - distortion correction alone wouldn't do that.
Click to expand...
Correcting barrel distortion does cost you the corners, correcting pincushion does not.
 
dazedgonebye said:
...I could just put it on a tripod then zoom till the LCD reflected the external viewfinder image and make note of that magnification...erring on the wider side.
Click to expand...

I'm seriously considering getting this camera but would also like to use an external viewfinder - one tip I read on a review somewhere (Reid Reviews maybe?) was to use the method quoted above to figure out where your favourite focal length is (mine are 35mm and 50mm) and then mark the lens barrel with a permanent marker. At that point you can always find the right zoom level without needing to use the LCD or look obviously at the camera.

I haven't tried this so YMMV, but it sounds promising when combined with the Voigtlander 35/50 mini-finder.
 
Another great thing with this camera....

The CV 21mm finder is almost dead on to the LCD screen....more accurate than any of my M's....

set the menu to viewfinder on...and the screen stays black...when you focus...ya get a beep...cool...and if ya need the screen to adjust anything...press the display button...

it's about as good as it gets.........
 
M4streetshooter said:
set the menu to viewfinder on...and the screen stays black...when you focus...ya get a beep...cool...and if ya need the screen to adjust anything...press the display button...
Click to expand...
You can be even lazier and simply move the joystick. It will automatically display the screen.

larsbc
 
what about if you want to zoom out

what about if you want to zoom out

from the fixed ultrawide VF?

M4streetshooter said:
Another great thing with this camera....

The CV 21mm finder is almost dead on to the LCD screen....more accurate than any of my M's....

set the menu to viewfinder on...and the screen stays black...when you focus...ya get a beep...cool...and if ya need the screen to adjust anything...press the display button...

it's about as good as it gets.........
Click to expand...
 
easy...just zoom out....the screen comes on automatically...really ingenious......

and for streetwork...very interesting.......it's funny...on my M's I hated the 21 and 24...but for this baby...and it's a baby cause it's soooo small....I love the combination..

tonight I'll be lurking downtown around midnight...with the screen off.....it'll be a pleasure.......shooter
 
One gripe I have is that the camera seems to suck the battery juice pretty quickly if you leave it on for long periods even with the LCD turned off. I'm buying a couple of extra batteries so I don't have to worry about this.

larsbc
 
Okay... so it's been a few weeks...
A few things that I'm finding a little irritating:
1) I wish it would keep the distance you set in manual focus when powering up or changing settings. Usual distance set in manual is approx 5-6 ft so depth of field doesn't always cover it... especially since i bought this for the f2.
2) Still trying to figure out how to best hold the camera with one hand. My mitts are small, but I feel there's not enough real estate on the right side of the camera to comfortably hold it (other than letting my thumb sit on the screen). *I've since attached a tiny tripod to it for my left hand since I've had to use it anyway - actually makes it more stable*
3) Lens cover always hits either the lcd screen or the lens. No damage done so far, but I'd like to avoid some in the future. *I've cut a couple pieces of velcro to hold the cap in place & out of the way*
So, some temporary fixes regarding the above... which has helped so far. Hope that a firmware can fix the manual focus issue I'm having though - fingers are crossed...
 
That would be absolutely fantastic if Panasonic issued a firmware fix to retain the MF distance and focal length.

larsbc
 
lars said:
That would be absolutely fantastic if Panasonic issued a firmware fix to retain the MF distance and focal length.

larsbc
Click to expand...

lars,
It would definitely be nice! This way there's no need for the camera to always be on to keep the measured distance - and it would make the custom settings more usable (for my uses anyways as I've always used these mainly to set distance more than anything else). The AF button (when in MF) will suffice for the time being... I think I'm still in my C@non mode so I'll just have to adjust to this. Otherwise, it's a fantastic camera...
 
The biggest issue for me was the shutter lag. And yeah, there's not a lot of space on the right side, so figuring out how best to hold it was a challenge (though not a showstopper).
 
jky said:
2) Still trying to figure out how to best hold the camera with one hand. My mitts are small, but I feel there's not enough real estate on the right side of the camera to comfortably hold it (other than letting my thumb sit on the screen). *I've since attached a tiny tripod to it for my left hand since I've had to use it anyway - actually makes it more stable*
3) Lens cover always hits either the lcd screen or the lens. No damage done so far, but I'd like to avoid some in the future. *I've cut a couple pieces of velcro to hold the cap in place & out of the way*
Click to expand...

I hate caving in to manufacturers' plans to make you buy accessories, but I actually ponied up for the leather case Panasonic makes, and it solves #2 completely, at least for me. As for 3...do you have the cap tethered to the camera? I just stick it in my pocket. Imperfect, but it eliminates the problem.

BTW, I cannot detect any shutter lag at all in manual mode. The autofocus takes a moment, but the shutter itself feels instantaneous to me.
 
mabelsound said:
I hate caving in to manufacturers' plans to make you buy accessories, but I actually ponied up for the leather case Panasonic makes, and it solves #2 completely, at least for me. As for 3...do you have the cap tethered to the camera? I just stick it in my pocket. Imperfect, but it eliminates the problem.

BTW, I cannot detect any shutter lag at all in manual mode. The autofocus takes a moment, but the shutter itself feels instantaneous to me.
Click to expand...

Re: shutter lag - It feels pretty instantaneous to me as well. Even the AF I find pretty quick.

...and yes, I do have the cap tethered - don't want to lose it. Normally I just forget about the cap altogether, but there's no way to put a filter on the lens without having to buy an accessory for it.
I took a look at the case and it makes the camera a handsome little piece!
 
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