Panasonic LUMIX LX10 4K Digital Camera, 20.1 Megapixel 1-Inch Sensor, 3X LEICA DC VARIO-SUMMILUX Lens, F1.4-2.8 Aperture, POWER O.I.S. Stabilization, 3-Inch LCD, DMC-LX10K (Black)

I shoot primarily with a DSLR (the Nikon D7100 is my weapon of choice), but for some time now I have felt the need to have a compact camera capable of taking high quality pictures that I can carry conveniently, particularly on my business travels.In my hunt for a compact camera that I could use during my business travels, I had the following criteria:1. Compact - ideally a camera that I could carry in my pocket - the LX7 fits comfortably into a larger pocket of a cargo trouser or a jacket pocket, but is not compact enough to fit into a formal trouser or even a pair of jeans. The camera is light, and carrying it around in one hand is very convenient.2. Picture quality - I wanted a camera that is capable of producing good quality, publishable results. When on business travels, I like taking pictures in my free time as I walk around town, and getting pictures that capture the feel of a place without sacrificing quality is an important consideration. The LX7 scores very high in this respect. In good light conditions, at ISO 80, the image quality is really good.3. Controls - I wanted a camera where I have complete control over the image making process in a way that is as easy as a DSLR. This means the ability to change aperture, ISO, White Balance, Focus Mode etc. easily. The LX7 exceeded my expectations in this regard - the controls to change image parameters are available via buttons (rather than being buried deep inside a menu hierarchy), which makes changing image parameters fairly quick and easy. The one exception to this is that changing the autofocus spot is a little tedious.The other main strengths of the LX7 are:1. Fast lens - a maximum aperture of 1.4 allows one to use the lower ISO's consistently, which result in higher quality images.2. Quick focusing (once you select the autofocus spot - although selecting the spot is a little tedious).3. Changing from autofocus to manual focus is as easy as flicking a switch.4. Good battery life.5. Has a level indicator to keep the horizon level - this is a very useful feature for shooting landscapes.I thought that the main drawbacks of the LX7, after using the camera for a few weeks now, are:1. Changing the autofocus spot is tedious - in situations where one if looking for a quick candid shot, this is a definite drawback.2. Noise creeps in at higher ISO's, but this is to be expected.3. No built-in viewfinder - I prefer looking into a viewfinder when composing, and the fact that I have a look at the screen gets in the way.4. Screen is not bright enough on a bright day - when shooting in bright daylight, it is challenging to compose a picture by looking at the screen.5. Temperature range - I was in New Hampshire recently (Oct 2015), and in the shade the temperature was probably 2-4C, and after a little bit the camera would not allow me to zoom and autofocus. After sitting in a warm car for a few minutes, the camera came back to life. When I checked the manual, it said the operating temperature range for this camera is 0C - 40C. This means that one cannot rely on this camera in even moderate weather (0C is not that cold, and 40C is hot, but common in the tropics during summer).Overall, I am very pleased with the LX7. It filled a niche that I had, as I left my DSLR behind during business trips, and my iPhone 5 camera was a poor substitute. For someone looking for a compact, high quality camera that they can carry with them most of the time, the LX7 fits the bill really well.I have included a bunch of pictures with this review (all taken with the LX7).Happy shooting!

Worth every penny. I own 3 of these cameras and I will buy more whenever I find them. I think is the 2nd most powerful compact camera in the world only after the Sony RX100 VII but the Sony cost twice the price of the LX10 and that makes this camera an unique purchase.Highly recommended.I got mine in 2022 and still going strong.Great zoom 24-70 equivalent.Sturdy body made of metal.Great design with many manual dials that provide full control.Easy to use in A+ modeExcellent 4K video!

