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

[Andrew Reid]

I have an omd em5 with 7.5 Samyang, 12-40mm Olympus, 17.5mm Nokton, and 40-150 mm Olympus.

Mainly use camera for family stills and video. Love the weather sealing and image stabilized videos with kids as it comes in handy sometimes.

Question is should I sell everything, start fresh, and just get the Lx100?

 

Yes do it. EM5 video quality is nowhere near as good as the LX100. The stabiliser is the only thing you might miss, and the look of the Nokton. That's a beautiful lens.

[wobba]

There's the custom modes in there but instead of on a dial, they are in the main menu as Utilise Custom Set Feature. If you use this regularly just assign that option to a Function button like Fn3.

 

Thanks Andrew.  That works for me.  I assume the custom settings override aperture ring and shutter speed dial settings.  If so, do you just leave the aperture ring and shutter dial both on A, and program custom 1, say, for shutter priority with speed set to 1/50s?

[Ppt]

And a way to monitor while recording ☺ (lx200 wishlist)

[Andrew Reid]

Thanks Andrew.  That works for me.  I assume the custom settings override aperture ring and shutter speed dial settings.  If so, do you just leave the aperture ring and shutter dial both on A, and program custom 1, say, for shutter priority with speed set to 1/50s?

 

Custom modes don't seem to take into account shutter speed, you still have to put the dial to 1/60 and reverse the rear dial back one to 1/50.

[Andrew Reid]

And a way to monitor while recording ☺ (lx200 wishlist)

 

Eh?

[Ppt]

Sorry, late response to an earlier post. Still wishing for a way to feed to a monitor through hdmi or av out so I can fly this camera. Really really wanted to.

[johnnymossville]

Excellent Video Andrew!!   I've been thinking about getting this camera for the lens alone.  This would be a great go everywhere camera. 

[Cinegain]

Cinegain, thanks for taking the time to answer everyone's questions! :)

No problemo! ;)

 

Concerning autoISO... If I'm in fairly dim lit conditions and I just need a little more in focus, so I go f/4, if I go low ISO and auto shutter, I might get unwanted movement/shakiness because the shutter was set too slow to allow for a correct exposure. I would then set the shutter to 1/160th in addition to f/4 for example and let the ISO be controlled automatically. That way I know I get the required depth of field and should be sharp and steady and the exposure correct with minimum noise. So to me it absolutely makes sense to have this for photography.

 

For video though... you're talking about taking 24 to 60 stills a second consecutively and repeatedly. Wouldn't you ideally be using a variable ND-filter or clickless aperture to control exposure whilst shooting with the ISO and shutter being set to certain limits you deem to be desired and acceptable? "Yeah, but I don't want to cut light (variable ND), I want to add light mid-shoot sometimes and I don't want to change my aperture because it's already wide open/need the corresponding depth of field and the 180 shutter-rule is holy". Well, okay, but I'm not sure if there's such a thing as smooth ISO transitions, so the change would be very obvious what exposure concerned. In addition you'd have two different behaviours from two different ISO-settings (noise levels most notably, maybe dynamic range a bit as well). Too be honest, I most likely wouldn't even use it if it was a feature. I haven't ever shot anything like that before (and an ND-filter or aperture ring you can control, you cannot control autoISO, so it might be going all over the place all the time), I'm not sure if others even do? When would you think that's a better idea than any of the other mentioned methods? If for some reason you really really want to shoot with another ISO? Stop - adjust - start is done quickly enough...

 

How practical are the retro aperture/shutter speed dials?  For example, let's say I want to alternate between shooting video in shutter priority (at 1/50s) and shooting stills in aperture priority, do I need to constantly rotate the aperture and shutter dials to effect these settings, or can I simply program these settings into custom memory?

Not really sure what you mean, but since there's no dedicated videomode; the settings/dial position dictates what will happen. The exception being the shutterdial, because you can in fact use the dial on the back to select 1/50th of a second for example since this value is not represented on the dial.

 

Just found how to set the framing of live-view to video without enabling 4K Photo Mode. The option to try is Rec Area. You can toggle between the framing for stills (2.2x crop) or video (2.4x crop).

Ah! Good find!

[Andrew Reid]

Ah I see. Doesn't even have an HDMI menu, only a "TV connection" one. I think this is one of the victims of unnecessary feature culling to protect the GH4. Actually pros will use both, so there's no need to cut important "pro" features. Bit of a shame really. I haven't tried HDMI live out yet, just going off what others have said, that it isn't active. One way to do it would be WiFi, but you'd need to find a way to extend the range.

