Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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75 of 76 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A dandy travel companion, November 15, 2005
Michael Reichmann brought this camera to my attention in his excellent photographic website, Luminous Landscape. He takes the little camera along with his more serious gear in order to capture snapshots and the occasional gallery quality image. Since his original review, he continues to prize the camera, most recently doing duty in a spring, 2006 photo shoot in Africa.
Having just returned from a trip, I find this a dandy little camera. I shot about two hundred photos with it. The issues with low light sensitivity (high ISO settings) are certainly there. I would limit use to 80 or 100 ISO. There is another issue general to all these little cameras. Because of their light weight, it can be difficult to maintain a steady grip so that images are not blurred. I also prefer to shoot through a viewfinder, not the back of an LCD screen - but that is the trade off for size. The LX1 has optical image stabilization to help you, and I found its use essential. The 16:9 aspect ratio, the same as for high def TV, is very pleasing in many exterior and interior situations. You can also pick two other, narrower aspect ratios through a switch on the lens. The sensor is a true 16:9 sensor, meaning you get full resolution, up to 8 mp, at all aspect ratios.
There are a number of camera friendly aspects to this camera. For one, it will fit easily into the inside pocket of a light outdoor jacket or the inside pocket of a suit. The battery recharger is tiny and light with no cord. Just insert the battery (about the size of a thick postage stamp) and plug the recharger directly in the wall. So it's easy to pack for a trip. If you start the camera without removing the lens cover, the camera notifies you to remove the lense. This has the effect of training you to always replace the lense when the camera is not in use, protecting the excellent Leica optics. It has several modes for common situations, such as shooting at parties (I found it worked well to capture both the subject and background using flash).
It has a very easy to use auto shoot mode that let's you get into the picture. It is located on a button in the back, so you don't have to hunt through menus to find it. Because you can use manual focus as close as 5 cm in a wide angle format, you can shoot a picture of a group of people at your table - just place the camera on an overturned glass at the end of the table and wait for it to click. The auto shoot mode can also be used to deal with low light and less than steady hands. It has full manual mode capability so you can adjust parameters to you liking. It has a 2 or 10 second delay. Using the 2 second delay and bracing the camera on a nearby support or on your chest (hold your breath), you can capture excellent indoor pictures without flash. I used this several times to capture sharp, well saturated color panoramas of church and monument interiors. They look like picture postcards.
The camera is one of the few, or only, to shoot in RAW mode, allowing complete control of the picture when you download to your computer for printing.
If you are a fairly serious amateur, or a professional like Mr. Reichmann, you will find this camera a handy and fun traveling companion to your Canon or Nikon. Or just take it alone, as I did, when you don't plan on doing any serious shooting.
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91 of 100 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exellent Camera provided you use it at lower ISO levels, October 7, 2005
A prior reviewer "Bruce" really does Panasonic and this camera an unfair disservice. Succintly put, half truths and half stories are often worse than no truth at all. Quoting partially from www.dpreview.com and their review of this camera does indeed suggest that this would appear to be a bad purchase. Even the reviewer at dpreview clearly indicated that this camera has incredible resolution and sharpness with a fabulous feature set of adjustments that will more than compensate for any noise issue at lower ISO levels (where most people will be anyway with the camera).
That reviewer merely cautioned users that noise is definitely an issue at ISO levels above 100 and he voiced his disappointment in that area for sure. However, he clearly went on to state that images at 80 and even 100 ISO can indeed be very good! I think my message to those reviewing these comments is to "ALWAYS" fully check facts out for yourself and don't rely on "selective partial quotes" that fail to take the whole situation into consideration. So if you want a camera for use at high ISO levels, this is definitely not the camera you want. However, if lower ISO levels are fine for you then by all means this is an incredible camera . . . as the dpreview author clearly enumerated.
People hear the word "noise" in a camera reivew and they panic! Got news for you folks . . . noise goes up with increased ISO significantly in every single digital camera on the market and this one is no exception except that most cameras don't visibly start to show it until around 200 ISO. This one begins to show it at 100 ISO. But even then just a bit of post-processing with many photography programs can easily remove it at these levels.
Bottom line . . . this is an incredibly good camera for people genuinely understanding photography. Even Leica found this camera to be perfectly fine and they have come out with an exact copy of it themselves and they only make superior quality equipment folks. I purchased this camera several weeks ago via "grey market" and the images are incredibly good at 80 and 100 ISO. Don't take my word for it . . . review the sample images at www.dpreview.com for this camera, as well as the two gorgeous samples (2 girls) on the leica site for their corresponding version of this camera. That should end the panic over "noise". Lions and tigers and bears . . . oh my!
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29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a joy to use, November 22, 2005
This is an incredibly good camera. For it's diminuative size, there's very little "wrong" with it. Sure, it doesn't excel at high ISO shots and due to it's size, the flash is a little weak and there's no optical viewfinder. But other than those things, I can find no real flaw. It's very easy to clean up noise in postprocessing by using noise ninja or neat image. Unlike other pocket cameras, the LX1 doesn't do much NR for you and it even supports RAW for those that really want to take charge of their image processing. That means you have the control. If you're the kind of person that enjoys a bit of postprocessing and plans your pictures around a camera's strengths and inherent weaknesses, then the LX1 will be a joy to use. In my opinion, it may not be the best camera for a pure snapshooter that is new to photography, but it's very rewarding for the advanced amateur or the pro looking for a pocket cam to keep along side his/her dSLR.
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