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Panasonic LX100 camera topic
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  • Got my LX100 this morning. I placed 2 pre-orders for it which both fell through. I ended up calling 5 different stores to try to find it. I finally found it at Cardinal Camera in PA.

    All of our local stores said “Nope we only carry Nikon and Canon”. They also tried to convince me that there were other point and shoot cameras that are better than the LX100. I just laughed and said “if only you knew how far the LX100 is from being “Just another point and shoot camera”.

    My early impressions are that the LX100 is more flexible and easier to use than my GH4. The dials just make sense. Intelligent ISO is now intelligent and not idiotic like on the rest of the Panasonic cameras.

    Focusing tracking is amazing on the LX100. It was just a gimmick on the GH4. The LX100 really screams for a tilting touchscreen though. I imagine the LX200 will add those two things for about the same price. It isn’t a deal breaker for me though. It just means I have to be a little more attentive to how I am directing the focus.

    Image Stabilization seems fine so far. I think that some people are expecting it to compensate for huge movements. All it is supposed to do is dampen vibrations. It appears to do that very well.

    If you have any questions just ask. I will try to do a full video review this weekend. This will be more of a how to get the most out of the camera as opposed to a comparison review. There are already enough comparison videos. What we really need is someone to show us how to use the camera to its fullest.

  • I also got my LX100 (EU version) today (from Cyberport). I bet on some manufacturer selling an underwater housing for it, because for me the LX100 has all that I wanted for underwater videography at this time, in a housing much less bulky than the GH4 (which I would have bought in May, had they sold me one in the EU), with the additional important feature to allow macro shooting with the same lens that "normal" shots can be done with - a really important feature if you see both a whale shark and a flamboiant cuttle fish on the same dive :-)

    Now I intend to create a boring, lengthy unboxing video telling all the stuff again that everyone already knows just have some fun trying this new toy.

    If you've got any specific idea on the EU version, just ask. Expect some macro test shots plus some low light strange-white-balance test shots from me. :-)

    @mpgxsvcd: I agree that a tilting display is generally very useful, but it's of no use in an underwater housing, just as touch screens are unusable underwater. Thus I won't miss those too much.

    PS: Ok, I have to share one unboxing impression: Half of the weight of the box seems to originate from the ridiculously large stack of no less than 6(!) manual books (in different languages) that are included. I guess the US box is much lighter ;-)

  • @karl Yes. Our box was much lighter. It had just one manual and a pamphlet on how to take stills from video.

  • Got mine as well, loving it thus far. It a solid little bugger that feels better in the hand to me than the GM1 due to the nice rubber grip and thumb rest. The control wheel/pad on the back also works better for me. The dials and switches all have a nice click to them that feels well-engineered. Definitely a premium feel to match the good looks of the cam.

    One concern I have - The front cosmetic ring that covers the lens bayonet protrudes out a few millimeters beyond the filter thread and lens barrel. I fear a step-up filter adapter could affect the lens' ability to retract fully if the bayonet ring is not first removed to gain some depth clearance. I will test this to confirm when my 43mm to 52mm step up ring arrives in a couple of days. Not a deal breaker really, but a potential a nuisance for folks without 43mm filter sets.

  • Can you please check if you can get live video out through hdmi or composite during recording ?

  • No live video out (hdmi or composite) during recording and standby. Only in playback mode. Just tried it.

  • ok thanks.. guess you can't have everything in a small package..

  • ok thanks.. guess you can't have everything in a small package..

    It's a PanaSonic :-) (c)

  • Here's my first test picture of the LX100 macro capability:

    http://filebin.net/uj86q3gj0m/lx100_macro_50eur.jpg

    The 50 € note was unluckily somewhat bent, but you get the idea what a LX100 picture taken from 5cm away looks like.

    3cm distance would have been possible, but not without the lens casting a shadow onto the object, so I left it at 5cm.

  • Here's a result of my "underwater white balance scenario simulation": Under water, you usually have less light in total, but especially the red parts of the sunlight are missing. To simulate this situation, I lit an otherwise completely dark room only by displaying a red=0, green=255,blue=255 solid color image fullscreen on an IPS panel, causing a dim turquoise light situation, not unlike what you'll find at 40m depth in some tropical ocean during daylight.

    I shot some artificial flowers with both a GH2 and a LX100 after setting the white balance to "custom white balance" and setting the white point by shooting the white surface below the flowers.

