Panasonic LX3 - My Newest Point and Shoot
After a lot of obsessive compulsive research and hemming and hawing, I finally found a replacement for the venerable Sony point and shoot that we got the year we got married. It was (and still is) a fantastic camera, but it developed a blemish on its sensor (well, that's my best guess, since the glass looks fine) which shows up on pictures where there are large areas of solid color.
It hadn't gotten a lot of use lately, partly for that reason, and because I've been shooting exclusively with the A300 for the past year. The only time we really use the P/S has been for capturing videos of Mac.
My mind had always been set on a Panasonic Lumix LX3 (or its successor), but for a brief period of time, the announcement of the Canon S90 and G11 had my attention. Being a total sucker for rangefinders, I also thought about the Olympus EP-1 and the Panasonic GF-1.
The problem with the S90/G11 was that they have a smaller sensor than the LX3, focal length starting at 28mm (vs the LX3's 24mm) and no widescreen 720p video support. While Canon offered longer zooms, the 24mm-60mm focal length was much more useful to me. The fact that the LX3 lens was faster across the entire zoom spectrum than the Canons also fell in the LX3's favor.
The Micro-Four-Thirds rangefinders from Olympus and Panasonic are uber sexy. They're also pretty expensive. I'm not quite ready to adopt a second camera with interchangeable lenses. The only way I could reasonably justify going with something like a GF1 would be if I completely left the Sony/Minolta investment that I've made. I don't see that happening any time soon. Not being a pro, I don't see a need to really get beyond an intermediate level SLR for the foreseeable future. My current entry-level camera takes better pictures than my skill level can handle (don't even get me started on the idea of APS-C vs. Full Frame), so why bother?
Moving back to the LX3 - it's a fantastic camera. I'm not going to go into any length with a pixel peeping review, there are already plenty of those on the Internets.
In my preliminary use, the LX3 has a few major shortcomings:
There are two primary uses for this camera - it's the "in-a-pinch" camera, and our HD camcorder. I don't have the same aversion to lugging my SLR that I used to, but because I have a tendency to be lazy about putting the 50mm back onto the camera, it makes it easy for the Missus to take a quick shot. It's also a good travel camera, for those times I don't really plan to use an SLR. The LX3 shoots 720p motion JPEGs. Not a space saver, but definitely an edit friendly format.
For the longest time, I was at odds over whether I needed a decent walkaround zoom. I'm a prime shooter, and I'd only use a walkaround zoom for traveling (begrudgingly, I might add). Well, getting the LX3 prevents me from having to get a walkaround zoom, and that money is now better spent on a fisheye, or a superfast portrait lens for my SLR.
I've probably only used 20% of the camera's functionality, and while the GUI is a little quirky compared to my Sony DSLR, it's not too hard to pick up. I managed to get a great deal at Blacks (yeah, you read that right) for $499 CDN. That was about 50 bucks cheaper than the Pacific mall places. Apparently, the cameras are still hard to find in the US. Five bills is pretty spendy for a point and shoot these days, but my first digital camera, which barely had a single megapixel of resolution, set me back seven bills.
I'll post some further thoughts later, but the initial conclusion - I really, really like this camera, especially the in-camera B&W.
It hadn't gotten a lot of use lately, partly for that reason, and because I've been shooting exclusively with the A300 for the past year. The only time we really use the P/S has been for capturing videos of Mac.
My mind had always been set on a Panasonic Lumix LX3 (or its successor), but for a brief period of time, the announcement of the Canon S90 and G11 had my attention. Being a total sucker for rangefinders, I also thought about the Olympus EP-1 and the Panasonic GF-1.
The problem with the S90/G11 was that they have a smaller sensor than the LX3, focal length starting at 28mm (vs the LX3's 24mm) and no widescreen 720p video support. While Canon offered longer zooms, the 24mm-60mm focal length was much more useful to me. The fact that the LX3 lens was faster across the entire zoom spectrum than the Canons also fell in the LX3's favor.
The Micro-Four-Thirds rangefinders from Olympus and Panasonic are uber sexy. They're also pretty expensive. I'm not quite ready to adopt a second camera with interchangeable lenses. The only way I could reasonably justify going with something like a GF1 would be if I completely left the Sony/Minolta investment that I've made. I don't see that happening any time soon. Not being a pro, I don't see a need to really get beyond an intermediate level SLR for the foreseeable future. My current entry-level camera takes better pictures than my skill level can handle (don't even get me started on the idea of APS-C vs. Full Frame), so why bother?
Moving back to the LX3 - it's a fantastic camera. I'm not going to go into any length with a pixel peeping review, there are already plenty of those on the Internets.
In my preliminary use, the LX3 has a few major shortcomings:
- its crazy bad user manual
- the lack of an optical viewfinder
- the annoying lens cap
- the flimsy battery door
There are two primary uses for this camera - it's the "in-a-pinch" camera, and our HD camcorder. I don't have the same aversion to lugging my SLR that I used to, but because I have a tendency to be lazy about putting the 50mm back onto the camera, it makes it easy for the Missus to take a quick shot. It's also a good travel camera, for those times I don't really plan to use an SLR. The LX3 shoots 720p motion JPEGs. Not a space saver, but definitely an edit friendly format.
For the longest time, I was at odds over whether I needed a decent walkaround zoom. I'm a prime shooter, and I'd only use a walkaround zoom for traveling (begrudgingly, I might add). Well, getting the LX3 prevents me from having to get a walkaround zoom, and that money is now better spent on a fisheye, or a superfast portrait lens for my SLR.
I've probably only used 20% of the camera's functionality, and while the GUI is a little quirky compared to my Sony DSLR, it's not too hard to pick up. I managed to get a great deal at Blacks (yeah, you read that right) for $499 CDN. That was about 50 bucks cheaper than the Pacific mall places. Apparently, the cameras are still hard to find in the US. Five bills is pretty spendy for a point and shoot these days, but my first digital camera, which barely had a single megapixel of resolution, set me back seven bills.
I'll post some further thoughts later, but the initial conclusion - I really, really like this camera, especially the in-camera B&W.
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