Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3 First Look: Review. (Updated 22/7/2008)

Panasonic’s Lumix DMC LX3 is a beautiful little camera offering advanced features including optical image stabilisation and a superb new Leica lens. And at last, a manufacturer has created a high-resolution sensor designed to provide high image quality.

Panasonic has taken a brave stand with the LX3, it’s decided not to increase the resolution in the race for cameras with ever-higher pixel counts (for the record, the LX3 is a 10-megapixel camera) at the expense of image quality. Panasonic has actually created a new, “super high sensitivity multi-aspect CCD” for this camera.

And while the model used at the launch in sunny, swanky, Monte Carlo for this first look is a pre-production model, so the camera’s performance and subsequent images used here may not be up to the standard the full production units could produce, it is still excellent. Apart from a slight softness, images are lookin’ darn good to me; but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The LX3 has a tough all metal construction and a rather attractive retro design in two liveries: black and silver, it is also novel in that it has been designed with the enthusiast in mind and to produce superb image quality, according to Panasonic.

Its new Leica DC-Vario-Summicron ultra wide-angle 24mm (in 35mm film format terms) lens looks a cracker – almost double the light gathering power of the predecessor LX2’s F/2.8 lens – with its F/2 maximum aperture.

Coupled with a the 24 to 60mm 2.5x optical zoom range and optical image stabilisation, the camera is designed to produce great landscape or broader scope images with stunning detail, and it seems to live up to the task. Apart that is, for that slight image softness. However, I easily addressed by adjusting the camera’s default sharpness, but this is perhaps more a reflection of the camera’s pre-production status than any inherent flaw?

But all that detail gathering power of the new lens would be in vain without a good sensor behind it and Panasonic has addressed this aspect of the LX3 as well. Panasonic has specially developed a new, large, 1/1.63-inch, 10.1-megapixel sensor that provides a greater area on each pixel for the light gathering part for each photo site.

On typical digital camera sensors, for example, up to 50% of each photosite is taken up by the peripheral circuitry; here the new sensor has been redesigned so those circuits take up only 5% of each photosite.

This has created a sensor (according to Panasonic’s figures) with a better dynamic range, boosting sensitivity by around 40%, saturation by around 35% (both when compared with Panasonic’s own DMC-FX35 digital camera) and it all seems to work rather well.

Shadow and highlight detail are good as is colour saturation, and because you can shoot RAW as well, enthusiasts that might want to buy, say, Sigma’s DP1, Canon’s G9 or Ricoh’s GX200 (the latter perhaps the LX3’s natural competitor), can be assured that this is also going to be a real contender for their money.

The improvements to the sensor coupled with the fast F/2 lens, mean noise is kept admirably low and allows you to shoot hand held in lower light levels without flash compared with other, less bright lenses and without bumping the sensitivity up to unreasonable levels.

The LX3 has a top sensitivity setting of ISO 3200 and yet, thanks to those big photosites, on this evidence noise is well controlled, again though remember this was a pre-production sample so there might be better things to come, so watch this space.

In terms of handling and control, a neat manual switch on the lens throat allows you to quickly change between 4:3, 3:2 (akin to 35mm film aspect ratio and the most natural outlet for the new camera’s images) and 16:9 widescreen aspect ratios.

This manual ethos stretches across to full manual controls and a nice mode dial on the top plate that houses two custom modes as well as a great 24fps 1280x720p HD movie setting with audio. And it houses another innovation introduced on the LX3, the new Intelligent Auto mode (or "iA") which is unerringly accurate at selecting the correct shooting mode for the scene presented to the lens.

The idea here is that a complete novice can pick up the camera and start shooting with the camera optimised for whatever subject they’re shooting. A downside though is the camera will then not allow you to play with some of the key manual settings, so while it’s great for snapping, it may not be used much by enthusiasts tempted top part with their cash for it.

Another nice feature is the excellent, wide-view 460-k dot colour screen that helps do justice to the images you shoot, particularly for close inspection of detail if checking focus for example.

There’s an awful lot of other clever kit built into the LX3 not least of which is the new Venus Engine IV image processor and it is this coupled to that new sensor that helps provide a lot of the finessing for the images once you’ve shot them.

Panasonic has built an entire “system” of accessories and additional features and bits and bobs for the camera as well. These include a 2.5-fps frame rate, film simulation modes to enhance image “looks”, a multi-exposure mode; manual, multi AF, face and tracking AF (the latter works really well particularly in the iA shooting mode) and the “system” accessories include everything from ND filters to a retro leather case. Cool!