Customer Reviews

Panasonic Lumix LX7 Camera with LEICA F1.4 Summilux Lens - Black (10.1 MP, 3.8x Optical Zoom) 3 inch LCD

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have used this camera for five weeks in a variety of situations for both mono and stereo photography. It is solid and well-made and the sensor gives excellent results, much better than many others with a higher pixel count.
It's many features give a great deal of flexibility; the five frames per second burst and the built-in HDR are two of my personal favourites.
However it is the 1.4 lens that really sets the LX7 apart from the competition.Imagine a church interior with little light, no tripod and nowhere to rest the camera. Setting the LX7 to aperture priority and manually rotating the ring to f1.4 you can happily shoot hand-held. Because the light coming in is 8 times the brightness of the average compact, you don't need to worry about degradation through slow shutter speeds and high ISO settings.
The big Leica hole also allows satisfactory selective focus inspite of the small chip size.
Nowadays, if I am taking a tripod I pack my Canon 60D. If not it has to be the LX7. It's hard to tell the difference on video and on prints upto A4.
Because of the small chip and tiny files, fellow photographers don't believe this.
Until I show them the results, that is.

Originally owned the LX3 and LX5,the 3 always had the sharper lens over the 5,in both cases jpegs were pretty rough,i purchased the LX7 knowing RAW would have to be used and put into lightroom 4.2,BUT the Panasonic jpegs are now superb ! really really surprised and very happy, the lens is very very sharp,colours are excellent,even skin tones are now very nice on a Panasonic camera,WB is pretty spot on and exposure is almost fool proof,even pixel peeping the lens and jpegs match my Sony A37 + 35mm f1.8 lens in good light,pretty amazing considering the sony 16meg sensor is one of the best.
I'm happy to shoot up to 400 iso on the LX7,with the fast lens you can keep under this most of the time,800 iso at a push for smaller prints or web pics.
As usual the LX camera have excellent handling and controls with the very usefull slider for aspect ratio settings and macro,the aperture ring is a very good addition as well.
Auto focus is almost instant,very impressive.
I tried out the Sony RX100,but found the control and size a bit fiddley,this is a personal opinion,the sony with it's larger sensor will be better at 28mm f1.8 for dof, and superior sensor should give better results,but the lens soon becomes darker when you zoom,not sure i needed 20 meg as well,also enjoy using the 24mm wide on the LX7 as well.
All in all the LX7 has exceeded my expectations,the lens is sharper then expected and the jpegs are great.

Excellent product, really great quality photos and superb battery life! Would recommend for beginners as well as experienced photographers. 10/10

I love this camera. Four years with the lovely LX3, I decided to replace it with this LX7. I did quite some time of research, including several visits to different camera stores, getting comments like "well, the LX7 performs a little better compared to the LX3, a notch or two..." I still missed the comments like "Wow, miles of difference!!". I was after a camera with better performance than the LX3 in low light situations. With the LX7 I did get just that! The lens is quicker, the sensor performs better with less noise, the buttons are more logical in manual mode, the aperture ring on the lens together with the selector wheel (people complain about the feeling of this wheel, I don't) means less fiddling around when in manual mode, a separate focus lever (or whatever the little thing is called) is just great, a 3 stop ND filter, quicker shutter speed, better filming performance even though I'm not the filming guy, the extra 40-something millimeters zoom on the lens (translated into 35-mm film)...
If you love the LX3, the LX7 is a big improvement imho.
Good to know is that the diameter of the lens is wider, making the camera feeling just a little bulkier than the LX3. This is not an issue for me but it is worth mentioning.

I was thinking of upgrading my older DSLR, which I only used with the kit lens, when I discovered that this group of premium compacts (which also includes the like of the Olympus XZ-2, Pentax MX-1, Fuji X-10/X-20 etc) can provide a similar level of control over depth of field (blurred backgrounds) as most DSLRs with the standard kits lens on. It does have a smaller sensor, but unless you are planning to make huge prints I have found the image quality to be better than my few year old DSLR. And the bonus of course is that this camera is very small and light, so it is always with me. There were many times when I wanted to take pictures, but having a big bulky DSLR with me was not really viable. The LX7, being the smallest and lightest (and currently cheapest) of the premium compact group, fits easily into my jacket pocket, takes wonderful images in both good and low light, and does everything my old DSLR used to do. I would highly advise anyone thinking of getting a budget DSLR and sticking with the kit lens to consider a camera such as this instead. The only real deal-breaker would be if you need/want a good optical viewfinder. It's probably the one thing I miss from the DSLR, but I don't really think my photographs have suffered, I'm just getting used to shooting with my arms out in front of me!

