Shooting with a 4K pocket camera - the exceptional Panasonic LX100

[tosvus]

sure I understand you in this and I agree... but there was not so many talking about the HDMI and I thought this is a beta issue... becouse for what do I put a HDMI on a camera like this, that in the menu is capable of giving out 4k in 422, when no signal comes out at all and only the AV-Out in 480p works in playback mode...

o probably they expect that customers purchase a panasonic viera (viera link) so that you can use the HDMI?

 

than it#s better they completely leave away that fucking special usb port (wich no one needs) and also leave away hdmi out. make camera 100 bucks cheaper & smaller and all are happy. but manufacturing tools that can't be used at all is a really shame. I mean, this was Canon style to do it... not Panasonic

 

Chill out. No need to swear, and you would not save a hundred bucks by omitting having a HDMI and USB port - and it certainly is not useless to have either..

[Igor Campana]

I fully agree on the HDMI! Glaring omission for drone users and will hurt sales. Sure I can forward the feedback to Matt. They are on our side. It's just sometimes a decision is made in Japan for engineering, technical or marketing reasons that doesn't quite chime with the demands of filmmakers.

 

Thanks a lot Andrew. please keep us up to date

 

To all: if you wish HDMI Out please start complaining to Panasonic on all channes (Emails, Marketing, Facebook). Maybe togheter we are able to move Panasonic in doing something. I think if they get HDMI, they dont need to worry any other compact camera coming in 2015

[Igor Campana]

But couldn't you use the Panasonic app and view the feed from your phone while you cobtrol the copter?

 

Have you every tried the Lumix App.. its such crap on smartphones... you need hughe tablets to see something. Panasonic have not understand that there is something called overlay menus not only for cameras, but also for Android apps... I hope they change it

 

there was a freak developer that want to do a fullscreen app, but no updates yet how far he is...

[Igor Campana]

Except for the fact that it's a side effect of the GH4 being used with external monitors and recorders. So there's no way they could leave it out if they wanted to. Pretty sure the feature wasn't added in mind that you could use it for FPV and monitoring on aerial shoots. So it's not quite the same. That's why I said that probably they do not expect you to rig the LX100 up and just use it as it is, because it is so compact, that's the key selling point, that it is all-in-one already. And yeah, it's a step below the GH-line, surely. But I'm not sure adding HDMI-out during recording to the LX100 would effect GH4 sales that much. So I hope they have a change of hearts then if it's technically possible to add it with a firmware update.

 

The other point. Yeah, a couple of years ago you'd have to go with spycam(like) cameras. There weren't any gimbals around for consumers/prosumers, let alone an afforable FPV solution. So I did fly without seeing any livefeed... and still people are shooting without a live feed... just because it can't be budgeted for, so it's not impossible, it's not that insane, people have been shooting like that for years.

But fair enough, those people then probably don't have the means to get themselves a multirotor with gimbalmount to handle a camera such as the LX100. So admittedly it's already more serious and I know it's not years ago now, we live in 2014 with all this technology availlable... except then for the lack of video-out whilst recording, lol. Well, I hope Matt will respond to this and maybe tell us if anything will be possible in the future.

 

 

The range though... besides, people aren't fond of Wi-Fi signals when they're flying their multirotor. Wouldn't want to get signal mess-ups.

 

Yes a good point... I understand Panasonic thought at the drone flyers, especially when thinking at DJI which can carry up to 8kg... but we have some law regulations here in Europe that makes hughe problems if you fly over 4kg. and at moment there is no way to geht the GH4 in a flying drone withouth costing special permissions.

 

But just think how many are using gimbals today for steady shots... or using an external monitor to find the best FOV & Focus point... so HDMI would be very necessary

[gatopardo]

Thanks Andrew for the review.

Will it be possible to use a teleconverter with this camera? That would make it far more usable for me.

[Igor Campana]

any update concerning the LX100? Have any one of you get a reply from Panasonic?

[tosvus]

seriously?? Panasonic has not responded to the fact they have real issues with their power ois, and this has been widely complained about for months. Do you really think they will turn around with good news about lx100 hdmi in.a couple of weeks?

[Inazuma]

Just came across this 

and this

Is it just me or does the Lx100 seem to have a generally more pleasing image than the GH4?

[ita149]

It not just you, it's obvious !
I don't understand why Panasonic have released a little camera faster and with better IQ video than the GH4 with 12-35mm combinaison for just 900$.
Many people are in the process of reselling their GH4 or at least their 12-35 now.
Moreover, their prices are dropping ...

