Panasonic Lumix LX3: first impressions

I went out and splurged on a shiny new Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3 this evening (got to love those Malaysian prices) - completely against my normal late adopter strategy (e.g. my DSLRs were both bought just a couple of weeks before their successors were announced). I thought I'd get some of my first impressions reported - I've had it all of 2h now. This is by no means a full review, I'm going to focus on the things that I felt were important in buying it.

Look and feel: solid little camera. Nice weight and size. Solidly built for a small camera. Nice lens cap, and it comes with a lens-cap keeper (a little cord to attach it to the camera). Positive feeling buttons. All give the aura of a quality product.

Interface: nice and intuitive. I've run it through most of the modes available without yet opening the manual. I've handled Panasonic Lumix cameras in the past and I like the way their interface is put together, the LX3 is no different. All the manual modes are also intuitive: easy to get aperture, Ev compensation, focus etc working from the off. I also love the live histogram and easy access to Ev compensation - very quick and easy to get good exposure.

Image quality: unscientifically, very good. I've been pushing it hard in rubbish lighting around the hotel and a quick review of the JPEGs (not got the RAW software loaded) shows good detail retention and acceptable noise for reasonable prints up to ISO1600. This is all I had hoped for it - I was going to be happy with that level of performance at ISO400. I've been shooting everything in RAW+JPEG so I can review the differences later.

Now the good stuff: manual operation and RAW.

First, shooting speed. Buffer is 3 RAW (or RAW+JPEG) deep, but truly continuous in single shot mode. Once an image is saved you're good to go for another. Buffer clearing with a slow 4GB card takes about 1.5s by my estimate. The first 3 can be shot as fast as you can push the button (about 1 shot every 0.5s). Very good performance. Burst mode is a bit different - push to button, get 3 shots in quick succession but then you have to wait for the buffer to clear before shooting again. I will be sticking to single shot mode. Haven't tried JPEG only, not interested quite frankly.

Manual focus is very intuitive, running off a little joystick. This is actually a pleasure to use even for such a small controller. Just the right balance of response and feel so that it is very difficult to inadvertently push it in the wrong direction: I'm finding it better than Canon's DLSR multi-controller. There are 3 manual focus modes - no assist (straight off the LCD), centre assist (small patch is zoomed to help focus) and large assist (small patch is enlarged to fill the screen). I find the middle option best. From my quick reviews, focus accuracy is good. In manual mode, pushing the focus button activates AF - I'm not seeing a whole lot of point in switching into AF mode. Focus speed is quite good. At the moment I haven't found a way to lock focus point when switching from MF to AF, so snap or zone focus are tricky. May have to get the manual out.

So what do I think - first impressions: the Lumix LX3 is exceeding my expectations in ease of use, speed and image quality. Definitely a worthwhile purchase.

UPDATE 28/9/08: I've now posted my further observations here.