The Panasonic LX-7 is the latest in a line of high end compact cameras that are reasonably pocketable and can produce excellent photos (and videos) in daylight and lowlight conditions. Previous models have been well received and unless you have them side by side you would be hard pressed to see any real differences in the way the LX-7 looks and feels compared to it's immediate predecessor, the LX-5 introduced two years ago. This time, however, the LX-7 is not alone and in fact there is an elephant in the room, the Sony RX100, that really cannot be ignored if one is to understand the merits of the Panasonic LX-7.The Sony RX100 has made it to the Time Magazine list of 25 best inventions of the year - and as we know, Time is never wrong. Well almost never. The RX100 is truely pocketable, able to fit into a shirt pocket whereas the LX-7 needs a jacket pocket. The RX100 has 20M pixels and the LX-7 has only 10M pixels, potentially improving resolution and cropping ability. The RX100 has a sensor that is 2.8 times the area of the one in the LX-7. And to get these features the RX100 sells at a different price point than the LX-7, roughly 150 dollars more at suggested retail and because the LX-7 has been undergoing price fluctuations lately, I've noticed that sometimes the difference is closer to 240 dollars! This cost difference alone may steer many away from the Sony, unless, of course, you really want a high quality shirt pocketable camera.Now why consider the LX-7, other than price. It's the lens. The LX-7 has a lens that extends from 24mm to 90mm (35 mm camera equivalent values) while the Sony starts at 28 mm and goes to a little above 90mm). The LX-7's widest lens opening is f1.4 and never exceeds f2.3 over its range. The Sony RX100 starts at f1.8 and quickly goes to f2.8 (at 35mm) and eventually goes to f4.5 at 90mm. This means that the LX-7 has about a half stop advantage at wide angle, a 1.44 stop advantage at 35 mm and nearly a 2 stop advantage at 90mm. What does this mean for the performance of the LX-7, since this is one of the prime reasons to purchase this camera?The large sensor is the heart of the RX100. Because its area is 2.8 times that of the LX-7 its noise or grain at any ISO value should be significantly better (lower) than the LX-7, in fact if it had 10M pixels it should have about a 1.5 stop advantage. The fact that it has 20 M pixels, means that the area of each pixel is cut in half and the advantage over the LX-7 drops to around half a stop. Of course, there are ways to combine the pixels, effectly increasing the area of each pixel and to reduce the noise again. I took a look at the RAW samples of the LX-7 and the RX100 via the dpreview site and compared them at ISO 400. In my view, the RX100 is clearly better at ISO 400 than the LX-7 at ISO 400 but the RX100 at ISO 800 looked worse than the LX-7 at ISO 400. This crudely confirms that the RX100 sensor has somewhat less than a 1 stop advantage over the LX-7. What does all this mean with respect to daylight and low light photos?In daylight (good light), the RX100 should perform about 1 stop better than the LX-7 since both cameras are probably at their lowest ISO setting and have similar lens openings. Fortunately, the Panasonic LX-7 noise or grain is reasonable at this setting and unless one pixel peeks (looks at really large blowups of small sections of the image) one will not see much difference. Also in dim light at 28mm, since both cameras would probably be set to the lowest f stop, the RX100 would have a one stop advantage. Once one moves away from 28 mm, however, the Panasonic LX-7's lens has a two stop advantage as stated above, and it can become the camera most likely to produce the lowest grain.And lets not forget the 24mm wide angle of the Panasonic LX-7. For some, this is the deal clincher. Sure it can get more people into a group picture in close quarters, and more landscape into your images, but many believe, in fact that it should be used as a close up lens, providing a sense of depth to your image. Move in close to an object, and have an interesting background and this lens will add perspective to your image. Just don't try to make the closeup object an adult face since they will not be happy with the big nose look - mine is large enough as it is.So the LX-7 works well in daylight (the RX100 may work a little better if you care to pixel peek), but the advantage really goes to the LX-7 in dim light because of its relative constant f stop. Having 24mm doesn't hurt either. If only it would fit into a shirt pocket.I suppose another consideration might be purchasing the previous model, the LX-5. As of this writing it is still available for around 300 dollars, and I've even seen it for sale at 250 dollars. The construction differences between the LX-5 and my LX-7 are really minimal with both being high quality. The LX-7, given its f1.4 lens and improvements in its sensor, mean it has about a 1.5 to 2 stop improvement in light gathering ability over the earlier model. The display screen resolution has doubled to over 900,000 pixels (nice). There is an aperture ring around the lens akin to cameras of old, a convenient touch and selecting aperture using it is way easier than using the rotating wheel on the camera rear. The LX-7 can also show a horizontal and vertical level which can be helpful in some situations. And the video resolution has increased from 720p to 1080p - true HD. I'm not sure that the LX-7 white balance works well, but since I shoot in RAW, this has not bothered me since that is simple to correct (and one of the reasons to shoot in RAW, of course. Post processing with Adobe Photoshop CS6 makes processing RAW straight forward since ACR is becoming the perferred work flow, but that is another story.)For me, the LX-7 is the camera to take when I want to travel fairly light and I am not worried about subject motion in dim light(High ISO). For the most part the LX-7 has decent image quality up to ISO 400 (shooting RAW) maybe even ISO 800 with some noise suppression. But it is not a DSLR. IF you look - pixel peek, you can still see noise, even at base ISO and bringing up the shadows can also create visible noise. As the saying goes, there is no perfect camera. When I want really low noise, or I expect really dim conditions with movement, such as the grandkids in theater productions out comes the DSLR. Also shooting inside museums (paintings), if allowed, seems to work best for me with wide apertures and high ISOs, another use for DSLRs. But naturally the price to pay is size and weight and sometimes large cameras just seem out of place. For the moment, this camera represents state-of-the art performance, in a reasonably small package and a reasonable price. But the Sony RX100 just may show the way forward.12/20/2012This was a really great camera when I bought it at over $400 but when it went to $300 it became sensational. Since I still had some time left on the Amazon return policy I contacted them and they sent out a new LX-7 at the reduced price which I shipped back to them unopened for the refund on the original camera which I kept. Great, but a little cumbersome. You would think that they would just credit me with the difference, saving postage.As I use the camera more, I find low light performance works as well as I thought it did initially and, in fact, I am more willing to shoot at ISO 800. Using a Topaz Labs plug-in and Adobe raw processing has produced very useful results at this and even at ISO 1600 for small prints. I have found that using the display as a viewfinder in bright light can be a pain (as it is on all such cameras, it seems) so I have used my savings to purchase the Electronic Viewfinder (EVF) which adds bulk to the camera when attached. It comes in a little pouch that can go in a pants pocket and I will probably use it on bright summer or winter days or when I shoot grandchildren in plays (the lit screen can be annoying in a darken theater). This EVF gives a really crisp image and, like the Sony RX-100 probably points to the future. I suspect that if this is an example, we will see more of these at even higher resolution on SLR type cameras (Sony and Olympus already are there, it seems). Anyway, at prices close to $300 this camera is hard to beat.