Panasonic LX5

I’ve been trying to decided on a point and shoot camera for myself lately and I’ve been having a hell of a time with it. I finally narrowed the choices down to two….Panasonic’s LX5 and Nikon’s P7100. Both are awesome cameras but since I’m pretty sure I won’t get away with buying both, I had to choose between them.

Fortunately, I could borrow both from the store and give them a good test run. (I love my job!) So over the next few days I’ll show you what I shot and then tell you about my pick and why.

First, the LX5. Check out all the specs and dpreview’s take on the camera here:

http://www.dpreview.com/products/panasonic/compacts/panasonic_dmclx5

I took both cameras on a little photowalk on a cloudy day so the shots from both will be fairly comparable but this is still my usual unscientific comparison.

LX5

The LX5′s f2.o lens is awesome. If you are a lowlight shooter you will love this lens…

LX5 f 2.0 1/8

LX5

LX5

LX5

LX5

LX5

LX5

The Good Stuff:

- f 2.0 lens – super sharp and good for low light photos

- aspect ratio can be changed via a switch on the lens

- 16:9 screen

-16:9 shots are high resolution instead of a lower resolution crop

-Smaller size

-wider lens 24mm

-faster frame rate, 2.5 fps max 5 shots

The not so good:

-only one control dial for manual shooting….and an awkward one (to me) at that

-labels marking the controls on the back are hard to see when in bright light

-no viewfinder

-no flip out screen

-SOOC appears more magenta to me. Others have said the pictures appear colder.