LX100 My History With Compact Cameras

The LX100 is more of a "close in" than a "close up" camera. But some subjects as here lend themselves to the close up treatment.

If memory serves  correctly my first compact was a Minolta which I bought in the 1960s. This was basically a Japanese copy of the famous Minox spy camera which used 9.2mm black and white film.

The Minolta was really a novelty due to the very small film size which meant picture quality was not wonderful.

Over the next few years I bought and used several film compacts, all taking 35mm film in cassettes.

The Olympus Mju-1 was indeed very compact and made reasonable but not wonderful pictures.

So did the little Ricoh GR with a 28mm lens which I found too wide for general photography.

Two Nikon film compacts passed through my hands. One was inexpensive and had a dreadful lens. I forget the model number. The other was a 28Ti with a 28mm lens of decent quality and quirky little analogue dials on top.  There must have been something wrong with it as it didn’t last long in my household.

The Contax T2 was wildly overpriced but it had a nice lens and was a very good all round performer. I took it on a hiking trip in Nepal as an adjunct to my “proper” camera kit which was a Canon SLR with three prime lenses. In retrospect I think I should have left the Canon gear at home as most of the memorable pictures from that trip came from the Contax as it was much easier to bring out and have ready for a shot.

Our families last film compact was a Pentax travel zoom. I took this on a hiking trip on the glaciers of far north Pakistan as an adjunct to my main camera which at the time was a Mamiya 7.  Again I think in retrospect I should have left the Mamiya at home as most of the memorable pictures came from the Pentax.

The digital era    My first ever digital camera was a Canon Powershot S70 compact with a clam shell design reminiscent of the Olympus Mju-1. The S-70 had various deficiencies but it did alert me to the possibilities of digital capture in a small package.

Then came a series of Canon Powershot G compacts. I think there was the G7, G9, G10, G12 and lastly the G16. For several years this series was the industry leader in compact technology, bringing good picture quality and moderately but not very compact size to the equation.  Unfortunately Canon lost the plot somewhere between the G12 and the G16.  The G12 needed a good quality built in EVF and a fully articulated monitor but the G15 then G16 provided neither of these things. I took a G16 as backup camera on a southern ocean cruise stopping at Macquarie Island. But I found it  almost impossible to use outdoors due to the lack of an EVF. The picture quality was quite good but not outstanding.

A family member came home one day with a Canon G1X (the first version).  Canon brought this thing to the market with great fanfare and extravagant claims of excellence. But it proved to be a most disappointing camera with slow performance, average picture quality and poor ergonomics. I saw it as yet another sign of Canon's decline from the top rank of camera makers.

I used a Samsung EX1 for a short time. This camera had some quite sophisticated features but one big failing. With subjects having high brightness range it would grossly overexpose leading to severely blown out highlights. 

I tried two compacts from Panasonic. First came the LX2 which was “interesting” with a native 16:9 aspect ratio and plenty of technical sophistication. But the JPGs were unimpressive and shot to shot time was 6 seconds with RAW capture. This was entirely unacceptable.

The LX5 was a much better performer in every way. It made very good photos in most conditions. But the lack of a built in EVF and rather fiddly rear control dial did not endear it to me.

The Fuji X10 was another “interesting” camera. Add “quirky” to that. It worked reasonably well  if you were prepared to leave it on one of the fully automatic JPG modes all the time.  But try to shoot RAW and the confusion mounted quickly.

On the specification list the Nikon Coolpix P7800 appeared to be almost the perfect advanced compact except it wasn’t all that……you know…..compact. But it had a built in EVF, an articulated monitor and a very nice lens with a useful zoom range. But I discovered it was  sloooooowwwww. Slow to start, slow to focus, slow to operate and exceptionally slow to recover after each shot. This was most frustrating especially as Nikon was simultaneously making DSLRs with very acceptably fast all round performance.  Do the Coolpix guys not talk to the DSLR guys ??? Lunch together ??? Share technology ???   Anything ??

The penultimate camera on this list is the Sony CyberShot RX100 (original version). There are two of these in our family so I have had plenty of opportunity to work with the camera. In many respects it and the subsequent Mk2 and Mk3 versions are the ultimate advanced compact cameras.  No other camera packs as much picture quality into such a small package. The photographer who must carry his or her camera in a pocket need look no further.

But I never pick up the RX100 and never feel as though I want to use it. The problem is ergonomic. The RX100 is so small it is difficult to hold and its controls are cramped. It is efficient and functional but not enjoyable to use.

What have I been seeking   with all these compact cameras ? 

Basically I guess I want exactly the same thing as many other enthusiast photographers. This is big camera picture quality in a small camera package.

The Sony RX100  does deliver this but I don’t enjoy the process of using that camera.

And so we come to the Panasonic LX100.

Does this tick all the boxes for me in real world use ?

In a word, yes. Well, almost all of them.  It’s not perfect and I will have much to say about this in subsequent posts over the next few months. But none of the imperfections (as I see them anyway) is a deal breaker and it comes closer than any previous compact to meeting all my requirements.

It is compact but not too small, so I can hold and operate it properly. It has excellent focus and operating performance. It makes high quality pictures in a wide variety of conditions, indoors or outdoors. It has a good quality EVF always at the ready, so I can use it easily in Australia’s bright, hard sunlight.

It’s a keeper.