My New Toy — Lumix LX3

One of the things that I missed when I started using my DSLR was the portability factor. I was envious of people with point-and-shoot cameras because it was so light and it could fit in their small bags or purses.

Of course, I would rationalize and eventually say that the quality of the photos are way way better if I’d use an SLR compared to a point-and-shoot. But I swear, there are times that I wish I have a nice point-and-shoot so that I don’t have to sacrifice quality.

Here comes the Panasonic Lumix LX3. I got this about 3 weeks ago and it has brought me back to the fun days of the point-and-shoot  – being able to just snap a photo wherever you are without the weight of an SLR.

Will this replace an SLR? Of course not, but it takes great photos and the thing that I love most about this is its ability to be able to capture depth of field. Other things that I like include:

• great for low light: it has an f2.0 Leica lens and it really works great in low light! You should see it to believe it!
• macro focus: you can stick the camera as close to the subject, and it will still focus!
• ability to capture HD movie (720p)
• different formats for photos: 3:2, 4:3 and 16:9 ratio — I have a lot of photos using the 16:9 ratio because I thought it was nice if it’s wide, but I later realized that it looks weird on the computer!
• old-school pop-up flash: remember the old times when the flash is hidden and it pops-out of the camera? This is exactly what’s in here! The good thing about this is (unlike canon point-and-shoot), it doesn’t turn on the flash automatically when you shoot in low light.

As with any gadget, there are still some things that could be improved:

• no viewfinder: although this is not really a big thing for me, it impacts the next complaint I have
• short battery life: battery life isn’t that great and I think it’s mainly due to the fact that it uses its LCD screen most of the time. In order to combat this, I bought a spare battery and then used the power-saving options (including the LCD screen) via its menu

I’ll post some of my photos taken with the LX3 soon but for now, I’d like to share with you some of the accessories I have for the LX3. The original Panasonic accessories are a bit too steep for me, but I’m glad to find some 3rd party add-ons that work well with the LX3. I got the whole set below for around $50, compared to around $170 to the Panasonic set.

In the photos below, you will see the wide angle lens attached to the LX3.

Photos were taken using my iPhone

With the attached wide angle lens + adapter, the LX3 looks like a mini-SLR. It has caught some attention when I brought it to Boracay the other day! People are wondering what kind of camera this is! I think it’s a good thing! Hahaha!

Anyway, I have not tried the original wide angle lens of Panasonic but I’ve heard from people that they behave the same as the 3rd party that I have (ROWA Optics). The only benefit for having the 3rd party one is the compatibility with the generic filters for SLR cameras. The lens adapter is 52mm in diameter while the wide angle is 67mm. The original Panasonic one is 46mm, not usually found in camera shops.

So, if you want a great point-and-shoot camera, the LX3 is the way to go. I know that a lot of photographers here in the Philippines went crazy when this camera came out. I have convinced around 3 people to buy this already.

What are you waiting for? Go and buy one! You can get one at amazon.com for around $400.

Lightroom 2.2 Now Available

Almost a week before Christmas, Adobe has given us their Christmas present to us Lightroom Addicts — Lightroom 2.2!

Lightroom 2.2 has some added enhancements in the Camera Profiles section. The big thing though in this release is the support for new cameras like the Canon 5D Mark II and the Panasonic Lumix LX3! Now, I don’t have to convert my LX3  raw shots via DNG converter. I can import them directly into Lightroom.

For more details on the release, check out Tom Hogarty’s entry on the full release of Lightroom 2.2.

To get the new Lightroom, click the following links: Mac, Win

Edit Lumix LX3 Raw Shots in Lightroom 2.1

Hey guys,

When I got my Lumix LX3, one of the things that I liked about it is that it could shoot in Raw. The bad thing — at that time, Adobe doesn’t have support for the LX3 Raw format.

The good thing is, they announced Camera Raw 5.2 last week and LX3 is now supported! However, since Lightroom 2.2 is not yet out (it should be due soon), you can’t just directly import the LX3 Raw photos into Lightroom because Lightroom 2.1 won’t recognize them.

Here’s a  workaround that I tried this weekend – I converted them to DNG first and then imported them into Lightroom. Here are the steps:

• First, download and install the following from Adobe: Camera Raw 5.2 (Mac, Win) and DNG Converter 5.2 (Mac, Win)
• Once they’re installed, open DNG converter and load your LX3 Raw shots from there. Here’s a screenshot of what I did:

• The interface is very intuitive – first, you point it to the location of your Raw photos. Next, you select a target folder, third, determine the file name (I left it to default), and lastly, pick the compression preferences. I just left mine to the default settings (medium size jpeg).
• I also did not change the filename because I knew that I can easily do this inside Lightroom.
• Click the Convert button and wait for it to go through your files.

• You now end up with a folder that has all the DNG files.
• Open Lightroom 2.1 and then import your DNG files. In my settings (see below), I made sure to pick ‘Move images to Lightroom folder’ since I didn’t want to keep duplicate DNG files.

• That’s it! You can now edit your LX3 Raw photos inside Lightroom!

Note, when Lightroom 2.2 is out, you no longer have to do this workaround. If you want to find out what DNG is, read more of it from Adobe’s DNG section.

Enjoy!