There are a few things I'd like to see Panasonic improve for the next generation LX, but none of them are hugely problematic:

- the zoom speed of the lens is pretty slow - I miss being able to instantly zoom in an out using the manual zoom ring on a DSLR lens, I'd love to see the LX camera have a zoom ring around the lens (I'd even prefer to swap this for the current aperture control).

- articulating screen - it would be nice to have a screen that would flip down to allow shooting from the hip whilst still framing the shot, some of the LX-7 competitors have this, however they currently mean those cameras are bigger and heavier. If an articulating screen could be added with minimum increase in weight/bulk that would be great.

I think in all honesty that is it. It's a camera that is nigh on perfect for my needs - small, light, and decent manual controls, including good depth of field control (compared to a basic DSLR). I picked this over the competition due to it being the smallest and lightest* and the fact that it is the lowest priced is a bonus.

*A quick word about the Sony RX100 which a lot of people currently see as the 'best in class' of this category of camera. I have briefly handled one, and it's true that it is both smaller and lighter than the LX7 (possibly harder to handle comfortably as a result), and has a much bigger sensor. The bigger sensor will likely allow much bigger prints without loss of detail/quality. However I don't really consider it to be an LX7 competitor because the larger sensor means a much slower lens (at the zoom end), such that it does not allow the depth of field control that the other cameras in this class give. Given that I produce images to share online and make photobooks with at print sizes not going beyond A4, I'd rather have the creative control of the faster lens than the benefits of a bigger sensor.

Features... Features... AND Features.

This camera has them all.

This panasonics model is basicly same camera as Leica D-Lux 6, all the internal and shell parts and the lens are the same, this is only panasonic branded model from panasonic (cameras are made in the same factory from what i know).

This camera has so many features that im no listing them all here but heres FEW major:

- Possibly best lens available in pocket cameras F1.4-2.3 (Leica summilux).
- Manual aperture ring on the lens.
- Build-in ND Filter.
- Full manual controls.
- Stereo recording.
- 100 FPS cabable video.
- Manual aspect ratio control switch.
- 11fps burst mode.
- Accessory port for optional EVF.
- Shoots in Raw.
- Short shutter lag.
- 1080p60 video.
- Bracketing

Thers not much bad things to say about this camera but it has some minor:

- Slow zooming
- manual lens cap
- no viewfinder (can buy electronic viewfinder that is attached to hot-shoe).

Bottom line:

If you are looking for digital camera at this price range (or possible even higher),
You just cant find better at this price range.

i needed a smaller compact camera to use when i didnt want to lug around my DSLR and this fits the bill perfectly. i was surprised at the quality of the images both video and photo and how well it performs in low light. it gives me full manuel control but i can still lend it to my girlfriend, who is not interested in photography to use and she can still have fun with it - really good camera

neat, light but most of all this camera has an excellent lens and is a really practicable solution for us

I had been using a Leica D-Lux 4 [badge-engineered Lumix LX-5] for several years and loved it. When the LX-7 came up I bought it immediately for its 1.4 aperture which enables natural-light shots in very dark conditions. This is a beautiful, solid, well-engineered piece of hardware with enough smarts in iA mode to make sure you never take a bad shot. Make sure you get the JJC ALC-LX7B lens cap.

looks and takes very good photos if you can get the target subject in shot, the glare from the lcd is terrible, and I have to point and prey that I get the shot, most of the time I don't. the camera looks good (retro) when off, but presents itself as a point and squirt camera when switched on, although a Leica lens it has a plastic barrel which protrudes itself about 2" from the camera body when the camera is switched on(Panasonic do not show this in their sales photos because the camera's aesthetic look's disappear when the camera is switched on). I also found the F stop selector ring to be a pain when I inadvertently increased the F stop (from a very fast 1.4)to something slower without realizing I had done so,(pilot error,yes,but,so easy to do).Good camera let down by no view finder, and some silly priority's as to what you want(don't want) to hand on the lens barrel.