Panasonic DMC-LX2

Reviewed September 2006

Image Quality

While all of Panasonic's digital cameras attract the eye because of their stabilizer technology and the use of Leica lenses — a legendary lens and camera manufacturer favoured by another legend, Henri Cartier-Bresson — the DMC-LX2 has the added attraction of having a native 16:9 aspect ratio.

The value of the 16:9 aspect ratio becomes obvious quickly. The format is nearly cinematographic, and opens up a world of possibilities when framing a shot. With it, the camera is able to record a view that is much closer to what we experience than other aspect ratios. 16:9 images convey a sense of space, and are able to capture a view that is closer to our perception.

Moreover, as the camera itself is equipped with a 16:9 aspect ratio monitor, framing and capturing 16:9 images comes very naturally.

Yet, at this point in time, a time at which the transition from the 4:3 format — the format of traditional televisions and monitors — and the 3:2 format — associated with 4 x 6 and 5 x 7 print sizes and derived from the 35 mm film format — is only just starting, the LX2 may be in some ways a bit ahead of its time.

To mitigate this, the Panasonic offers both other aspect ratios, progressively cropping the sides of the 16:9 image the LX2 captures; which is in fact a far more natural alternative than other cameras that offer a 16:9 ratio by cropping the top and bottom of the frame.

Still, the DMC-LX2 is probably best used in its native format, and its images best displayed using yet another Panasonic "first", the HDTV Photo Player (DMW-SP1), which displays photos at HDTV resolution on an HDTV by reading the images from the SD card.

Retaining the same optics as its predecessor, the DMC-LX1, the LX2 benefits from the same performances. There is no discernable barrel distortion at the wide end, no discernable pincushion at the telephoto end, and no chromatic aberration with strongly contrasted subjects, whatever the focal length.

Similarly, the averaging metering, called Intelligent Multiple on the LX2, is very reliable, yielding correct exposures even when the subject is side or backlit. Moreover, the Auto white balance is trustworthy, handling a variety of lighting situations, including mixed lighting.

In two areas, however, we found the DMC-LX2 we tested to be less adept than we'd expected. First, the 10-megapixel CCD of the LX2 appears to be more sensitive to picking up noise than the lower resolution CCD of the LX1 had been. With the LX2, both colour and shadow noise can be found at the lowest sensitivity when the images are inspected at 100% scale on a monitor. At levels past 100 ISO, noise increases gradually, but remains in the "acceptable" range up to 400 ISO. At 800 ISO, noise is visible throughout the image, and at the highest sensitivity, 1600 ISO, noise actually causes a very noticeable loss of detail.

Similarly, flash photography can sometimes exaggerate the noise in the image when the camera is allowed to boost sensitivity to compensate for the flash's limited reach; making it advantageous to photograph not too distant subjects when using the flash.

The LX2 provides two image formats, JPEG or RAW, and JPEG images can save at either one of two compression levels: Fine or Standard. Although the Fine JPEG format yields files that hover in the 4.5 to 5 MB size, images seen at full scale can exhibit a loss of detail that is generally associated with stronger compression levels, and which may emphasize any noise present in the image.

Still, once again, it is important to underline that this is noticeable only when images are seen at 100% scale on a monitor. Anyone looking at the images of an LX2 once they are printed, or even displayed on an HDTV, would be hard-pressed to detect any major defect, and in most cases, any noise.

The other format the DMC-LX2 offers is RAW, a format that simply saves the unprocessed output from the CCD, along with the camera's settings for that particular image, into a 20 MB file. The image must then be processed or "developed" using the software supplied with the camera: SilkyPix Developer Studio 2.0.

Once processed, images can be saved as TIFF — each image is 29.5 MB — or as JPEG with an adjustable quality level that is more flexible than the JPEG format of the camera, and which works wonders at eliminating noise without creating artefacts, all the while producing an image with a smaller file size than the LX2 can produce when set to Fine. Finally, it is worth noting that many of the functionality of SilkyPix Developer Studio 2.0 are available with Adobe PhotoShop CSII's RAW Plug-in.

Combining an image format that is very appealing, with a good stabilized lens, the DMC-LX2 deserves the attention, in particular, of those that have already made the switch to HDTV, and would appreciate having a camera with the same aspect ratio. With the addition of the HDTV Photo Player (DMW-SP1), which converts the LX2's 10-megapixel image to one that precisely matches HDTV's definition, the LX2 can be both a digital slide projector, but also the source of excellent prints up to 14 x 8 inches.