 

How about flying it with the iPhone, and leading the iPhone out to an HDMI transmitter? :)

[Andrew Reid]

Excellent Video Andrew!!   I've been thinking about getting this camera for the lens alone.  This would be a great go everywhere camera. 

 

Cheers. Yeah it absolutely is a go-everywhere one. Think how many photos we take with our phones and some of them are just lovely... now think how much better these would be from the LX100 :)

[Ppt]

I'm trying to fly less weight☺ I was actually thinking of trying a small board cam mounted behind the lx100 and shooting the back screen of the camera. I don't need HD, just enough Res. for framing and a reasonable idea of exposure.

[Andrew Reid]

In clear line of sight I am sure the WiFi link from LX100 to the ground would work reasonably well. I'd try that first.

 

Shame Panasonic seem to have shot themselves in the foot though because LX100 would otherwise be so great on a drone.

[johnnymossville]

I agree about the drone,  with that lens and it's low weight this would rock on a drone. 

[Cinegain]

That's some out of the box thinking. :P That could work (although I'm scared of reflections and stuff, it will be pretty crappy). I think the 808's are still a thing, right?

http://www.chucklohr.com/808/index.shtml & http://www.rcgroups.com/aerial-photography-128/

 

- Oh, lol, there's already a topic on that... http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2247448 , well, I hope they're able to figure it out!

 

- And if all fails, what aerial video concerned the Hero4 looks really promising (atleast in the hands of Luke):

[Ppt]

On the multirotor forums people were salivating over the possibility of flying this; GoPro fisheye gets old, and flying a gh4 sized package requires exponentially larger and more expensive rigs. I've got a copter I built just for the gh4 but I just don't want to deal with the stress of flying $7500 worth of equipment around if I don't have to. WiFi operates on similar frequency to my control radio so there's no way I'm flying an active WiFi transmitter around. Anyway end of detour

[dahlfors]

Oh how I wish this camera would have had some higher frame rate mode, a 96 fps mode like GH4, or a 120fps 720p mode like the old LX7. I'm considering getting the RX100 mk3 thanks to its 120 fps mode, but this camera is so much more tempting for using as a constant camera companion in all other aspects.

 

Guess overheating is an issue when packing quad-core chip and the sensor in such a small body. But I can only hope they could enable a higher fps mode through firmware update, even if it would only be in 720p and limited to shorter sequences...

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

I would be curious to know where this mis-conception about filter thread comes from. It definitely has a 43mm thread, but for some reason, a lot of people seem to think it doesn't. Is there some particular review that has an oversight?

 

 

 

Gordon Laing in the (very detailed) CameraLabs review said that there is no filter thread, hence the confusion.

[wobba]

Custom modes don't seem to take into account shutter speed, you still have to put the dial to 1/60 and reverse the rear dial back one to 1/50.

 

The retro controls make sense on something like a Fuji X100 which is primarily a stills camera.   But this cockamamy routine that requires you to rotate 3 dials (aperture ring, shutter dial, rear dial) every time you alternate between shooting stills in aperture priority and video at 1/50s is pretty poor.

 

What shutter speed does the LX100 choose if you just leave the shutter dial set to A and hit the record button?  Does it default to 1/50s (assuming you've selected 25P)?

[tosvus]

The retro controls make sense on something like a Fuji X100 which is primarily a stills camera.   But this cockamamy routine that requires you to rotate 3 dials (aperture ring, shutter dial, rear dial) every time you alternate between shooting stills in aperture priority and video at 1/50s is pretty poor.

 

What shutter speed does the LX100 choose if you just leave the shutter dial set to A and hit the record button?  Does it default to 1/50s (assuming you've selected 25P)?

 

I like seeing the settings right on the dial, though I agree they should have added 50 (and preferably 48) there for the people that shoot 24p and 25p video, rather than having to dial it in with the rear dial.

 

Maybe you switch a lot back and forth between video and stills, but I typically do not, so for me the arrangement should be working great.

[Astro]

Wow!! Thanks Andrew!! great review and really awesome pics too...lovely.

I am really excited, I bought the Gh4 some months back...using it daily and have come to love it more and more as I fine tune my own custom setup.

I just wish that Panasonic had some way that you could write your own custom presets into a dedicated menu and title them rather than the C1, C2 setup, presets that are titled like you can do on a synthesizer...at least a list of 15 or more...selectable from a specific menu would be awesome!

But that said the GH4 has been great, and now this, I need another camera for music clips...and this could be it.

After your review I am really keen to check this camera out.

Thanks again.

Cheers