I do not consider myself an avid photographer. Far from it, I'm a guy who believes that tinkering with a photo is best left to the photo studio. I have been following digicams for a while now and while I feel that the recent slew of digital cameras have vastly improved over their predcessors, the indoor picture quality of the recent P&S cameras still leaves much to be desired.
My search for the perfect digicam led me to stumble upon a new jewel that Panasonic had released in July 2008, the Panasonic Lumix LX3. Here are my arguments as to why I think, it's one of the better cameras out there and might well be the perfect digicam.
1) Sensor Size: To start off, the LX3 has a sensor size of 1/1.63". While that's not a lot more compared to most P&S's out there, it's still more than the average 1/2.5" or the 1/1.8" sensor size on most cameras. I was surprised to find out that the SLR-like cameras like for eg: the S5 IS have a sensor size of 1/2.5". I thought there must be some explanation for this and then, I found out that most cameras with 12X zoom and beyond have small sensor sizes. This is due to some photography limitation that I don't understand(I told you I'm a regular P&S guy. What did you expect
?) What was surprising though is that the S5 IS only has 4X zoom...go figure :S ?
The other cameras with larger P&S sensors I could find are the Nikon P6000 and S710 and the top of the line Sony W series i.e. the Sony W300.
2) Image ratios: The LX3 gives one the capability to capture photos in 3:2, 4:3 and 16:9 resolution. This is the biggest selling point for me. As an amateur photographer, I've barely half an idea on how to take a shot in perfect lighting etc. and I'm certainly not going to keep in mind, the fact that a certain portion of the image would be cropped during printing. With the LX3, there's no guessing how the printed image would turn out. Just switch to 3:2 for some good 4X6 prints.
3) Image Stabilization: Standard with most good cameras nowadays. The LX3 has it but I just thought I'd mention it.
4) Wide angle: The LX3 has a 24mm wide angle. While I've no idea what it translates to, it's certainly better than for eg: the Powershot G10 with a 28mm wide angle.
5) Zoom: The Panasonic is slightly compromised in this department offering a 2.5X optical zoom. But, to be honest, I care 2 cahoots for the optical zoom as a home user and I think other home users should too. Stop pretending you're some photography expert. You know you just use the zoom for playing around :bleh: .
6) Pop up flash: From what I gather, the poor indoor lighting and red eye in photos is due to the weaker flash on P&S cameras and their close proximity to the lens. A pop-up flash reduces red eye which is a big plus and always welcome for a guy like me who hates tampering with photos once uploaded to my PC. What is also noteworthy is the flash range - 8.3 metres. Show me a P&S flash with that kind of range. One camera I could find with a flash having that kind of range is the Nikon P6000. The P6000 flash has a range of 8m....(hmm the P6000 also seems to be quite good. Maybe I'll check it out too.)
7) LCD: The LX3 has a 3" LCD with 461K colours. I'm not sure how much better it is than most of the other cameras. But most cameras I checked out had 230K screens(the Canon top of the line 6xx series i.e A650IS has a 172K screen.) with a 2.5" display. The Nikon P6000 and W300 have 2.7" screens. The Canon G10 has a 3" screen but is much bigger camera. I thought this is worth mentioning.
8) Internal memory: The LX3 has 50MB internal memory. Not a lot and this could be a irrelevant for many as we all are most certainly popping in a 2GB SD card but it's worth considering that this is much more than what other cameras provide. Plus it might come it handy in the rare event that you forget your SD card at home and have to take photos. I also thought it worthy to mention when I saw that that Sony provides a pathetic 15MB internal memory on the W300. Tsk Tsk. Less said about Sony, the
better.
9) Colour choice: The camera is supposedly available in black and silver. For many, this is not an issue. For me, well I like silver and I feel black is best left to the professionals. Just my view. No offence to all those experts out there with silver coloured cams.
Cons:
1) No Viewfinder: Panasonic seems to have dropped the viewfinder from it's entire range of P&S cameras and the LX3 is no exception. I personally feel sad about this but my experience with my existing PoS Sanyo Xacti S60 (Yes, you read right. It's more like PoS and not P&S) has led me to believe that the viewfinder isn't a really big deal. Still, I would've liked to have
it on the LX3 just for old times sake or rather to complete the package. There may be cases where I would like my shots to be super steady. A viewfinder would give me that confidence.
With all the improvements Panasonic has made to the LX3, it's would've done them well to include a viewfinder. It could lead to more sales for people on the fence because of this factor.
2) Poor Pop up flash placement: I don't know why no one has pointed this out. Maybe it's because it really isn't a problem but it seems to me that the flash is placed at a point(extreme left) where one would hold the camera for a shot. I would've liked the flash to be placed at the centre (like the SX110 IS). I don't know how much of a problem this is unless I try out the camera.
So fellas, please let me know I'm being too naive or jumping to conclusions about my feelings on the LX3. Mind you, I'm no expert. So, please feel free to tear apart my misconceptions on this device. Also, please correct me wherever you feel I'm wrong w.r.t technical details. Thanks
.
