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I purchased this camera about a year ago but never took this camera serious until recently. PICTURES ARE PARTICULARLY IMPRESSIVE WHEN THE EXPOSURE IS JUST PERFECT. (As a fine art photography major in college, I am very critically of the image quality). Korea. Why didn't they come with up a recessed push button.; The battery seems to run out quick; the camera has RAW option all right but a RAW image is as big as 16MB. I ended up using this camera because I found it impractical to carry around Canon 40 D when you walk or ride subway most of times. On an overseas trip to S. I cannot really tell the difference which ones were taken by Lumix and which ones by Canon 40D.
I set the resolution to 7.5 M (the highest setting) and PROGRAM MODE in all pictures.I had problems initially with the picture quality: most pictures were overexposed but I learned how to RESET and corrected the problem; the images were on BLUE side but I corrected by adjusting the WB ADJUST. Most of my street images are superb. Cons: Wish this camera had an automatic open/closure cap; I don't like the little metal thing that you push to the right/left to turn on/off the camera. Besides, when you set to RAW, the camera takes a JPEG image at the same time regardless you want it or not.
A very good camera. It is small enough to take with you and good enough to want to.
But, who cares. It makes a lot of sense to me to stay below ISO 100 on the compact cameras. It has user friendly manual settings for example, format ratios (4:3,3:2,16:9), I am quite satisfied with the zoom range because I like a reasonable wide angle for scenery (which works quite nicely with the 16:9 ratio) and I take a lot of close up portraits. There is also a manual setting for macro which takes very sharp close ups. This camera has the same robust battery cover as the Panasonic lx1 (which I also own). OK here's more on manual settings: It has Aperture priority, Shutter priority, fully automatic,manual and more.
Again, the silver often goes for much less than the black. They charged a very reasonable price especially for the black (k) model. Leica lens- very very sharp. The Silver model seems to be much more available and often $200 or even $300 less. It takes a 49mm filter but you have to purchase and use an extension to use the filter (big hassle). They packaged it very well and shipped it right away. I will give my individual perspective on this LX2. As I remember, it zooms 35mm equivalent of 24mm to 60mm.
Tamarac Dig 5692. I am not a professional photographer, but I have owned some very fine cameras such as Leica M2 rangefinder, Leicaflex, Contax 139 quartz with Zeiss lens. Image stabilizer enables me to use slower shutter speeds and still get sharp photos. I have a real sense for quality and this Panasonic DMC LX2 is excellent quality in construction, appearance and performance. I ordered an excellent soft case directly from Norman Camera.
I set it on SNOW setting in Scene mode and it took fabulous photos of snow scenes with excellent color. Now, about the fine camera. NO WAY. A few general comments on the LX3. The silver model is quite handsome and is the SAME camera. Don't worry, if you forget to remove the lens cap before turning the camera on, it will let you know to remove the lens cap and then press the appropriate button to fully extend the lens.
The lens does not fully retract and it has a lens cap. Not good for portraits. I ordered mine from JM Group and I am so happy with them, I wish I could order everything from them. Same quality as LX2 except for the cheaply constructed battery cover on LX3 (Shame on you Panasonic). I owned one for a brief time. You can purchase attachment lens to make it even more wide angle (to 35mm equiv of 18mm).
If you are really into wide angle and not into portrait, it is probably the camera for you. If I want a lens that fully retracts, then I would have to give up some very desired qualities of this camera. I've been shooting everything below ISO 100 and no problem with noise. It is being sold for way over Panasonic Suggested retail price by some companies and is on back order. They recommend the Tamarac Dig 5691, but it is a bit too tight for my liking. This doesn't bother me at all.
I know that macro gives very sharp focus. For, me, I am quite happy with my LX2.
I'd recommend reading the instructions manual if you want to use manual focus or any of the other programs it has. We've had this camera for a while now, and we still love it. We love all the different features it offers, and the quality of pictures that it takes. The rechargable battery is nice, too. It's the best camera we've ever owned.
Unfortunately none of it makes up for the big detraction from the new LX3 whichis the radically shortened Zoom range which I miss a lot.You just can't move in on a subject like you could with the LX2 and therefore must do it with software after you have taken the picture. I've owned the LX2 for a year and a half now and decided to try an LX3 to see if any of the LX2 shortcomings were remedied. Long story to short,don't bother.Yes the lens on the LX3 is slightly faster and goes a little wider and yes the noise has been reduced a bit but in reality you will rarely notice the improvements over the LX2. The camera is also slightly larger than an LX2 and unfortunately Panasonic decided to continue with the very annoying lens cap design for lens protection.If they are going to make us use a lens cap why then would they make us buy a special adapter just to add a filter to the end of the lens.The lens sticks out anyway so let us screw a filter on it without adding even more length of an extra adapter barrel.Another annoying carryover is if you decide to use the video recordingmode you still cannot zoom the lens while shooting video.And why are video clips limited to ten minutes when you use a multi-gigabyte card that could record for much longer. So I'm not finding the improvements to the LX3 and the continued glaring lack of others all that useful in the real world.
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