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Featured Review: Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3
by lidarman (Expert)
| Price Paid: $385.00 from BH Review Date: July 22, 2009 Used product for: 3 Months to 1 year Overall Rating: |
5 of 5
Summary:
I got this camera to carry with me on my bike and for an everyday “have on hand” camera. I usually carry a DSLR but carrying around a bulky camera all the time is not so fun. The key features I wanted were image quality and wide angle. When Panasonic released this, I was excited and that it has an f/2.0 lens made it even more exciting.
The camera boots fast but still has the typical lag for focusing and metering when the shutter is pressed. So for action shots, some anticipation is necessary.
The removable lens cap is a mixed bag over a curtain dust cover. There are less mechanical parts to break and less crevasses for dirt to get in the camera, but when riding a bike, it requires two hand operation and someplace to store the cap. It has a lanyard but this results in the cap swinging into the field of view in some instances in how I use it.
The images are amazing in quality being in some cases as good as my DSLR. Some shots with clouds still get that posterized look sometimes that seem to be common in point-and-shoot cameras.
One surprise is the macro quality. It actually might be it’s best strength. I didn’t have a good macro lens for my DSLR but now with this camera, I don’t need one. It takes nearly perfect macros.
I normally take wide angle photos, but after using this for a while, I do realize that I like a little longer focal length sometimes. It could have a little more zoom but the problem really is, most photos require either 24 mm or over a 120 mm. Making a 5x f/2.0 lens would be a difficult task, and probably make the camera too large. However, A little loss on the aperture at longer focal lengths would be ok with me.
One of the weakest features of the camera is the flash. It seems to nearly always produce unsatisfying images. But that is usually expected with point and shoot cameras. I find that putting a tissue in front of the flash does help in some cases.
Strengths:
Low Light shots with fast lens.
Macro shots are outstanding
Takes excellent quality low-noise photos
Wide angle– 24 mm equivalent.
manual mode
HD movie mode
Nice ergonomic size
Hotshoe
excellent optics
RAW images
Weaknesses:
Slow focus, metering.
Flash filled images not so exciting.
Large movie file sizes.
Short battery life in movie mode.
Could use more zoom range.
hard to frame image using LCD in bright light.
Awkward RAW format
Similar Products Used:
Canon PowerShot A80
Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ50
Customer Service:
No experience with CS.
Related Content:
All Panasonic User Reviews
Digital Cameras Forum
All Featured User Reviews
All Panasonic News & Articles
Panasonic Web Site
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