UKC

The new camera fairy delivered one of these yesterday. I have been having a bit of a play around, and have hardly scratched the surface, but so far my impressions are as follows:

Size: A fair bit chunkier than the LX3/5/7. Comparable to the Fujifilm X30 it is replacing.

Ergonomics: Much more tactile than the older LX- cameras. I really like the fact that rather than the usual P/A/S/M settings it has a shutter speed dial and an aperture ring with an auto option at the end of each. No more twiddling little buttons on the back to make things happen. Having said that I haven't got the hang of using the control ring for anything but focusing yet.

Lens & Sensor: Holy 5417! This gives my D7000 a run for its money!

Anything up to ISO 1600 is basically noise free. 3200 has some creeping in, 25600 is quite noisy but acceptable in a pinch.

I haven't tried doing long exposures yet (later this evening!), but it is perfectly possible to wander around taking pictures hand held with street lighting.

Here are a handful taken near UCR and in my back garden. Hand held, auto everything idiot mode. No effort made beyond trying to be reasonably steady. http://www.spectral3d.co.uk/misc/lx100_night/

I expect great things of it when I stick it on the tripod and tell it to do some proper night time exposures.

TL;DR: I'm finding it hard to justify the SLR right now.

[edit] I just got some long exposure shots. Looking good but I have mislaid the USB cable and this laptop doesn't have a card reader so they will need to wait.

In reply to davidbeynon:

I have an LX-100 and I don't use it as often as I would like to, but man does it perform when I do use it! I love my Canon SLR but I struggle to see the point in hauling it around when you have this (albeit barely) pocket-sized gem.

In reply to Mr Aboulderer:

Same really. The Nikon D7000 is a great camera that has served me very well, but the weight has effectively relegated it to multi day trips where I want to do night time photography and time lapse filming. Ironically the kind of trips where I want to save weight most!

I feel that if the long exposure pics look as good on a real screen as they do pixel peeping on the evf then I no longer really need the SLR for night.

In reply to davidbeynon:

OK. I have found something I don't like. The EVF uses the old alternating r,g,b passes, which results in tearing and colour weirdness if you move your eyes or blink. One area where it is inferior to the likes of the fujifilm.

Still seems to be going strong when it comes to taking pictures though. I have uploaded a couple more test shots.

P10000031.JPG is just the bog standard back garden with stars shot.
P10000036.JPG was taken in what looked like a pitch black room. Illumination was from a not particularly close neighbours window.
P10000043.JPG was a fairly gloomy room with moving objects.

In reply to davidbeynon:

keep it up, I am looking for a "climbing" camera that will approach Dslr quality, will be interested to see how the new Nikon compacts perform when they come out