Introduction
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX100 is a premium compact camera which incorporates a large Micro Four Thirds sensor. The Panasonic LX100 also features 4K video recording at 25/24fps including the ability to extract high-resolution 8MP images from the 4K video, a 24-75mm f/1.7-2.8 Leica lens, high-speed AF in approximately 0.14 seconds, built-in Live View Finder (LVF) with 2764K-dot equivalent high resolution, a 3.0-inch LCD screen with 921k-dot resolution, an ISO range of 100-25600, high speed burst shooting at 11 fps with the mechanical shutter and 40fps with the electronic shutter, aperture and control rings, and integrated Wi-Fi and NFC connectivity. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX100 is available in black or silver for £699.99 / $899.99.
Ease of Use
The new Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX100 is nominally the successor to the 2-year-old DMC-LX7 camera, but it includes so many technological advances that it's virtually unrecognisable from its predecessor. The main change is the inclusion of the same Micro Four Thirds sensor that's found in Panasonic's GX7 compact system camera. In terms of physical size, the 1.33-inch MFT sensor is significantly larger than the 1-inch sensors used in two of the LX100's principal rivals, the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 III and the Canon PowerShot GX7, and with 16.84 megapixels onboard, the pixel size is bigger too, all of which promises better image quality. The LX100 actually has a multi-aspect ratio sensor, so that it can capture 4:3, 3:2, 16:9, or 1:1 aspect images while maintaining the same focal length in each ratio, resulting in a 12.8 megapixel 4:3 image.
Another important change is the inclusion of a built-in electronic viewfinder, again borrowed directly from the GX7. If ever there was a reason to end the debate about optical versus electronic viewfinders, this is it. Firstly, it has a staggeringly high resolution of 2764k dots, which translates into a display so good that you would swear it was an optical finder, helped in no small part by the high color reproduction of approximately 100% of the Adobe RGB colour-space, 100% scene coverage and 60fps refresh rate. Secondly, there's a handy sensor which automatically detects when the LX100 is held up to eye-level and even starts auto-focusing, with just the slightest delay until the display is ready. Thirdly, a whole host of information is displayed onscreen - virtually everything that you can display on the rear LCD screen can be shown in the EVF. Suffice to say that we didn't miss having an optical viewfinder when shooting with the LX100.
The LCD screen on the rear is a bright 3-inch model with 921k dot resolution that provides a naturalistic translation of the scene before the lens. However you will still find yourself squinting and cupping a hand around it in bright sunlight, so much so that we shot almost exclusively using the EVF. Also sadly, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX100 doesn't have a touchscreen and the LCD isn't articulated in any way, two features that the GX7 compact system camera does offer and which we'd have liked to have seen on the LX100.
