Going from DSLR to compact, need guidance

[final cut cafe]

Nels, since you own the LX2, how much noise do you see in your images? Do you experience

problems with the noise reduction?

[vandit]

In answer to your earlier question comparing the G series to the LX series:

 

I find that the 7MP sensor on the Canon to be one of the best of the high-MP sensors out there, in terms of low noise. The Panasonic's sensor is not a patch to it.

 

However, with RAW and proper noise reduction, this is not really an issue for me... and the Panasonic scores big points in handling. If you are shooting JPEG, you have to a bit more careful about noise handling.

 

With the G7, you can probbly expect pretty clean images, given its pedigree and the Digic 3 sensor. The LX2 also has a new processing engine, although the same engine on the FZ50 appears to oversharpen.

 

So my guess would be that the G7 would provide cleaner pictures at higher ISOs, but the LX2 is simply a great photographers camera in terms of usability. I rave about it enough here:

http://www.photosafariindia.com/articles/rev2-lx1.html

 

So the decision becomes yours, based on a comparison of the different images and the noise vs handling factor.

 

The lack of a viewfinder is surprisingly not an issue - to be honest, I find no viewfinder to be better than those lousy half-obscured tunnel vision vestigial viewfinders that some cameras sport. A "cleaner break", so to speak.

[final cut cafe]

Vandit, thanks for post your review! You mention noise is not a problem with some post-processing. Lets say I take pictures to be printed at 4x6. At what point (and ISO) on those relatively small prints should I expect to see unpleasing noise with the LX1 or LX2 without any post-processing?

[final cut cafe]

Vandit, I should add to my last message that I would be shooting in JPEG.

[nels]

Charles,

 

I own the LX2 as of last week. If you can read exif data, they're included with my pics.

 

Many questions that you ask can only be answered within the realm of subjective experience of my own. How's the noise? OK. Not worse than A620 to my highly subjective eyes. How good is the LCD? I can see it just fine, unless sun is directly shining on it.

 

Did I shoot all the pix in the link at 16:9? Yes. The very reason I bought the camera in the first place. None of the posted pix are cropped at all, which means being rigorous with compositions and hand-holding ability as much as you can.

 

Two additional things worth a note:

 

1. The RAW files are ~20MB in size. My Canon 5D gives RAW files about half the size at 12.8MP. The Pana engineers are incompetent in this area, and I told their tech support so as bluntly as I could.

 

2. LX2 uses SDHC cards that are incompatible with "vanilla" SD cards over 2GB in capacity. e.g. my Transcend 150x 4GB SD card that works fine in A620 will not be recognized by LX2. If you want to shoot RAW with LX2, you'll need a large card because of the RAW file sizes. All the pics I posted are shot as JPGs. Sandisk is about to release a first (to my knowledge) 4GB SDHC card in a week. Why Pana made this decision as opposed to supporting dual SD/SDHC format? I am p*ssed off, and let their tech support people know.

 

Finally, the notion of considering a teeny-weeny sensor digicam as a "replacement" for a DSLR is something that you must evaluate within the context of your own requirements and standards. For some, the digicam is more than enough. YMMV.

[final cut cafe]

Thanks for your thoughts, Nels. I think I will hang on to my dSLR and purchase the LX2 as a travel/portable suplement. I plan to do mostly JPEG shooting with the LX2. Does the LX2 support regular SD cards? I want to use the Sandisk Extreme II 2GB SD card with it. I've been trying to buy it but everyone seems to have it on back-order today. The only guys who have it are on eBay and are shipping from Hong Kong. I live the US and want to buy it from here so that it comes with the USA warranty.

[final cut cafe]

According to this site: http://panasonic.co.jp/pavc/global/lumix/lx2/specifications.html

 

the LX2 supports both SD, SDHC and MMC cards.

[nels]

Apart from the card I mentioned, I only have a Sandisk 512MB SD card which works fine in LX2. Their tech support said upto 2GB you're fine with regular SD cards, but please check with them to make sure. Over 2GB, you'll need SDHC.

 

My 512MB SD card would take 99 JPGs from LX2, but only 20 RAW files.

[final cut cafe]

Nels, do you know a reputable online source for purchasing the LX2 that has it in stock?

[nels]

I got mine from Prestige Camera - just because they are the ones who had it in stock last week. Google it or go to pricegrabber, and you'll see more options now. I cannot vouch for reputation of any dealers except possibly for Norman Camera where I have purchased most of my DSLR stuff from.

[michael s.]

Always a good idea to check at least the <a href=http://www.photo.net/neighbor/subcategory-index?id=2>Camera Shops section on photo.net</a> and <a href=http://www.resellerratings.com/seller1995.html>resellerratings.com</a> before buying online, so you know what may lie ahead.

[vandit]

To be honest, I never shoot JPEG, so I have never used Noise Ninja on a JPEG image - as such, I am not really qualifed to comment. However, if I had to guess, I'd say you'd be able to get pretty good results if you process with Noise Ninja, resharpen and then save as a TIFF.

 

Incidentally, I meant to say that the new Panasonic in-camera processing tends to overdo "noise reduction", not "sharpening", in my earlier post - still, that is a very sharp lens to begin with so it isnt as if you get substandard results. Plus I am sure you can modify the degree to which it does so.

 

Moreover, for 4x6 images, noise shouldnt be a major problem to begin with.

 

The LX1/2 are excellent choices - you can work around the noise issue, IMO, but it is much harder to work around a camera that is non-intuitive. The black one, needless to say, takes better photos :)

 

Vandit

[kenghor]

Have the LX2 for almost a week and I've never imagine myself using anyting above ISO 400

on the LX2. However, with the recent release of Abode RAW supporting RAW files from LX2, I

did some test at ISO 1600. I would say that the result isn't at bad as I've imagined. BTW, after

converting the RAW files to DNG, the average file size is 9MB. Look at the photos and be

your own judge:<br>

 

<img src="http://www.lens-scape.com/article/lx2/1600-compare.jpg"><br><br><p>

<img src="http://www.lens-scape.com/article/lx2/1600-compare-1.jpg">