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Panasonic Lumix DMC LX5 vs LX3

11-07-2010

SUMMARY

The LX5 video capabilities far surpass that of the LX3.  However, the high ISO image quality has dropped substantially IMHO -> the LX5 shows a little less noise at the expense of much resolution/detail/sharpness.  The LX5 also sports a longer lens at the expense of image quality (very typical), therefore I don’t feel it’s an upgrade to the LX3 lens.

Don’t believe everything you read.  IE -> Hey Panasonic, not telling the whole truth during the press release is lying (I wish business/retail worked this way).

BACKGROUND

I’ve owned the LX3 for the past couple years and have loved it as do all its other owners (general consensus seems to be it’s the #1 point-and-shoot camera).  I’ve been looking forward to purchasing the LX5 to reap the benefits of the latest technology.  However, Goolge’ing for real world comparison data hasn’t been all that revealing, and I’ve had a difficult time finding logical reviews about the LX5 vs LX3.  I moved forward and purchased the LX5 anyhow, and presented what I’ve noticed below.  I did end up selling my LX3 and keeping the LX5, albeit barely.  I hardly qualify for an amateur photographer, so the analysis below isn’t all that scientific.

And yes, I’d love the image quality of a bulky large sensor camera, but I can’t see myself dragging that thing around the mountains with me.  So for now, I’m sticking to these wonderful little point-and-shooters.  My #1 goal is to spend time hiking/climbing, snapping photos is secondary.  I also don’t care to play with RAW due to the extra time needed, again because shooting scenery is secondary (although if somebody gave me the $1K Photoshop CS5 package, I’m sure I could spend time geeking out on it!).  UPDATE:  Since purchasing my Sony RX100 digicamera in August 2012, I’ve been dabbling more with post-processing as you’ll notice in the trip reports.

THINGS I LOVE ABOUT BOTH SHOOTERS

1) Oversized Sensor:  Relatively speaking compared to other point-and-shoots.  This makes for cleaner pictures and better high ISO performance, but it in no way matches the image quality of larger sensor shooters such as SLR’s or Four Thirds cameras.

2) 24mm Wide Angle Lens:  I mainly shoot outdoors and appreciate the 24mm field-of-view on these digicams.  As shown below, it’s substantially wider than your typical 35mm 4x3 point-and-shoot.  There’s a bit of lens distortion at the wide end as expected, but the camera digitally corrects this which is fine by me (less work on my end).  Creating panoramas from this lens results in fantastic and crazy wide images, also shown below (and the included Panasonic software is great at creating panoramas).

LX5 35mm 4x3 Intelligent Exposure = off

LX5 24mm 16x9 Intelligent Resolution = low

LX5 Panoram (~10mm equivalent) Six vertically stitched 16x9’s Intelligent Exposure = low

3)      Image Stabilization:  Using the two second self-timer, I can obtain crisp hand held shots at shutter speeds as slow as 1/5^th of a second at the wide end!  Here’s an example, notice the smooth waterfall effect.  This was unheard of a few years ago when the shuttered speed needed was closer to 10x faster.

4) F/2.0 Aperture:  Together with the Image Stabilizer, 24mm wide angle, and decent ISO performance, the bright lens makes this semi-compact camera a fantastic low light snapper.  The lens also maintains a fairly large aperture at the long end too, which makes for decent portrait shots due to the shallow depth-of-field, allowing the background to be blurred as seen in this example which is rare on point-and-shoots.  You can use panoramas as a trick to further decrease the depth-of-field…I’ll try to post an example soon.

5) 60 Second Max Shutter Speed:  Many point-and-shoots only allow up to a 15 second exposure.  With 60 seconds and a bright lens, you can capture detail on very dark moonless nights as seen in these examples 1, 2.

6) Lens Filters:  Both digicams are threaded for barrel adaptors which allow lens filters to be used.  I just purchased my first filters in October 2010, so any pictures posted on this site before this date were not taken with filters.  Here’s an example which stacked a 2-stop Neutral Density Filter and a Polarizing Filter together (notice a slow shutter speed has been used, and the lack of reflections on the water’s surface).

