Panasonic LX5 no better than a joe average P&S camera?

[tdekany]

Indeed beautiful, what I would like to see is the SOOC pictures - if it was manipulated in any shape or form. That is how I judge a picture. However, the composition:5*s!!!!

 

[tanngrisnir3]

Superb! Jpeg or RAW?

Thanks!

RAW. I pretty much only ever shoot RAW.

 

[tanngrisnir3]

Tann is The Man with that LX5 - these are, as are so many of your photographs, simply exquisite.

Normally, I keep up with you on Flickr but for the past couple of months I've fallen way behind. Thanks so much for weighing in with your photos. It's good to see you and your images again around here, Tann.

Thanks, BB. It hasn't gotten any real use since the GH2 showed up (and will be in Big Sur/Yosemite this weekend) but I love that little camera.

 

[tanngrisnir3]

Those are pretty shots. As you say, it's the driver and not the car. You could have probably gotten the same with most P&S cameras. Why is a majority of LX5 "beauty" shots are B&W?

Hmmm.... let's just say that I don't think the 'majority' of LX5 beauty shots are B&W; I've seen no data that would indicate that, and it runs counter to my experience.

Here's some color (and I apologize, as I've posted these before)

Bill and Ted's Excellent Departure by tanngrisnir3, on Flickr

#2 Oaks in Sunrise Fog, Cathy's Valley, CA 140 by tanngrisnir3, on Flickr

Owens Valley Sunrise, Bishop, CA by tanngrisnir3, on Flickr

And, finally, the color version of one of the B&W's, just for comparison

Three Trees #2, Merced River, Yosemite Valley by tanngrisnir3, on Flickr

Why do I want high ISO? Because the LX5 is advertised as a good low light camera attributing the bright F2 lens and high ISO. Unfortunately, that bright F2 lens is attached to a sensor that has poor high ISO performance defeating it's low light abilities. So if I'm missing the point, then so is Panasonic.

Huh. I've never seen it advertised as that, myself. However, what I do find is that there are many, many other aspects/qualities of the LX5 that far outweigh the fact that it isn't really great at 1600 (or higher).

 

[lenshoarder]

Hmmm.... let's just say that I don't think the 'majority' of LX5 beauty shots are B&W; I've seen no data that would indicate that, and it runs counter to my experience.

Huh. I've never seen it advertised as that, myself. However, what I do find is that there are many, many other aspects/qualities of the LX5 that far outweigh the fact that it isn't really great at 1600 (or higher).

Well... in this thread alone. It was 8 B&W versus 6 color until you posted your response to my last post. You yourself decided to post B&W shots in defense of the LX5. Why didn't you post color ones first?

Hm.. I don't know how you missed it. Straight from the horse's mouth.

"The f/2.0 lens is about twice as bright as the f/2.8 lens, itself generally considered a bright lens. The result is higher shutter speed can be used to capture stunningly clear, sharp, blur-free images in lower lighting situation."

"the maximum setting is ISO 12800*2 enabling shooting in extremely dark places."

DMC-LX5 | PRODUCTS | LUMIX | Digital Camera | Panasonic Global

I guess Panasonic does really miss the point of it's own product.

 

[tanngrisnir3]

Well... in this thread alone. It was 8 B&W versus 6 color until you posted your response to my last post. You yourself decided to post B&W shots in defense of the LX5. Why didn't you post color ones first?

So that's it? You're basing your entire statement on the content of this thread? LOL. OK.

Hm.. I don't know how you missed it. Straight from the horse's mouth.

"The f/2.0 lens is about twice as bright as the f/2.8 lens, itself generally considered a bright lens. The result is higher shutter speed can be used to capture stunningly clear, sharp, blur-free images in lower lighting situation."

"the maximum setting is ISO 12800*2 enabling shooting in extremely dark places."

DMC-LX5 | PRODUCTS | LUMIX | Digital Camera | Panasonic Global

I guess Panasonic does really miss the point of it's own product.