My search for the perfect digicam led me to stumble upon a new jewel that Panasonic had released in July 2008, the Panasonic Lumix LX3. Here are my arguments as to why I think, it's one of the better cameras out there and might well be the perfect digicam.
1) Sensor Size: To start off, the LX3 has a sensor size of 1/1.63". While that's not a lot more compared to most P&S's out there, it's still more than the average 1/2.5" or the 1/1.8" sensor size on most cameras. I was surprised to find out that the SLR-like cameras like for eg: the S5 IS have a sensor size of 1/2.5". I thought there must be some explanation for this and then, I found out that most cameras with 12X zoom and beyond have small sensor sizes. This is due to some photography limitation that I don't understand(I told you I'm a regular P&S guy. What did you expect
?) What was surprising though is that the S5 IS only has 4X zoom...go figure :S ?The other cameras with larger P&S sensors I could find are the Nikon P6000 and S710 and the top of the line Sony W series i.e. the Sony W300.
2) Image ratios: The LX3 gives one the capability to capture photos in 3:2, 4:3 and 16:9 resolution. This is the biggest selling point for me. As an amateur photographer, I've barely half an idea on how to take a shot in perfect lighting etc. and I'm certainly not going to keep in mind, the fact that a certain portion of the image would be cropped during printing. With the LX3, there's no guessing how the printed image would turn out. Just switch to 3:2 for some good 4X6 prints.
3) Image Stabilization: Standard with most good cameras nowadays. The LX3 has it but I just thought I'd mention it.
4) Wide angle: The LX3 has a 24mm wide angle. While I've no idea what it translates to, it's certainly better than for eg: the Powershot G10 with a 28mm wide angle.
5) Zoom: The Panasonic is slightly compromised in this department offering a 2.5X optical zoom. But, to be honest, I care 2 cahoots for the optical zoom as a home user and I think other home users should too. Stop pretending you're some photography expert. You know you just use the zoom for playing around :bleh: .
6) Pop up flash: From what I gather, the poor indoor lighting and red eye in photos is due to the weaker flash on P&S cameras and their close proximity to the lens. A pop-up flash reduces red eye which is a big plus and always welcome for a guy like me who hates tampering with photos once uploaded to my PC. What is also noteworthy is the flash range - 8.3 metres. Show me a P&S flash with that kind of range. One camera I could find with a flash having that kind of range is the Nikon P6000. The P6000 flash has a range of 8m....(hmm the P6000 also seems to be quite good. Maybe I'll check it out too.)
7) LCD: The LX3 has a 3" LCD with 461K colours. I'm not sure how much better it is than most of the other cameras. But most cameras I checked out had 230K screens(the Canon top of the line 6xx series i.e A650IS has a 172K screen.) with a 2.5" display. The Nikon P6000 and W300 have 2.7" screens. The Canon G10 has a 3" screen but is much bigger camera. I thought this is worth mentioning.
8) Internal memory: The LX3 has 50MB internal memory. Not a lot and this could be a irrelevant for many as we all are most certainly popping in a 2GB SD card but it's worth considering that this is much more than what other cameras provide. Plus it might come it handy in the rare event that you forget your SD card at home and have to take photos. I also thought it worthy to mention when I saw that that Sony provides a pathetic 15MB internal memory on the W300. Tsk Tsk. Less said about Sony, the
better.
9) Colour choice: The camera is supposedly available in black and silver. For many, this is not an issue. For me, well I like silver and I feel black is best left to the professionals. Just my view. No offence to all those experts out there with silver coloured cams.
Cons:
1) No Viewfinder: Panasonic seems to have dropped the viewfinder from it's entire range of P&S cameras and the LX3 is no exception. I personally feel sad about this but my experience with my existing PoS Sanyo Xacti S60 (Yes, you read right. It's more like PoS and not P&S) has led me to believe that the viewfinder isn't a really big deal. Still, I would've liked to have
it on the LX3 just for old times sake or rather to complete the package. There may be cases where I would like my shots to be super steady. A viewfinder would give me that confidence.
With all the improvements Panasonic has made to the LX3, it's would've done them well to include a viewfinder. It could lead to more sales for people on the fence because of this factor.
2) Poor Pop up flash placement: I don't know why no one has pointed this out. Maybe it's because it really isn't a problem but it seems to me that the flash is placed at a point(extreme left) where one would hold the camera for a shot. I would've liked the flash to be placed at the centre (like the SX110 IS). I don't know how much of a problem this is unless I try out the camera.
So fellas, please let me know I'm being too naive or jumping to conclusions about my feelings on the LX3. Mind you, I'm no expert. So, please feel free to tear apart my misconceptions on this device. Also, please correct me wherever you feel I'm wrong w.r.t technical details. Thanks
.
Funny how you mention it is the perfect digicam - which it mostly is, because it dares to think different - but for mostly the wrong reasons. 