    Both images were taken in RAW format and only de-mosaiced and rescaled, all other raw converter settings were completely "neutral".

    The first image from the GH2 shows how weak the GH2 was with regards to compensating for extreme colorful lighting situations. The second image, from the LX100, is certainly also suffering from the little amount of light available, but its white balance is exactly like it's supposed to be. Hurray!

    gh2_wbtest_neutral.jpg
    1920 x 1080 - 551K
    lx100_wbtest_neutral.jpg
    1917 x 1080 - 448K
  • How is AF performance in 4k? In particular I'm curious as to whether there's much of a difference to the DFD enabled GH4.

  • @fahrenheit: I guess you are talking about AF during video recording? I can only compare to the GH2, and the focusing in 4k on the LX100 certainly performs better than the GH2 did in 1080p.

    But I doubt that the GH4 actually utilizes DFD in video mode - I've not seen any material that would prove this.

  • I own the GH4 and the LX100. The AF during video recording on the LX100 is much better than this one on the GH4. Also the OIS stabilization is much better on the LX100 than on the GH4 with 12-35 2.8.

    All in all an very nice little still and videocamera.

  • Impressive, which system has the better 4k video quality ? gh4 with 12-35 or Lx100 ?

    Ive already a gh4 and i don't know if i should buy a 12-35 or the Lx100.

  • @yaz72:

    I would say, the quality is the same. I'm going to sell my 12-35:-)

  • If somebody has collected experiences with some of the >70 different third party suppliers of BLG10E compatible batteries, I would appreciate their sharing. (The prices of the offerings here range from 6 € to > 60 €...)

    Ah, and if anyone can recommend a practical, small soft case (or a EU vendor thereof), I would also be interested.

  • the quality is not the same. the LX100 suffers from intensive moire

  • @Angry_C Really ? i ve just watched some videos of the lx100 and i don't think the quality is really amazing like the Gh4, maybe bad settings in the videos :

    I hope OIS was off on the first video, very shaky. It would be great if you could make a comparison between them ! =)

  • @abolit: I really cannot understand why you say that: I am very allergic to moire, in fact I was one of the people who said they wouldn't buy the GH3 because of its stronger moire effects in comparison with the GH2.

    But the LX100 delivers almost perfect pictures in that regard - even less moire than the GH2, and in fact, I cannot see any disturbing moire when I shoot my (citi-)neighbourhood on wide angle, with lots of fences, roof shindles, windows and other stuff that causes awkward moires with other cameras.

    I can only conclude that you watched material that was badly scaled during post-processing or at the time of display. Maybe some bad things like "using Lanczos for downscaling" or "leaving it to the GPU of the displaying computer to scale from 4k to 1080p"?

    @yaz72: The first video suffers from strange defects, such as black/distorted areas at ~ 43s into the video.

  • We never considered sacrificing functionality or operability for the sake of downsizing the camera body. Since we wanted to create an easy-to-use digital camera that would provide all the fun of manual operation, the camera needed to have an appropriate size.
    However, the compact size, which is one of the most attractive features of the lens-integrated camera construction, was an absolute prerequisite.

    http://panasonic.net/avc/lumix/lx100_interview/vol04.html

  • @karl @abolit I haven't seen any real moire problem on the few video ive watched. My gh4 shows a bit of moire too on complex patterns. My main concern is the sharpness of the videos. Ive downloaded some original videos on vimeo and opened it with exif tool to see the used settings. The most part of them shows far more digital sharpness when it's set to "normal" and a too soft picture when set to -5 (like the two videos on my previous post). Take a look at the grass, seems mushy and too sharpened, too digital :

    another exemple :

    Best quality seems to be when stopped to f4.

    The other problem I see is the OIS that seems really far from being efficient, yet Angry C said it is much better than the 12-35, so maybe there is a problem on some LX100.

    If the OIS of the 12-35 is less good than that, it must be very very bad :(.

    This is the reason i doubt the quality of the lx100 equals the 12-35 on a gh4; my poor little 14-45 on it makes better. It's a shame that no video comparison between the two systems exists yet :(.

  • What is wrong with Panasonic POWER OIS?

    I tested Sony RX100 III and the OIS is very very steady.

  • @Vesku

    I understand your fight with POWER OIS, but keep objective.

    People who own LX100 will comment by themselves.