I dunno. I can make it take pretty good pics in low light.

And that text is rather undefined, as 'lower lighting situation' isn't a specific term, and they didn't say that the ISO 12,800 shots would be any good, just that the camera was 'enabled' to shoot in 'extremely dark places'.

Who would buy a camera with a sensor of this size and type and expect anything useful, whatsoever, at 12,800?

Send it back. It's obviously not the right tool for you.

 

[Ray Sachs]

Wow, NEWS ALERT - camera maker uses makes exaggerated claims in advertising copy!!!! Amazing, shocking, incredible. Gosh, I've never seen THAT before.

Look, its a fine and versatile small camera. There are tradeoffs as with any camera and particularly the types of tradeoffs associated with a small sensor camera. Any m43 camera will do better in low light with a fast prime lens. But for the high percentage of people who buy something like an epm1 or gf3 and NEVER take the kit lens off, I'd say they'd have done better with an LX5. If you didn't like the camera, its good you didn't keep it. That doesn't make it any more or any less of a camera than it was. And I've taken enough competent photos with it and seen enough brilliant photos done with it not to doubt it as a fine little photographic tool.

As for B&W vs color, I posted B&W shots because I'm mostly a B&W shooter. If including a higher ratio of color shots will somehow make you feel better about this thread, here are a few...

View attachment 50732

View attachment 50733

View attachment 50734

View attachment 50736

And two more B&W just for mood:

View attachment 50737

View attachment 50738

I liked that little camera a lot and miss it. I may just buy another one now that they're so inexpensive.

-Ray

 

[tdekany]

To Both Ray and tanngrisnir3

Are these pictures edited in any way? And I don't mean "from RAW to JPEG. Any adjustments? Or are these straight out of the LX5??????

Thank you to both of you.

Great shots BTW.

 

[Ray Sachs]

Everything I do is edited at least a little. The first two of the shots on this page were shot raw and converted - I don't recall doing much to them, but I no doubt tweaked them. The rest were jpegs (shot before there was raw support for the camera on the Mac). The third and fifth were pretty much straight out of camera. The fourth was reprocessed a few months ago in Color Efex Pro. The B&W were all converted with Silver Efex Pro and I tend to work 'em a bit when I convert. But I'd do the same basic stuff if I'd shot em with a full frame DSLR - I didn't do anything to them specifically because of anything to do with the LX5.

-Ray

 

[tdekany]

Everything I do is edited at least a little. The first two of the shots on this page were shot raw and converted - I don't recall doing much to them, but I no doubt tweaked them. The rest were jpegs (shot before there was raw support for the camera on the Mac). The third and fifth were pretty much straight out of camera. The fourth was reprocessed a few months ago in Color Efex Pro. The B&W were all converted with Silver Efex Pro and I tend to work 'em a bit when I convert. But I'd do the same basic stuff if I'd shot em with a full frame DSLR - I didn't do anything to them specifically because of anything to do with the LX5.

-Ray

I do appreciate your reply Ray.

I realize I will make very few friends when I express my dislike for "supporting shots" (NOT YOURS in this thread, just in general) for any camera when the shot is not SOOC. To me that shows the person's PP skills, not what the camera can actually do.

So I apologize for that.

On the other hand, in all other cases I have ZERO issues with what people do with their own pictures as long as it is stated that the photos are not SOOC when they put their pictures in threads. Otherwise, I feel that it is a disservice to all who are new to the camera or photography. Because if one takes a picture and the quality looks nothing like what one has seen from other users, he/she will be very discouraged. m2c

Wouldn't it be awesome if both types of pictures were shown by members? So that newbies like myself with very limited photo skills could learn from?

OK - Rant over.

 

[TraamisVOS]

for any camera when the shot is not SOOC. To me that shows the person's PP skills, not what the camera can actually do.

I see where you're coming from. That's how I used to see it too.

Sometimes what you can do with a file from a camera is a good indication of how well the camera produces its images.