7) Multiple Aspect Ratios:  Different aspect ratios don’t simply crop the image, they actually maintain the 24mm field-of-view.  This is a rare feature, and actually results in wider 16x9 images vs other shooters which use standard 4x3 sensors and crop the images.  Having the aspect selector switch located on the barrel for easy adjustment is handy as well.  And I’m finding I really like the rare/unique 1x1 aspect ratio included on these Pany’s.

8) Full Manual Controls:  Allows for WAY more control than the standard “idiot modes”.

9) Live Histogram:  Identify any highlight clipping before snapping the photo.

10) Highlight Clipping Indication (overexposed areas flash upon review):  Reviewing the photo shows areas of the image that have “clipped” the sensor.  So the user can retake the photo before discovering this on a PC monitor, at which point it’s too late.

11) Intelligent Exposure:  The camera brightens shadows in high contrast scenes (JPG only).  The menu shows sensitivity increasing from ISO80 to ISO125 for this.  But this isn’t actually turning up the gain of the CCD sense amps, it’s simply post-processing the shadows which explains why this feature isn’t available in RAW.  It only works (enables itself) if approximately half the image is darker than the opposite half, but that’s great for outdoor shots with bright skies/clouds.  It’s a good alternative to the standard HDR method of combining multiple exposures into a single photograph (too much post-processing/time for me).  Although the composures aren’t identical, below are some before and after examples (click for larger versions).  Here’s some more after examples 1, 2, 3 (notice the clouds/sky are nicely exposed when they’d normally be washed out).

LX3 Intelligent Exposure = off	LX3 Intelligent Exposure = high
LX3 Intelligent Exposure = off	LX3 Intelligent Exposure = high

12)  High Dynamic Scene Mode:  This Scene Mode works very similarly to Intelligent Exposure above.  Except it cranks up the shadows to an equivalent ISO400, and is beneficial for those extreme contrast situations.  It also works 100% of the time, and doesn’t require half of the image to be darker than the opposite half as the Intelligent Exposure feature does.  However, it’s quite noisy, so I only view these shots at lower resolutions.  And again, it’s only available in JPG, not the RAW format.  It’s another good alternative to the standard HDR method of combining multiple exposures into a single photograph (too much post-processing/time for me).  Below is a before and after example (click for larger version).  Here’s some more after examples 1, 2, 3 (notice the clouds/sky are nicely exposed when they’d normally be washed out).

LX3 before

LX3 after

13)  HD Video:  720P with Image Stabilization.  Many of my example videos can be found on YouTube.

14)  RAW Format:  Both digicams allow for using a RAW format.  However, I’m too lazy for post-processing and prefer to stick with the more practical JPG format.  I try and use the Manual Controls to snap the picture “correctly” without the need for post-processing.  In fact, virtually 100% of the pictures on this website were straight out of the digicam’s JPG engine.  But I’ve tweaked the color saturation, contrast, and exposure on most of these pictures using the in-camera manual controls.  Yes, I still have a long way to go and learn (need more time in a day)!

PROS FOR LX5 vs LX3

15) Video Performance:  As seen in this example, the LX5 has significantly improved video capabilities over the LX3.

a. I found the LX3 to always be quite choppy.  It doesn’t seem related to the slower 24fps frame rate, but more due to processing.  However, I don’t have any proof of this but it’s fairly obvious when watching the videos.  The LX5 is radically smoother during playback.

b. 30fps on the LX5 vs 24fps on the LX3.

c. Full Manual Conrols, including full ISO control and Intelligent Exposure.

d. Optical Zoom, although it’s quite slow to avoid motor noise.  But it’s a wonderful addition!

e. Continuous Auto Focus seems mediocre.  It’s slow to react and confused easily.  You can also hear this function/motor during quite scenes, similar to the Image Stabilization...but at least both of these functions can be disabled if needed.

f. Audio Quality is much improved on the LX5.  The LX3 definitely lacked in this area, it was like hearing everything through a pillow.

g. Wind Cut Filter.  I haven’t fiddled with this much, but it just seems to be a low pass filter resulting in muddy audio.  I’d rather leave it off and am not impressed with it.

h. I have noticed some subtle vertical color banding on the LX5 videos.  And there’s really strong vertical striping when filming bright lights, the sun, etc.  The LX3 did not do this.  Not a big deal for me overall though.

