I check at Pixels Pavillion yesterday too, with the specky old guy. He quote me RM1699 with the same package. I asked him if he still got black unit besides the diplay set, he open the cabinet below, saw that still got a few more black units. There is one booth at Lowyat first floor, by the escalator, quoting me RM 1650 for black unit. Display unit though, but wrap nicely with plastic polystyrene (the plastic food wrap).

There is a new shop, Amara-something, on the first floor. Just open on 22 Dec 2008. Still got flowers outside the shop. They quote me RM1599, silver unit only. Package include pouch, Lumix pouch, 4GB SDHC. Went there next day and got my silver unit for RM1550 They have another shop at Damansara Cineleisure. Not sure if they have the black unit there or not, anyone interested might want to check it out.

Before I bought my LX3, I tested f100fd. My only disappointment is it lack of Aperture/Shuttle/Manual mode. F60fd has A/S priority mode, but 35mm.

When testing the LX3, it doesn't seem that impressive; except for the wider angle (24mm vs. 28mm), faster lens (f/2 vs. f/2.8), A/S/M mode, MF and macro (1cm vs. 5cm). Other features aren't that critical, i.e. LCD (460k vs. 230k, 3" vs. 2.7"), RAW, max shuttle speed (60s vs. 4s(?)), etc.

Compare to f100fd, less RM600, it is very much justifable. As for your gf case, for casual snapshot, she may rarely use these extra features.

But when I owned the LX3, I discover there are more usable features that f100fd don't have. One of those that I really like is the AF tracking, program shift, iso limit set, shuttle limit set, intelligent exposure, 2nd curtain flash sync, leveling, impressive HD recording (though lack of zoom during rec, poor sound rec).

Some of the features I like to use are baby scene mode, multi exposure, custom WB, 4 custom setting (all setting, WB, iso, image size, quality, flash, etc). The lack of florescent WB can be custom save in these mode.

Honestly, I never regret buying it. With every picture I take, it just reaffirm and reassure my decision that LX3 indeed worth every extra penny of the different.

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Added on December 28, 2008, 11:11 pmForget to mention, G10 is also a good buy, had many features and pretty neat button layout. But the size (and price) really put me off

This post has been edited by Aurora: Dec 28 2008, 11:11 PM

I used to owned one ultrazoom camera (Minolta) back in 2004. It is not full-feature SLR, just about he same size or smaller than the UZ camera, i.e. G1, TZ-series, Canon SX-series, Fuji f-x000 series.

Just to share, pocketability of camera is not really THE concern for ultrazoom camera. The problem of such size camera is when we go for social event, party, family and friends gathering, outing, window shopping, etc, the DSLR really seems out of place. It is not cool to bring UZ/SLR-type camera to such event.

Either too many enthusiasts want to touch and play with your camera (which makes you worry if you do, or stingy if you don't let them), or nobody dare to touch it (there goes a picture without you in it). Also you will be asked to become the cameraman. Lost opportunity for socializing. If crowded, then worried about stain/damage. If dining, too troublesome to put your gears, camera. Possibly have to dig under the table, chair for your big camera. Can't put the camera on the table, accessible for you and everyone for more candid/funny pictures. When dating, you gf will either feel she is getting too much attention from the crowd when you take her picture, or you are not paying enough attention if you are taking too much picture of scenery, picture. If you don't use it, then no point of bring it out at all.

One last thing, forget about taking self portrait with your gf/bf with UZ/SLR camera. :rolleye:

My definition of portable is that it enable me to bring to such event. Usually with a pouch, or hang it over my head and hidden under jacket. Always ready, anytime Can G1 or other UZ camera do that? LX-3, and Lumix LZ-series is just about the limit. Canon G10 is probably the border.

This post has been edited by Aurora: Jan 3 2009, 04:16 PM

Ouch. That really look bad. Cannot imagine how much it will cost if to change the whole lens (Leica somemore).

Hi guys. Anyone here try shooting fire? I can't seem to get any good picture of fire. Always overexpose. If I use a faster shuttle speed, there won't be enough light coming in. Any idea?

I have tried manual. I notice there is some kind of glowing effect by the edge of flare, like the line between flare and background is not clear and diffuse together. Will try post some photos later.

