I bought a Camera

March 16, 2007

It’s strange I do this so rarely, acquire photo equipment. Considering.

Can you believe it? I bought a digital point-and-shoot. I bought the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX2.

Why? Because it behaves the most like an SLR of any point-and-shoot I can find. And I really need a camera I can, and actually will, carry most places I go. Both of my SLRs are frankly too cumbersome to take out on a daily basis.

I like the Lumix LX2 because:
* Its saturation and latitude at low ISOs look good.
* It has a grip of manual overrides, etc.: shutter priority, aperture priority, white balance adjustment, manual focus
* It has a Leica lens, and it’s wide (28mm)
* It has a wide format (16×9), though that WILL require me to re-think a few things
* It even has slow-synch flash
* It has better resolution than my digital SLR (sigh)
* Though video certainly isn’t a real criterion for me, it is kinda cool that it does video at 1280×720. That seems pretty awesome for a tiny camera.

I know, but choose to ignore:
* It’s very noisy at higher ISOs.
* The lens can be somewhat soft sometimes.

I bought it from B&H Photo in NYC, which is where I order most of my photo stuff from that I can’t find at Citizen’s (Ye Olde Local but Understocked Rickety Little Camera Store). It should come next week sometime. I paid an extra $10 to get it in black, because it looks so very much more hot in black.

6 Comments

Mendingo says:

March 16, 2007 at 6:36 pm

Fantastic! I need a new Digital Camera, and was dreading all the research I normally have to do.

I trust your opinion on photography above any one elses.

You’d recommend this one, then?

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Lyza says:

March 16, 2007 at 6:43 pm

Dunno yet! I don’t have it yet! I’ll definitely post an update when I get it and have some photos to look at :).

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Marc says:

March 16, 2007 at 8:22 pm

You should definitely post an update when you have had a chance to play.

I’m in a bit of a similar boat, but haven’t had a chance to look around at the options yet.

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Jim says:

April 29, 2008 at 4:48 pm

Lyza,

How has this camera performed overall? I checked out Panasonic’s website and it still has some of the best specs even though it’s two years old. Anyway, your input would be much appreciated.

-Jim

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Lyza Gardner says:

April 29, 2008 at 4:58 pm

Jim,

Very well overall! Gorgeous saturation, especially reds. Love the wide aspect ratio. The video is not the fastest frame rate, but is lovely and relatively high-res.

Complaints:
* Somewhat flaky/slow autofocus
* NOT nice in low light/high ISOs–pretty noisy sensor
(I guess that’s pretty much what I said above!)

My personal biggest pet peeve about it is that it doesn’t have a viewfinder (just the big LCD). When it’s bright out or I want to compose carefully this drives me bonkers.

I’m still using this little guy a lot. Definitely no regrets on the purchase.

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Jim says:

April 29, 2008 at 5:21 pm

Thanks, I read this entry when you first posted it back in March 2007, I wanted to see if you still had the same sentiment after using it for a year and it sounds like you do. I off to purchase one now!

-Jim

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