A great camera that I would be looking for, for example, may produce a SOOC photo that looks flat and bland which is actually a good thing, because it means the highlights are preserved, the colours are not overblown so as to preserve colour information, and the detail in the blacks are also preserved. This allows the magic to happen in post.

So, to judge a camera by its SOOC shots may not always be the best way to go about it if it is the only thing you're looking at. I suppose it is a legitimate way of looking at one aspect of a camera but you should also look at how its photos stand up to rigorous post-processing too.

Photos that can't stand up to post-processing without developing artifacts in the image means the camera isn't producing strong files or highly compressing its files to begin with.

if one takes a picture and the quality looks nothing like what one has seen from other users, he/she will be very discouraged.

There is a lot of work that goes into amazing photos, that's what non-photographers or starting photographers often don't understand, it's not just a matter of buying the most expensive camera and pressing the button. If the newbie is feeling discouraged at this point, it's really from this misunderstanding, rather than a miscommunication from the photographer. That is what the non-photographer should understand first.

 

[Ray Sachs]

I realize I will make very few friends when I express my dislike for "supporting shots" (NOT YOURS in this thread, just in general) for any camera when the shot is not SOOC. To me that shows the person's PP skills, not what the camera can actually do.

So I apologize for that.

Not about friends or enemies and no reason to apologize, but you make what I believe is fundamentally a philosophical point, so please indulge me as I address it that way.

First, I GET what you're saying and I understand what I think you're after. But I also think the pure photographic comparison you seek is every bit as illusory as the processed world you seek to avoid.

There is no such thing as "what a camera can actually DO", since obviously a camera cannot actually DO anything by itself. Which sounds more flip than I mean it to be. At the most fundamental level, every digital camera shoots a raw image. For those cameras that allow you to pull the raw image out of the camera, you can do the most basic conversion of that image and look at photos of resolution and color charts (like the OP started to do earlier in this thread) and THAT'S what the camera can do in its purest sense. And even THAT isn't all that pure a lot of the time because more and more cameras involve some internal processing to even produce those raw files, particularly in terms of NR at high ISOs.

But EVERYTHING beyond that requires a users input at both the level of seeing the light and framing the shot and adjusting the camera to best capture what he or she is seeing, but ALSO at the level of processing the exposure taken. Even assuming some level of "purity" exists in that raw file, as soon as that image is converted to a jpeg (and many cheaper cameras do that automatically and don't give you a choice about it), its as much about the processing as it is about the "camera". Whether the camera maker sets the processing parameters of the jpeg or whether you or I do by processing the raw file matters not - its at least as much about the processing at that point as it is about the "camera" - the only question is WHO is doing the processing and WHO'S processing skills are you comparing... To my eye, Olympus and Fuji jpegs are about the prettiest in the business - most other cameras don't do as well to MY eye, but even there I can adjust a lot of parameters about how the camera makes those processing decisions, so its still about my processing skills or at least "decisions". Or consider those cameras that allow in-camera processing of raw files - the Fuji X-series cams all do this. They allow you to make as many jpegs as you'd like from a single raw file before ANYTHING leaves the camera and you can adjust many parameters in doing that processing. But they're all the same parameters you could adjust BEFORE taking the shot by tweaking the jpeg settings. So, if I do the raw processing in-camera using the same parameters that go into producing the jpegs but use that in-camera raw processor to test some "what if" possibilities, is that about what "the camera" is producing, or what I'm producing with the pre and post processing tools at my disposal??? And at that point, why does it matter whether I use tools within the camera or on my desktop to do the processing? Its still a bunch of processing decisions, no?

