A GH4 in your pocket - Panasonic LX100 with 4K and Micro Four Thirds sensor

[Jacek]

Some video samples (AF hunting all the time? ):

http://www.photographyblog.com/previews/panasonic_lumix_dmc_lx100_photos

[nac]

I have found with my previous GH2, GH3 and now GM1 its always best to lock focus when recording video. I suspect the LX100 is no different.

[fuzzynormal]

In general, don't use auto focus while recording video; any cam, any brand.

[Jacek]

I like to use autofocus just before recording video (quick start). Hope It will work well in this way.

[Julian]

Works fine, just use single AF instead of continuous AF.

[Jacek]

Nice low light ISO tests from Gordon Laing (CameraLabs)

LINK

[Cinegain]

From what I understand it will be availlable this upcoming week. ;)

If you're treating yourself to a LX100, then don't forget to claim the 'LUMIX LX100 Free Lens Cap Offer' promotion (if applicable).

[someguy]

Nice low light ISO tests from Gordon Laing (CameraLabs)

LINK

 

Looks pretty good.

[Cinegain]

From what I understand it will be availlable this upcoming week. ;)

If you're treating yourself to a LX100, then don't forget to claim the 'LUMIX LX100 Free Lens Cap Offer' promotion (if applicable).

Actually, earlier Amazon.co.uk said it would be 'released monday 20 Oct 2014', but now it just says '1 - 3 months'.

In meanwhile though over here in Austria a bunch of shops were supplied with units. At a 899,- EUR premium price though.

It's also listed at some retailers for 799,- EUR, but getting one priced like that seems a little harder.

Anyways, hopefully saturday I can check it out at a local store. See if I can imagine living with the size and handling; as I'm thinking of getting it to replace the LX7.

[Cinegain]

Hmm, wasn't able to check it out saturday, so I went today. Took my LX7 with me for comparison. The body is actually quite similar sizewise, just the lens protrudes a bit more significantly and of course there now is an eye cup. Some things I liked, some things I didn't. The control/focus ring is placed very close to the body, it's pretty awkward/unergonomical to use. The LX7 had a very easy and blindly to reach record button. On the LX100 it's placed on the back instead, making room for a 'filter'-button on top... hmm, right. Wished they hadn't. Being familiar with the FZ1000 and GH4 to shoot video with, it's a bit sad that there's no tilty-flippy type (touch)screen. And like the LX7 and FZ1000 the memorycardslot is co-located at the battery compartment. It would be so much more convenient to have access through the side (like the GH4), but I guess that's a concession you just have to make with these kind of cameras. Oh yeah, and as mentioned before there are no Cine-profiles. But these aren't any dealbreakers. The LX100 looks quite stunning. A very solid no-bullshit traditional and oldschool design, but conformed to modern day's standard. And it packs quite the punch. Where are you going to find a camera so compact that has quite a big sensor inside, features a 25-75mm equiv f/1.7-2.8 lens, has built-in stabilization, an EVF and records at 4K (and 4K-Photomode availlable as well)? So yeah, it's really one of a kind. The idea of being able to carry around such a 'weapon' in your coatpocket... that's pretty insane. Instantly makes you forget about all these minor issues I had just summed up.

 

But still... I wasn't quite convinced with the price. As said, it was only availlable locally at 899,- EUR. Couple of shops listed it for 799,-, but either they didn't have stock, or they had limited stock and were located in Germany. I mean, that's a 100,- EUR difference, or if you'd take one of 799,- from a German shop and added 20 bucks shipping, you'd still have quite a considerable 80 EUR difference, which could get you all sorts of things, like spare batteries or a SanDisk 64GB 95MB/s. I confronted a few of the shops with this, but they said there was nothing they could do about the price, since it was the declared minimum retailprice in Austria. So I actually was almost on my way home again, empty handed, when for some reason I decided to check Geizhals.eu one more time and was surprised to see that all of a sudden the prices had dropped to the 799,- mark here as well! Shortly the other shops here in Vienna followed. I guess I triggered something there on today's quest, lol. Someone must've contacted Panasonic to get the price down and did succesfully so. As soon as I saw that I went and picked one up after all!

 

 

Old meets new! The LX7 getting replaced by the LX100.

[Andrew Reid]

But still... I wasn't quite convinced with the price. As said, it was only availlable locally at 899,- EUR. Couple of shops listed it for 799,-, but either they didn't have stock, or they had limited stock and were located in Germany. I mean, that's a 100,- EUR difference, or if you'd take one of 799

 

I noticed this too. When I bought my LX100 last Thursday from Saturn, price was 899. Today at the same shop it's 799. Did Panasonic make a last minute adjustment?

[Jacek]

Still not available in Poland :( ..

[Xavier Plagaro Mussard]

Review, review, review! ;-)))

[Inazuma]

Also I noticed last week in the UK the price had dropped from £799 to £699. The Leica clone remains £825 though.

[hoodlum]

I think the pricing of the Leica clone in Europe forced Panasonic to adjust their price.

[Cinegain]

Sounds about right; could well be. And maybe they overestimated the 'run' on these and dropped the price according a brief evaluation of (pre-)orders? The LX100 is a little niche perhaps? And/or people don't realize that's it's much more than a rather expensive compact camera?

 

Shops around here received units a couple of days and today each one of them still had stock. To me it seemed that the FZ1000 for example had a higher demand. Back then shops told me that there were quite a few pre-orders and they seemed to go 'out of stock' as quickly as they had gotten units 'in stock' and then it took a while for the dust to settle and the camera to be readily availlable.