16) Intelligent Zoom:  I’ve actually found this works decently for recording video which has lower resolution than pictures, and is therefore more forgiving of any artifacts introduced by Intelligent Zoom.  But I’d stray away from this when snapping pictures, unless you simply don’t want to post process/crop the pictures on your PC.  This feature “extends” the zoom range from 90mm to 120mm on the LX5.  The LX3 tops out at 60mm, and doesn’t have Intelligent Zoom.  Obviously Intelligent Zoom won’t lend the depth-of-field benefits beyond 90mm though.  Caveat:  see below for LX5 telephoto issues.

17) More Color Modes:  I’m a big fan of Pany’s Vibrant Film Mode (similar to Canon’s Vivid Mode) if the lighting allows for it.  The LX5 has included some additional modes, and I’m finding the Expressive Color Mode is pretty cool too, as this example shows.

18) Lens Filter Size:  The LX5 uses the more standardized 52mm thread vs the LX3 which only uses 46mm.  Considering filters aren’t cheap, I’m hoping the more common 52mm filters will be compatible with any future cameras I purchase.

CONS FOR LX5 vs LX3

19) High ISO Performance:  At base ISO80, both digicams perform almost identically, except the LX5 requires more light for the same exposure (notice the LX5 image is darker) which hurts low light performance.  At higher ISO, the LX5 suffers badly IMHO and shooting RAW doesn’t seem to help much (all images presented here are straight out of the camera’s JPG engine).  Reducing the Noise Reduction and increasing the JPG Quality doesn’t level the playing field either.  I guess Panasonic is correct when they state “the LX5 has less noise than the LX3”, but I’m not sure that counts when more than ~50% of the resolution has been lost???  Although the user may not notice this unless they’re pixel-peeping (the crops below are displayed at 100%).  Click the image for the full version.

LX3 ISO80 Shutter Speed = 1/2000 Aperture = F/2.0 Film Mode = Vibrant Noise Reduction = -2 Sharpness = +1 JPG Quality = low (the sensor is the bottleneck, not the compression)	LX5 ISO80 Shutter Speed = 1/2000 Aperture = F/2.0 Film Mode = Vibrant Noise Reduction = -2 Sharpness = +1 JPG Quality = low (the sensor is the bottleneck, not the compression)
LX3 ISO800 Shutter Speed = 1/2000 Aperture = F/7.1 Film Mode = Vibrant Noise Reduction = -2 Sharpness = +1 JPG Quality = low (the sensor is the bottleneck, not the compression)	LX5 ISO800 Shutter Speed = 1/2000 Aperture = F/7.1 Film Mode = Vibrant Noise Reduction = -2 Sharpness = +1 JPG Quality = low (the sensor is the bottleneck, not the compression)

20)  Telephoto Performance:  The LX3 snapped sharp photos thru the entire 24mm-60mm focal range from what I’ve seen, but I’ve since sold the LX3 so I can’t use it for the study below.  The LX5 slowly degrades the image quality when stepping thru the 24mm-90mm zoom range.  At 90mm, they’re becoming unusable for resolutions greater than 1920x1080 (24” PC monitor resolution).  And it’s obvious using the Intelligent Zoom function to achieve 120mm equivalent isn’t much better than simply cropping the photos on a PC. As I stated above, the photographer may not notice this unless they’re pixel-peeping (the crops below are displayed at 100%).  Click the image for the full version.

This is why I’ve learned to be leery of “do everything” point-and-shoots, especially ones with any kind of telephoto power.  I’d rather have a fixed focal length with better image quality, but that’s just me.

LX5 24mm	LX5 28mm
LX5 35mm	LX5 50mm
LX5 70mm	LX5 90mm
LX5 120mm