francishmt wrote:
rscheffler, what is the ISO of the second picture?
ISO 800. I applied max chroma NR in Silkypix, but not much luminance NR... and also +0.75 exp. comp... so yeah, the ceiling area is falling apart in that image. I haven't bothered to try any other NR for it. I think ISO 800 on the LX3 is reasonable except in situations like this one with a lot of smooth, non-detailed areas where the noise tends to stand out.
The other images are ISO 400, except the last one of the blinds is ISO 100. But at that size you won't see a difference.
I agree with Brian that I've been very impressed with the LX3's IS. There are other photos I did in the office environment shown above that were hand held at around 1/10 sec (the photo in question above was at 1/13 braced against the mirror) and look really good. The image of the door and waste basket was at 1/5 second braced against the chair in the next photo...
great pics guys!
I have returned my LX3 after two weeks of frustrating use, and have been blown away by the G10 since! I find using it more than my D300 setup for many applications minus the obvious
dasrocket wrote:
great pics guys!
I have returned my LX3 after two weeks of frustrating use, and have been blown away by the G10 since! I find using it more than my D300 setup for many applications minus the obvious
Jammy Straub wrote:
Your photos would point toward YES for landscape work Beautiful work.
Thanks Jammy,
Well their not quite replacing the DSLR yet But I think the G10 and LX3 are closing the gap a little. Who knows, in a few years, the gap just may get closed
These are wonderful images, but how do they stand up to a closer look? Is it possible to see some 100% crops... that would let us gauge how sharp and detailed these cams are, or are not, compared to our DSLRs.
In my opinion, the camera can do well, but I don't think it holds detail as well as a 10MP crop dSLR would. In fact I think it is probably even with or just a touch behind an 8MP dSLR. But its still a fine little camera. Really quite amazing when you consider its compact size, f2 lens and wide angle capabilities.
They don't replace the need for a DSLR, but are very complimentary.
Thanks for the crops.... this makes it much easier to judge IQ.
The LX3 crop is quite smooth and takes a touch of sharpening quite well... the G10 Less so, but I assume that it has already received a bit more than the LX3.
I think I need to download some RAW images from these cams and have a play for myself.
Just got my LX3 yesterday after spending an entire morning on the phone trying to locate a black on in LA. I eventually found one at Bel Air.
I really needed something like this for my "carry" camera as my DSLR's are just too much grief to drag around on street trips and reconnaissance shoots.
Anyhow I've been playing around and so far I'm extremely impressed with the little beast. I intend to get all the add ons for it as soon as I can find them to make the outfit complete.
One question. I've got CS4 and Lightroom 2.2 but I'm not sure either of them properly support the LX3. What are you guys using for RAW from this thing? Is the Silkypix thing any good and is there something better?
Thanks in advance for any advice and I'll get some shots in this thread as soon as I can.
GMSQD wrote:
One question. I've got CS4 and Lightroom 2.2 but I'm not sure either of them properly support the LX3. What are you guys using for RAW from this thing? Is the Silkypix thing any good and is there something better?
I believe both CS4 (ACR 5) and LR2.2 support the LX3 just fine. With older versions you have to convert to DNG first and the DNGs are unusually large so it is a bit screwy. But with CS4 and LR2.2 you should be just fine.
As far as Silkypix goes I actually have grown to like it a lot, it is very full featured. Its downsides are that it runs a bit slower than some converters, if you are a pixel peeper I don't think it does quite as good a job at recovering pixel level detail as other options, and the tool names and documentation are a bit hard to follow as they are translated from Japanese. That said, you can change how it generates preview images to speed it up a bit, while the pixel level detail isn't as great as others the global adjustments (color, contrast, etc.) are really very well done, and you can get a $3 e-book that makes up for the badly translated manual here:
I tried a few RAW's in LR 2.2 and I think the default Dev' module settings were not exactly usable so I assumed that it wasn't a good converter for the LX3. I'll give it another go and report back.
Hey, if we're talking compacts, why not the Sigma DP1 as well. If you don't mind being a little slower and deliberate in your shooting this thing can produce some stunning images...
I can't speak for dasrocket, but I can tell you why I got rid of mine. I had the G9 and sold it to get the LX3 cuz I wanted better images and a smaller camera. And the image quality of the LX3 is very good, but the ergonomics were so frustrating I hated using it. The grip is too small and there's barely any place to put your thumb on the back. (And I don't have big hands.) So the end result is that you basically end up holding it with your fingertips. The buttons on the back are small, crowded, and flimsy. The dial turns on it's own way too often. And I discovered how much I dislike not having a viewfinder for real picture taking vs P&S snapshots.
I just bought a Ricoh GX200 with EVF that will be here Friday. The IQ isn't as good over ISO 400 but the ergonomics, handing and functioning of the camera are much better than the LX3. It feels great in the hand and you can operate it with one hand. The GX200 lens is slower, but is a little longer and has less distortion and CA. In a perfect world, I would love the chip and fast lens of the LX3 in the body of the GX200. But I'll live with the higher ISO limitations of the GX200 until the DP2 or Oly M4/3 come out cuz I know I'll enjoy using it.