 

Oh well, whatever reason, I'm just happy I was able to save a couple of bucks, really.

Will play around with it a bit tomorrow and then wednesday take it with me on a city trip.

[neverending]

I am an avid video recording professionally. I put here my thoughts about the LX100.
For as far as the video, the Lumix LX100 has a lot of limitations and some problems too big.
At first glance, reading the specs, the camera seems to promise very well. However, lack of important features for the video found on GH4 and FZ1000. First the presence of color profiles (CINE-D and CINE-V) essential to better manage the dynamic range and offer versatility grading. Also missing the input for an external microphone is essential to implement a superior sound quality. But what is of concern is a major problem affecting the quality of 4K video. Since the early samples that are in the network, including flat setup is known as the 4K video suffers from obvious and annoying moire especially in areas with thick horizontal lines (edges of buildings, shutters and corrugated iron). This apparently is due to the crop sensor operated by the LX100 mode 4K. Contrary to what happens in GH4 and FZ1000, using a crop 1:1, the LX100 performs both a crop and scaling, and this introduces annoying moire.
Regarding the video this is a big problem that will come out to those who have purchased the LX100.
As for the video for the money that one spends on the LX100, one can buy the fabulous FZ1000 because it combines many of the features found on GH4 (CINE Profiles, microphone, live HDMI output ("clean")).
Of course, the FZ1000 equips a smaller sensor (1 inch), but the quality of the sensor by an inch BSI is really good and competes evenly with a micro 4/3 sensor under 1600ISO producing a clean image and low noise is in the video than in the pictures (especially if processed from RAW).
We look forward to some more testing on the LX100 but the moire 4K jumps out immediately thanks to the crop is not 1:1.
For 7-800 bucks highly recommend the FZ1000 for those wanting a camera from solid and very, very competitive in the video that comes close if not equal to the GH4 at low ISO (<= 800). In addition, the FZ1000 equips a great lens very sharp and fast enough.
Ok the LX100 has a slightly larger sensor and a faster lens but has major problems and limitations in the video expecially moire in 4K (not present in FZ1000 and GH4). We look forward to various tests.

Here is an example af 4K video. The source is recorded in flat profile (all -5) and shows a lot of annoying moire.

[hoodlum]

According to Cameralabs the 4k video involved both a crop and scale to get to 4k.  Has anyone been able to confirm this?  Is moire more prevalent in 4k video vs the GH4?

 

http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Panasonic_Lumix_LX100/

 

"But bizarrely Panasonic has opted to employ a mild crop and a scale to generate the desired frame size. This means the LX100's 4k footage not only has a slightly narrower field of view to 1080 video and 16:9 stills (so instead of 24mm at the widest zoom, you're getting 26mm), but it also now suffers from moire. I feel it's an unnecessary compromise too, since a nice clean 1:1 crop would have only involved losing 4mm in the diagonal field of view.

 

I put my disappointment to Panasonic and I got the impression the scaling along with absence of Cinelike D profiles was partly for the LX100's target audience and partly to protect the GH4, but I still think a 1:1 crop would have been better, and rather than detract from GH4 sales, I could see existing GH4 owners picking up an LX100 as a B-roll camera. Maybe flat profiles and 1:1 video crops will be offered in future third-party firmware."

[MattH]

According to Cameralabs the 4k video involved both a crop and scale to get to 4k.  Has anyone been able to confirm this?  Is moire more prevalent in 4k video vs the GH4?

 

http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Panasonic_Lumix_LX100/

 

"But bizarrely Panasonic has opted to employ a mild crop and a scale to generate the desired frame size. This means the LX100's 4k footage not only has a slightly narrower field of view to 1080 video and 16:9 stills (so instead of 24mm at the widest zoom, you're getting 26mm), but it also now suffers from moire. I feel it's an unnecessary compromise too, since a nice clean 1:1 crop would have only involved losing 4mm in the diagonal field of view.

 

I put my disappointment to Panasonic and I got the impression the scaling along with absence of Cinelike D profiles was partly for the LX100's target audience and partly to protect the GH4, but I still think a 1:1 crop would have been better, and rather than detract from GH4 sales, I could see existing GH4 owners picking up an LX100 as a B-roll camera. Maybe flat profiles and 1:1 video crops will be offered in future third-party firmware."

 

Thats a really useful review.  The moire is a dissapointment.  If they downscalled from the full 16 by 9 still it would at least make sense.  But to actually crop but not crop to 1:1 even though its so close, well that must be intentional crippling.   The image stabilisation doesn't seem quite good enough to compensate for the micro jitters from the rolling shutter either.  No flat profiles.  Weirdly he says early on in the review that he will have a video showing the flatest settings, but it is nowere to be found.  Looks like it's not a GH4 in your pocket after all.

[sgreszcz]

Thats a really useful review.  The moire is a dissapointment.  If they downscalled from the full 16 by 9 still it would at least make sense.  But to actually crop but not crop to 1:1 even though its so close, well that must be intentional crippling.   The image stabilisation doesn't seem quite good enough to compensate for the micro jitters from the rolling shutter either.  No flat profiles.  Weirdly he says early on in the review that he will have a video showing the flatest settings, but it is nowere to be found.  Looks like it's not a GH4 in your pocket after all.

 

Here is the "flat settings" video: 

 

Unfortunately, it is looking like this is not the camera for me if the video is crippled in this way.  I was looking to move away from some of my Olympus bodies, but for £799 I think there are too many compromises here - especially if you include no touch/tilt screen or tilt EVF.

 

I'm going to wait to see what the Panasonic Gx7 or Olympus OMD-EM5 replacements give us.