A Fun, If Flawed, Friend

At last, my Canon A70 is no more. Having been in the shop twice in less than 3 months, and with a third visit looming, I decided that it's not worth the effort. Thus the search for a P&S camera begins.

After working with digicams for nearly 7 years, I now know what I want. In short, I want an imaging tool as versatile as my Nikon D70, but with less complexity, less cost, and less size. Unfortunately, such a product does not yet exist, and I am forced to choose among a list of very good, but flawed P&S digicams.

So why the Panasonic DMC-LX2?

First of all, the optics. Yes, it carries the Leica brand name. No, that doesn't mean a thing. See, when one utters the word Leica, the image of a bunch of mustached German technicians milling away in some neat and orderly workshop comes about. As a result, many people believe, wrongly, that anything with a Leica name is imbued with some magical quality that enables the user to produce magically wonderful images.

Oh... PULEEEEZ!

Let me assure you, that's not how the optics on the LX2 is made. Instead, I imagine it's probably made in Japan, by some soul-less automated machines, which faithfully and diligently churn out len elements 24/7. Does it matter? Not one whit.

Here's the gyst on the lens. It goes from 28mm ~ 112mm. It opens up really wide at wide angle, f2.8, and reasonably wide at the long end, f.4.5. It generates no visible chromatic abberation, and it produces no barrel or pincushion distortion at any focal length. It produces excellent edge-to-edge sharpness, with no vignetting or light fall-off of any kind.

In other words, it's every bit as astonishing as my Nikon 17~70mm (26~105mm in 135 equivalent)DX lens. You simply don't find this level of performance on any P&S camera.

Now comes the UI. Unlike most of the stuff out there, it is designed by someone who actually CARES about the creative process. Every desirable adjustment is just one action away. For example, wanna set the exposure compensation to -1 from 0? Tap the joy stick left, which gets you into exposure compensation adjustment, then push it down three times, and VOILA! This compares to 7 or 8 button pushes on my father's Coolpix 5600. Nikon engineers ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Another interesting thing about this camera's operation is the odd aspect ratios. Unlike all other P&S cameras out there, this one enbles the user to shoot with three different aspect ratios, 16:9, 3:2, & 4:3. And instead of hiding this adjustment deep within menus, the adjustment is made via a slider that sits on top of the lens barrel. And having 3 very accessible aspect ratios to work with adds yet another dimension to one's creative endeavor. Praise Panasonic design engineers!

Then there's the construction. What a beautiful piece of work this is. Every mechanical part on this camera shouts to the user "I AM EXPENSIVE!" Yeah, that's right. Shout. And having it in your hand makes you feel like a rich playboy with some exotic and expensive gear. Kinda like the Contax G1 of yore.

Now to the ugly part. This camera's shortcoming is well-documented, and it's all about noise. Or more specifically, noise reduction (NR). Let me assure you, whatever bad things you have heard about noise levels of this camera, it's worse. I knew beforehand that the LX2 has a serious issue with noise and NR. No big deal, I reasoned, I will permanently dial the ISO level to the lowest allowed, then tone the NR down to the minimum.

I was aghast to find that even with all the image adjustment parameters dialed to the minimum, the effect of excessive NR can still rear its ugly head. Anywhere you expect the shadow noise to be, you will see blotches of watercolor-like effect. This effect gets uglier as you dial the ISO higher. I've come to the coclusion that anything above ISO200 is unusable. And that's a stretch.

This is a shame. No, it's a crying shame. Because this flaw kills the LX2's chance of ever being a decent social camera. And unfortunately, I can see a lot of people buying this camera and use it to shoot indoor social gatherings.

It's hard to fathom that after all the excellent work done by the optics, mechanical, and design engineers, the sensor team goes on to drop the ball. And that's not the worst part. Trouble is, the Noise/NR problem is well-known with the LX1, the LX2's predecessor. This means that the sensor engineers had one year to fix a fundamental issue, but instead drank beer at work all year and produced no improvement. What we got, then, is a bump from LX1's 8Mpix to 10mpix.

Forgive me if I don't act overly enthusiastic.

So there you have it. Like so many of its competitors, the LX1 is a P&S digicam with an Archilles' Heel. With its excellent optics, intuitive UI, and wide choice of aspect ratio, this camera is your best friend on a cruise or road trip. However, noice/NR and weak flash conspire against it from being an acceptable social camera, despite a well-designed auto-focus mechanism. If you are planning to buy one, you must be able to live with this compromise.

Oh, and the price. At $400USD, it seems a tad on the expensive side. But considering that a mere 400 clams will make you feel like a rich playboy on the prowl. I say to you: Bah! It's cheap.