[KurtAugust]

Well, I don't mind the price. I captured a theater performance yesterday and the LX100 was my master shot. First gig with it. I was pretty blown away by it and preferred it to the Canon 5dIII, especially considering the ease of the workflow (realising ML Raw is not even an option here) and how easy it was to rig up (15mm tube clamp under the camera to mount it to rods and you have access to battery chamber).

 

You do have the disadvantage of not having hdmi out and freedom of lenses, no headphone, no microphone in, etc. But I think it's a perfect companion to a GH4. What is there not to like? It pays itself back in a couple of jobs. And being able to shoot in a square format larger than hd is pretty wild for fx shots...

 

The 15 min recording limit is a bit silly of course, but what a great low profile camera this is.

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

Wow that 4K image is amazing for stealing shots.

How shallow of a dof can you get at the long end wide open for shooting someone's face?

[sgreszcz]

Hey all, 

 

I just got me one of these LX100 to replace my Olympus E-P5 that I was using for stills/video with either the Panasonic 25/1.4 or the Olympus 12-40/2.8 zoom.

 

I'm brand new to Panasonic menus and shooting so I'm finding it a steep learning curve to setting it up and getting the right functionality (zebras/peaking/focus magnification) - features that were not available on the Olympus cameras in video mode.

 

Also, would love hearing from people who have set it up to be able to switch quickly for stills settings, to settings for video (manual mode, 180o shutter, automatic focus with manual override, quick WB/ISO changes).  I see that there are customisations (C1, C2, C3) but not sure how to apply them quickly without a mode dial.

 

Yes, I need to read the manual, and I am in the process of doing so, but looking for some help from those that are shooting with the Panasonic menus, and specifically the LX100.  Sometimes the manual is not too helpful there.

 

Thanks!

 

Stephen

 

P.S. First impressions is that the EVF is usable, but I miss my tilting Olympus VF-4.  I can't believe how light the LX100 is, even compared to my E-PM2 with 17/1.8 prime (although I haven't weighed them).  I also really like the LX100 grip.

[Jacek]

 

Also, would love hearing from people who have set it up to be able to switch quickly for stills settings, to settings for video (manual mode, 180o shutter, automatic focus with manual override, quick WB/ISO changes).  I see that there are customisations (C1, C2, C3) but not sure how to apply them quickly without a mode dial.

 

I use it like that:

- setup everything for video (flat profile, video format display [there is somthing in menu which changes display to video aspect ratio], display options like zebra, custom fn buttons for video) + set one fn button for custom profile switch (c1,c2..)

- save as C1 profile

- setup everything for photo (profile, display, fn buttons..) + set the same fn button as in video profile for custom profile switch (c1,c2..)

- save as C2 profile

 

Now you can use one fn button to easely switch between C1 and C2 profiles.

But remember one thing: if you change settings while using C1 and then switch to C2 and back to C1 - your changes are lost, the profile is loaded exactly how you saved it at the beginning.

 

Aperture, shutter speed, AF/MF you change with physical buttons, so no quick reset to your default values is available.

 

I'm using my old Sandisk Extreme 64GB card. No problems.

[someguy]

Got my D-Lux yesterday, very nice little camera. I've never owned such an advanced camera, will take me while to go through all the options. A7II up next I think.

[sgreszcz]

Now you can use one fn button to easely switch between C1 and C2 profiles.
But remember one thing: if you change settings while using C1 and then switch to C2 and back to C1 - your changes are lost, the profile is loaded exactly how you saved it at the beginning.

Aperture, shutter speed, AF/MF you change with physical buttons, so no quick reset to your default values is available.

Can someone in PAL-land tell me how I can set things up to quickly shift to 1/50 shutter? I'm a little bit angry that Panasonic didn't offer the lx100 as a world (PAL/NTSC) camera, and the force the PAL camera it use 1/60 on the physical dial

They should either offer us to set the shutter speed in the video settings, map the 1/60 to 1/50, or allow us to save shutter speed as custom settings.

At least Olympus - with their short-sighted only 30p frame rate - allows easy shutter speed selection of 1/50. I didn't have any problems with artificial light flicker with 50Hz.

[someguy]

Set the dial to 60 then scroll the control wheel to 50.

[chandr]

I am totally new to the dslr video world but LX100 4k ability caught me so I am here, with my Pany on hand. Need a little help from you guys with the decision upon choosing the best laptop+software package for me needs. As I am only going to film my family and travel, my video edit workflow will be pretty simple - cut-merge-export to 1080 and 4k. Not planning any effects etc so far (may be later, if I like video a lot).