Since EVERY image coming out of ANY camera involves many processing decisions, the only question is WHO gets to make them, and WHEN. I prefer to make some of them - more with some cameras and some shots than with others. And many of them after the fact. And some shots I'm happy to leave well enough alone and let some engineer/photographer who designed the jpeg engine for that camera maker make the decisions, but even then I've made some of them by the jpeg settings I chose. But decisions about processing WERE made, regardless. So I think of the camera as one link in the chain of making a photograph. The photographer is another link in the chain and the processing tools (and skills of the person using them) are also very important links in that chain. And every photograph is only as good as the weakest link in that chain, as is the case with all chains. So, yes, the "camera" can impose certain limitations, but except in the most extreme circumstances, the limits imposed by the camera are almost never the weakest link in the chain. If you see a photo from an LX5 that you like, the LX5 was capable of producing that image and didn't get in its way. It was good ENOUGH, when combined with the initial exposure and the processing of that file, to produce that image. If you see one you DON'T like you have to consider whether the weakness was in the camera or the photographer or in the processing. And, again, only in the most extreme cases will the answer be "the camera".

This didn't start with digital cameras BTW. In the film days, the "camera" was capable of even less. When you looked at a photograph that came out of any half decent camera, you were seeing at LEAST as much about the film used for the shot as you were about the camera (although the lens mattered a lot, then as now). Now, with modern sensors, we have a LOT more choices about what type of "film" to use and we can vary that for nearly every shot. In the film days a lot more decisions about how that film/sensor would react to certain types of light were made BEFORE the fact. The beauty of digital cameras is we have the latitude to make a lot more of those decisions AFTER the fact (as is true with digital processing of everything from words to music to columns of numbers). But make no mistake, those decisions were or will be made by someone - the only question being by whom and when in the chain of the photographic process. To me, the decisions I make after the fact are no more or less valid than the decisions made by the designer of the jpeg engine before the fact - they're just processing decisions however you cut 'em.

Think of an electric guitar as an analogy. Some electric guitars are "better" than others. And a real expert guitarist can get an IDEA of it just by playing it without any sort of amplification. But nobody would actually try to make MUSIC that way because that's not what the instrument was designed to do - the sound of an electric guitar without an amplifier and a bunch of settings on both the guitar and amplifier is the equivalent of the raw test chart photo. It tells you a little bit but is useless by itself. The only way a musician can really make a good decision about that guitar is to plug it in, play with the settings, and start making MUSIC with it. And then they can tell how well its strengths and weaknesses work with their own musical sensibilities. I find the same with a camera. I can learn a LITTLE bit about it by seeing the data and the test charts made from almost untouched raw files. But I can't tell how useful a tool its gonna be for me until I start making PHOTOGRAPHS with it in the real world. In the formats and sizes I actually VIEW and present photos at. And that includes a lot of processing decisions. Some of which I make myself, some of which I leave to the engineers who designed the jpeg engine for that camera - and that'll vary shot by shot, but all based on MY judgements. But the camera is just one link in the chain of making any given photograph and, in my hands at least, is VERY rarely the weakest link...

OK, philosophy mode off. I don't consider any of what you wrote or what I just wrote a rant! Just a discussion...

-Ray

 

[Boid]

I realize I will make very few friends when I express my dislike for "supporting shots" (NOT YOURS in this thread, just in general) for any camera when the shot is not SOOC. To me that shows the person's PP skills, not what the camera can actually do.

Sometimes (more often than not) a camera is capable of producing a much better result than what it's internal image processor is capable of. Every camera has an in-built JPEG engine that converts information that the sensor captures and then converts is to a JPEG format. So whether it's desirable or not, your image is getting processed, if not in PP, than in-camera. It's become more about capturing information, without losing detail, than about the right metering, exposure, etc (for ex. this idea of exposing to the right or ETTR). SOOC should actually read SOOCE (straight out of camera engine). If you're fine with the 'look' of your photograph, pre-determined by a team of engineers, so be it. I think philosophically it's also about whether you feel the camera took the picture for you, or whether you got the camera to take a picture that already exists in your head. I would much rather have complete creative control over the tool (both in camera and out of it) than to be limited by 'settings' that have been predetermined. If I were shooting film, I would be developing the film myself. The way cameras are going, PP will be built in to most newer cameras (some form of PP, like the in-camera RAW convertor in the X100). I think it all boils down to how satisfied you are with the limited so-called SOOC images. To me PP is a logical extension to the camera as a tool for capturing what I see in my head, and all it does is extend the camera's story-telling ability. Not knowing PP is not a badge of honor and doesn't elevate one's photographic abilities. IMHO.

