Im starting to realize that my LX5 isn't the camera for me. Low light levels are great for a compact, but having downgraded from a DSLR, i've always felt performance was lacking. I bought the LX5 to serve as a quick, compact camera for stealthy street snaps.
However, I have some issues with the camera:
- The sensor sensitivity is just slightly too low to use it at a handheld-capable shutter speed without camera shake blur or excessive noise. Also, this makes it harder to get a quick shot.
- The auto focus is slow and often wrong, especially in those low light moments. I center spot focus, half press and recompose, but it still manages to focus on something in the back or foreground. With the software update its been better, but still not as fast or accurate as I need.
- Exposure is hard to get right too. And when I finally manage to get the exposure I need and lock it in, it clears on review or mode change, and I need to re-expose and lock it again.
- Manual focus is awfully tedious, and hard to get right.
- Its too damn big! The lens assembly protrudes an inch out of the body, making it impossible to fit into anything but a bellowed jacket pocket, and im sometimes afraid to keep it in my bag for fear of slamming the lens assembly around. Which leads to my next minor (but potentially devastating) point:
- the On/Off switch is too easy to turn on and off. No matter how gentlly I put it in my bag, it always gets switched on, which means the lens is trying to extend, but cant. I know it retracts if it feels any resistance, but its still unnerving, especially with my JJC auto opening lenscap.
- And finally, its just such a hassle to find the cord to load up pictures and have to adjust the white balance, and sort through all the images that I thought were properly focussed, but just missed it, and all that Jazz.
If I take the time to put it on a tripod, adjust everything, set it all up, and have a long shutter, narrow aperture, low ISO, etc, it makes fantastic pictures. But thats just not what I use it for.
So Im thinking of selling it and just joining either the Iphone or m4/3rds bandwagons. Apparently the Iphone 4s has a great backlit sensor that allows good low level performance, and I generally use the widest angle I have anyway, so that makes sense (plus photo sharing and organization would be alot easier!).
m4/3rds is cool, with bigger sensors (although not as big as I would like), versatility, and about the same size as my LX5, but then I would need to invest in fast glass and the viewfinders are still too crappy to keep me happy. Too expensive and still lackluster.
:-/
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