Re: How bad is Panasonic's Lumix DMC-LX1?

<lubecki@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The Lumix DMC-LX1 looks like an awesome camera on paper, primarily
because of the Leica lens. But all the reviews I've seen complain that
it produces very noisy images, especially at higher ISO numbers. Even
at ISO 80 the samples I've seen have a lot more noise than the
competition. Still, that lens is so nice...

For anyone who has experience with this camera (or the Leica version of
it) - how bad is the noise in real-life use? I don't really care if ISO
400 has a ton of noise, because I'd never shoot there anyway. But ISO
80, 100, and 200 should be usable.

My current camera is a Fuji F700 that takes great shots, but I need to
replace it because it's an unreliable pile of crap (first camera fried
the CCD, and the replacement overexposes everything because apparently
the shutter speed control is screwed up).

-Gniewko

I just bought a FZ7, which also had reports of bad noise at high ISO
settings (I presume they use the same CCD and image system). I checked
out loads of reviews about this, and also many test images. However,
most of it didn't get to the real point - definition. The Lumix cameras
seem to err on the side of better definition, and as such it shows as
noise - other cameras have a tendency to hide the noise, but with the
result that you lose some definition.

I have put some images up onto a web page, a couple of these test the
noise issue, and show what can be done with a quick software fix:

<http://www.thehewitts.eclipse.co.uk/newcamera/index.html>

You may also want to have a look here, probably the best online source
of information on digital imagery:

<http://www.steves-digicams.com/2006_reviews/fz7.html>

Also note that this camera is shown in the 'Best Cameras' section.

I have also checked back and compared the photos against my previous
cameras, and really, there is also noise in those shots too, I just
never took any notice until I read these reviews.

If you have to take pictures at high ISO, and they are important images,
or ones that are likely to be heavily edited, then using the TIFF format
does help a lot too. Otherwise, any images that do suffer with excess
noise can be fixed with Noiseware (I preferred that myself) or Noise
Ninja.

--
Andy Hewitt
<http://www.thehewitts.eclipse.co.uk/Home.html>
.

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