Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX2 review

I having been using a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX01. Pictures taken with it is less than stellar and uninspiring. The images tend to be very dark even though I thought the image stabilizing feature would have allowed more well exposed photographs. Recently I have had a chance to play with my brother's other Lumix model, the DMC-LX2, and I have mixed feelings for it.

Form factor
With a large protruding lens, the camera doesn't really fit in your pocket, especially with the accompained carrying case, which is bulky and impractical, not to mention the zipper that likely will scratch the LCD display screen.

Lens quality
When focusing correctly, I was able to take sharp pictures with the Leica lens. Chromatic aboration (puprle edges) is virtually non-existence and very little barrel distortion have been observed.

CCD sensor
I was able to take photos with nice color.




However, even at a lowered (6MP out of the supported maximum 10MP) resolution, the images are noticably pixelated as soon as resized to as little as 2x.

Playback
If nothing else, the large wide screen LCD does render easy to view nice images. I don't think the camera has a speaker cause I have never been able to listen to the audio during movie playback.

Controls
The controls are easy use and adaquately placed once gotten used to. The lack of an optical view finder means there is one less way to conserve battery life. The popup flash is a nice touch cause that's where people (other than the owner of the camera) tend to cover with their fingers.

Switching from color to black-and-white or amoung different ISO values is a multi-step process which involves navigating through some menus; don't expect to be able to do that quickly.

What I hate the most about this camera is the lens cap. This camera does not provide enough control to take professional pictures yet it is not a point-and-shoot, because removing the lens cap is requires both hands. You can miss photo opportunities because of this clumpsy step.

Features
The auto-focusing is a hit or miss, miss more often than hit. Forget about self potrait - without face recognition, you get an out-of-focus-you in front of a nice sharp background half the time even when someone else is holding the camera.

The macro mode is a joke, with the image stablizing feature, I'd rather adjust the ISO myself than trusting the night scenery mode, which produces awkward color tone.

The auto bracket feature, which I didn't discover until later, takes 3 pictures in different exposures with once press of the button. That should be useful when taking critical pictures that you don't want to miss (like posing next to a Hollywood star, or whoever you fancy).

My brother always insists on using the 16:9 aspect ratio, which strangely is the CCD sensor's native ratio. I personally like the 3:2 ratio with matches traditional photo size. It is nice that this camera provides these choices.

Video taken with this camera is in mov (quicktime?) format. It takes up lots of space and is not the easiest one to convert to other more efficient video formats.

Conclusion
The DMC-LX2 is branded as what's supposedly a prosumer camera: not good enough to produce professional results but too bulky to be travel size. It's not something I'd bring to a safari trip cause for sure the time spent removing the lens cap would have costed me that leopard picture. Megapixel aside, I personally think my older Canon SD100, a true point-and-shoot, takes just as good if not better pictures, albeit I need a tripod because of the lack of an image stabilizer.

Volume two of Heroes

Throughout season one, a Japanese symbol was frequently seen but unexplained. Ando dubbed it the Godsend symbol. At the end of of season one the begining of Volume two, the symbol was seen on Takezo Kensei's flag and an eclipse was once again observed. I thought the significance of the symbol would be explained in season 2; apparently not so. The symbol was seen on Nikki's shoulder as well as the cover of Dr. Chandra Suresh's book, two very unrelated characters; and even more mysteriously, momentarily on Peter's palm after the virus was destroyed. I can live without the explanation of eclipse and take that as symbolic meaning. But the symbol, man, they better explain that.

Heroes end of volume two

Unlike season one, the producers rushed Heroes into a finale. Could it be because of the writers' strike? It's almost like nobody took the time to build a believable story anymore. Maya devastated by Molly's words? Come on. She just met this little girl and didn't know about her ability to find people before, it was pretty unconvincing. What about Mohinder, couldn't he inject Sylar with some debilitating drug like he did last season? He is supposed to be smart, he can do better than that. As for Mr. Bennett going back to work for the company, it's plausible given HRG's unpredictability, but we'll have to see how it turns out.


One clever thing: they didn't shy away from the Petrelli mom's contradictory intention to blow up New York and at the same time wanting to stop the release of the virus... oh wait, even though the question was raised, but they did shy away from explaining... kind of a clever solution?