 

So for this simple workflow, is there any chance for me I could make it without [expensive and heavy] 15", 4 cores + discreet video card laptop. Mac or Win does not matter as I am OK to both, but ideally I would like to stay with something 13' 2 cores machine but still have fast enough processing times. Possible?

 

Thank you very much!

[andrew00]

Had a play with a LX100 this weekend, I liked:

 

IQ is, in general, pretty good. It's not as good as an APS-C stills camera at 100% but viewed from a monitor or, I'd imagine, a small print, I doubt anyone would notice the difference. Tends to meter and white balance differently to my Ricoh GR, not sure which is more accurate. Dynamic range seems, anecdotally, ok but not great, about the m4/3 average.

 

Either way, the zoom works well and can compensate for any resolution/detail issues as you can obviously zoom closer. I've never been a zoom fan tbh but I actually like it on the LX100 as the camera is still small with it. I also like that, as you zoom, it gives you 35mm equivalent focal lengths, so I know 'oh ok now I've shooting w/a 50mm' etc, that's useful.

 

A note on the zoom, with the sensor having it's multi-aspect, in video you actually get, I think, a 26mm-81mm lens, not a 24-75mm (in stills). Prob doesn't make practically any difference but still.

 

The 4k is good, no Cine-D/V which is a shame (and no log when that comes out presumably), but it's solid otherwise. The camera also triggers my wireless flash, which may not be useful to most but other cameras like the GH4 and the GX7 didn't.

 

What I didn't like:

 

Picture profiles for stills and video aren't separate despite both having their own menu option - set the video to a low contrast and you'll get the same for Jpegs. Obviously shooting RAW removes this issue but I found it was a shame; I often like to shoot high contrast jpeg b+w's (hence the Ricoh GR!) and it'd be a chore to have to unpick any settings for when I wanted to shoot video.

 

The LCD and EVF are sufficient but not great. The LCD has a colour shift towards blue I think and the EVF is pretty small and, whilst useful as a compositional aid, isn't especially clear for critical work. Again, it's all fine but it's not great.

 

The biggest issue I have is with the sensor. It starts as a M4/3 sensor but as it's multi-aspect when you take stills you end up with a 12mp (not 16mp image). You also end up with a sensor crop that goes from a 2" sensor to a 1.5" sensor. This means the sensor is practically similar to the 1" RX100 sensor vs a m4/3 sensor, and is therefore quite a way from an APS-C sensor in characteristics.

 

This means if you zoom in and shoot wide open you still can get shallow DoF if you're in tight, but not really if you're in a wider shot. To be fair, you can't have it all and I don't have any 'problem' with it, just observing that it was always a bit of a challenge w/m4/3 sensors, and it's even more of one with the LX100.

 

The other big issue is the lack of built in ND. I think above anything else if the camera had've had this it would be a truly great camera, but even on a rubbish London day with dark greys skies I was having to stop down to f/7.1 to get a properly exposed image when shooting at 1/50 and ISO 200 in 4k video, at least going by the cameras histogram. It would be such a cool feature to have an ND built in that would let you shoot wide open.

 

That's what vari-nd's are for of course, and the LX100 does have a filter thread, but it's not an ideal shooting situation as the lens protrudes, but likes retracting in various playback modes, and looks quite fragile and I'm not sure how well it'd do as a throw in the bag type longevity if I was having to jam an ND on it the whole time.

 

Video IQ is also typical of M4/3 cameras. Personally I was never a big fan of the GH4 video IQ as I preferred the naturalness of the colours from a BMPCC, even despite the resolution advantage. I'd say it's decent thou, 90% of what the GH4 can offer and obviously in a much cheaper, smaller, more convenient package.

 

tl;dr great camera, lots of great features, 4k video, decent stills, good zoom, small and light and really easy to use. has issues that will either be deal breakers or simply things to work around, depending on your opinion.

[Xavier Plagaro Mussard]

I captured a theater performance yesterday and the LX100 was my master shot. [....]

 

The 15 min recording limit is a bit silly of course, but what a great low profile camera this is.

 

Could you retrigger the rec and keep recording without warming issues?? How long was the piece?? A 4K master is really great in a multi cam shooting!

[sanveer]

I saw a few videos of the LX100, and IMO it seems to have about 1/2 to 1 stop better low light, compared to the GH4. Has anyone checked?