 

[Boid]

Daggummit. I just wrote simultaneously about the same thing. Weird.

Only Ray put it a lot better.

 

[olli]

No philosophy from me but if you're interested you can have a look here. This bit from my blog contains images taken exclusively with the LX3 (same sensor as LX5) and they are almost all in colour. All have had some PP since I always shoot RAW and JPEG and inevitably tweak the RAW myself, though for the most part I tweak fairly gently (IMHO of course).

If you would like to know more about any of them, identify the image here and I can let you know what PP was done and post before and after comparisons for you.

(There are other LX3 images on my blog - from the linked page click on labels - in the thin black pop out menu on the right side - and choose lx3. Feel free to ask for more info on any of them.)

 

[TraamisVOS]

Love the river surfing shots olli.

 

[lenshoarder]

So that's it? You're basing your entire statement on the content of this thread? LOL. OK.

I dunno. I can make it take pretty good pics in low light.

And that text is rather undefined, as 'lower lighting situation' isn't a specific term, and they didn't say that the ISO 12,800 shots would be any good, just that the camera was 'enabled' to shoot in 'extremely dark places'.

Who would buy a camera with a sensor of this size and type and expect anything useful, whatsoever, at 12,800?

Send it back. It's obviously not the right tool for you.

I guess what you consider low light is what I consider the blazing sun shine. Look at my shot at the beginning of this thread. That is definitely not good.

Well.. my TX5 takes pretty good pictures in low light at 3200 even with it's tiny sensor and tiny aperature.

I wish I had sent it back now, but it's too late.

 

[lenshoarder]

I liked that little camera a lot and miss it. I may just buy another one now that they're so inexpensive.

-Ray

Wait. You liked it so much that you got rid of it?

 

[lenshoarder]

I do appreciate your reply Ray.

I realize I will make very few friends when I express my dislike for "supporting shots" (NOT YOURS in this thread, just in general) for any camera when the shot is not SOOC. To me that shows the person's PP skills, not what the camera can actually do.

So I apologize for that.

On the other hand, in all other cases I have ZERO issues with what people do with their own pictures as long as it is stated that the photos are not SOOC when they put their pictures in threads. Otherwise, I feel that it is a disservice to all who are new to the camera or photography. Because if one takes a picture and the quality looks nothing like what one has seen from other users, he/she will be very discouraged. m2c

Wouldn't it be awesome if both types of pictures were shown by members? So that newbies like myself with very limited photo skills could learn from?

OK - Rant over.

I completely agree. It would be useful if people would post the SOOC shot of the same scene along with the processed shot in threads like this.

 

[Ray Sachs]

I completely agree. It would be useful if people would post the SOOC shot of the same scene along with the processed shot in threads like this.

When I shoot raw, theres often no such THING as SOOC shot. I always adjust the defaults on my raw processing pre-sets so they already have my biases built it. And there's rarely a raw shot that doesn't go out to some plug in for further editing. To me, SOOC is a bit of a meaningless idea for anyone who'd rather do their own processing. Which is the case for me. I've occasionally shown some B&W conversions both before and after to defend why I like B&W so much, even the BEFORE shots weren't really SOOC, just relatively lightly treated color shots. Even with jpeg, when I first see a shot come up on the screen, I instinctively tweak a few sliders so its looks right to me. Happens so fast I barely know I'm doing it. And I'm not gonna stop just for some mythically "PURE" camera comparison...

But, feel free to go back to your test charts comparisons - you can find plenty of them on the top photographic web sites.

-Ray