Leica Leica D-Lux 5

"The D-Lux 4 had a better lens than the LX3"......well we used to think that but comparing my DL4 to a friend's LX3 I can assure you that there is no difference.
Partly for that reason ( and the fact that I don't need Lightroom 3 and have given Leica quite enough this year for an X1 and accessories! ) I have acquired an LX5.

I look forward to hearing views of the DL5 lens.
I feel that the new lens just doesn't have quite the quality of the old..perhaps the price we pay for extra reach.

I concur, there is absolutely no difference between the D-Lux 4 and LX3 lens quality. Any differences seen in the IQ of the cameras was in the JPEG processing, shoot Raw and they are identical.
 
Glad I never held out for the D-lux 5 now..... and me a leica man through and through.......:eek:


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I am holding fire on the D-Lux 5 until someone can confirm that the LX5 JPEGs look the same as the D-Lux 5 JPEGs. I am not interested in RAW.
 
My first LX5 went back after it froze a couple of times and I'd seen some weird blurring in places. In fact two weeks ago there were a number of reports about the blurring so perhaps there was an initial build quality issue.

My second copy seems OK but there is a lot of internal processing going on and distant foliage or brickwork seems to confuse the firmware. I don't know whether it's the noise processing or sharpening but when pixel peeping I see things I don't like. Raw files can also be affected.
Take pictures of concrete buildings or people and it's fantastic but distant bushes can be a mess.

As the man from Leica has said there is no difference in processing between the Leica and Pansonic cameras I would expect some similar reports to emerge about the DL5 once things settle down.

It's still a very good camera.
 
Nippa, I'm sorry for the issues you've noticed - you are talking about these issues on your Panasonic LX5, just to be clear since this is the Leica D-Lux 5 thread, though I understand why you posted here. I do very much appreciate your post here and your following up on the perennial D-Lux vs LX comparisons, too, from the lips of the man from Leica to your ears and our eyes.

A question re your distant foliage/concrete wall issues: 1.Do you convert to DNG, 2. Do you notice this both in color and black and white, 3. Do you see this blurring, etc., at certain focal lengths more than at others? - and 4. Would you consider posting said images here so we could see if we're experiencing what you are?
 
To be honest I've deleted most of the LX5 images and others are mixed with the first camera although I posted one blurry image to the Dpreview forum.
I think at that time at least 3 of us were seeing shots sharp at one side and blurred at the other.
I've not seen that with the new camera so I guess it was a build issue.

I've not looked at B&W. I've looked at Raw files using Silkypix ,Bibble 5 and Lightroom 2.7. Only Lightroom requires a dng file

This is what I would ask DL5 owners to look for - similar in camera processing

P1010007.jpg
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Although a reasonably sharp image look at the brickwork

cropP1010007.jpg


Most of the time you don't see this effect.
I've just been out to retake the scene as we have identical weather and I thought I may have used IA or a scenic mode but I'm getting the same effect this morning using the camera in P Mode.
Film mode settings are default and I Resolution also at default.
The raw file is slightly better ( below ) but not great....no processing here it could have been sharpened

testP1010137.jpg


I really don't know what to do now. If the DL5 really produces different results I'd switch cameras again.
 
That is disturbing. Do you see the blurring in the same positions from frame to frame?
Is is possible that the sensor has a smudge on it?
If you do the same scene with a few exposures, does the blurring stay at the same position?
Does this happen sporadic or consistent?
Don
 
The smudging doesn't happen all the time and when it does its location is different.
I think it could well be connected to focus. Unless fine detail is in sharp contrast the firmware conducts some odd processing.

This shot shocked me.
I suspect focus wasn't quite right... 100% crop

crppoedP1010071.jpg
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and yet it will take a picture like this

P1010084.jpg
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That's why I'm keen to learn if the DL5 does anything differently even though the spokesman said not.
 
Your 1st example concerns me. The foreground is in focus as is the very far off background. The middle section is out.
Very strange indeed as it can't be a DOF issue. It's as if the lens is on a slight angle in the barrel. You can do this with a view camera but shouldn't happen with this camera.
You may have a bad copy. I think it's the lens in the barrel and as it rotates, it goes out of alignment.
 
Could it be this - The first one, the windsurfer, looks as if the cam is in Program, (or maybe Auto), mode set to Macro

not sugessting that you made an error - could it be an "in cam" software problem

but there's also smudging blues all over the place - software problem again?
 
This is what my DLux4 made of the scene this afternoon. Processing seems less but clearly things are still being smoothed. (jpeg ooc)

testdl4.jpg


I think the LX5 is going back.
If I can get some assurances about the DLux5 I might give that a try but my fear is that the processing will be the same.

Surely I haven't got hold of two duff cameras.
Or is it me. Recently I've spent a lot of time looking at X1 and m4/3 images so perhaps my expectations have got too high.

I still like my DLux4 though:)

Later: determined not to give up yet. I've dropped noise setting to -2 , sharpness to +2 and Intelligent Resolution to HIGH and now the image of the brickwork is much improved certainly as good as the DL4. In Raw I can see all of the bricks..hooray
It seems that settings of the Film Mode have some affect on the Raw output. Time will tell.
 
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