After some trial and error, finally I got it right. Here is the pic. CC welcome




Figurine of a Man
f5.6
1/1600s
ISO-100
86mm





Face of Terror
f3.5
1/1600s
ISO-100
86mm

All take at 60mm, 4.5EZ (which explain the 86mm). Crop from almost 100%, then resize.

It has the shape of a face, looking left, with a huge forehead and some beard. Actually it was just fire in the dark, just giving it a title to make it more interesting

EZ = Extra Optical Zoom. It is the same as taking full res picture and then crop it. 4.5 stands for crop size of 4.5MP. Marketing gimick, only advantage is it reduce the hassle of cropping image in PC and smaller file size, works fine though if we rarely take full res. photo. For 4.5EZ (or 4.5MP setting), the effective zoom is about 3.6x

At 4:3 Aspect
10 MP
7 MP
5 MP
3 MP
2 MP
0.3 MP

At 3:2 Aspect
9.5 MP
6.5 MP
4.5 MP
3 MP
2.5 MP

At 16:9 Aspect
9 MP
6 MP
4.5 MP
2.5 MP
2 MP

Yeah, handy when you really need it. Anyway, it should not be part of of consideration factor when purchasing the camera Most camera has the crop function (including LX-3)

Depends on scenario, I normally use between 4.5 MP to full MP. Full MP when there are a lot of details, nice scenery, group photos, mostly wide angle. 6.5MP at casual hangout, friends and family, discrete macro, clean and simple composition, random shot. 4.5MP (sometimes 3MP) is usually use during work, i.e. site visit, inspection etc.

As MP count goes higher, the details between MP less significant. For e.g.,

From 3MP to 6MP, 41.4% more pixel count per horizontal/vertical line
From 6MP to 9MP, 22.5%
From 9MP to 12MP, 15.5%
From 12MP to 15MP, 11.8%
From 15MP to 18MP, 9.54%

To get double quality (or twice magnification) of a 6MP, we need 36MP camera.

Welcome to the club

Test shot, shuttle press no.34 after purchase


f2.8
1/50s
ISO-200
60mm

Shot during christmas at midvalley

24mm at widest
I can always crop it if I want a close-up picture. In fact the previous picture was cropped too.

Try play with P mode. Program shift function, but need to turn off the auto-iso.

It's normal. Just don't point it at extreme light source for a long time, like 30 sec. You will burn your sensor.

Usually I shot in jpeg. No time to explore RAW yet. For simple P&S, I use AWB, but for indoor picture, special lighting effect, I use pre-fix WB setting. I have bad colour judgement, later when view the picture in PC just realize it's all wrong I use Standard film mode. You may want to try Nature film mode for nature. Dynamic and vivid is more suitable for shallow/matte colour (i.e. spectrum that near the grey scale), when you want the picture to be more dramatic and lively.

So when you use dynamic and vivid mode on primary colour, (red, green, blue), your photo will be over saturated, and cause your pictures of flowers and trees look fake.

For better result, you can adjust the brightness, contrast, sharpness and noise reduction of individual film mode, and save it as custom mode.

Please remember that LX-3 is a copy of Leica D-Lux-4. It's not like Panasonic doesn't want to release a successor. Unless Leica announce D-Lux-5, don't put your expectation on LX-4. We still don't know what package mFT (G1, anyone?) and Fuji EXR comes with. I doubt there would be any F2.0, 24mm anytime soon.


For quality, 1000d is much superior than LX3. If you are looking for all-occasion camera, especially for people and action, better take LX3. You definitely won't want to miss those candid moment. It's not that dslr can't achieve that, just that compact is easier to manuever, less attention and hence more natural shoot. Just my 2 cents.

This post has been edited by Aurora: Jan 19 2009, 02:16 PM

Really? Anyway, it doesn't really matter, does it? The blueprint still come from the master.

I saw that you already have a set of astronomy camera? Try getting a smaller lense camera if you want to attached to your telescope. Or you may need to do some hard modding and machining your owned adaptor.

Yup, you can.

For the rest of new owners and owners to be, welcome to the club

I don't use screen protector. It's not that easily scratch anyway. Similar material to handphone screeny. Normally it gets dirty because of hand print, tissue will do the trick. Just be careful when handling, you won't need to clean it often. Somemore I don't like screen protector because it's reflective. To me, Lumix pouch is perfect, I don't find it lacking though.