LF1 - Experience Report

This is an ongoing experience report of the Panasonic LF1, which I bought just last month. It's not so much an article, but more a list of observations I made during everyday use of the LF1 as mostly a snapshot camera.

My main motivation to buy the LF1 was to complement my always around fixed lens iPhone with something that offered a zoom lens while still fitting into trouser pockets. Everything else I consider bonus, but of course welcome bonus. I do own an Olympus E-M5, which is not a camera I carry with me all the time, even not a camera I carry with me often.

Alternative contenders of the LF1 were the Canon S100/S110, Sony RX100 and any camera smaller than the LF1. The Canons are more than 100 EUR cheaper, the Sony is more than 100 EUR more expensive. The Canons come at practically the same size, but without electronic viewfinder (EVF). The Sony is heavier and bigger, especially in depth, and thus not truly fitting trouser pockets comfortably. Even the LF1 just fits into the front pockets of normal jeans, so it's really the maximum size allowed for that matter. Some but not all smaller sensor cameras can be even smaller, but not so much smaller that I would forfeit the larger sensor, EVF and RAW capabilities of the LF1. So the LF1 it is.

Pros:

- Small and light enough size to truly fit into trouser pockets.

- Lens reach up to 200 mm equivalent.

- Relatively large sensor for its size, especially in combination with its long lens reach.

- RAW shooting.

- Lots of manual controls, albeit mostly via menus. This includes control over minimum shutter time!

- Fast lens at the wide end.

- Electronic viewfinder with 100% coverage, several useful overlays, including horizontal + vertical levels!

- Good (enough) sensor performance for a true pocket camera, even in comparison with the not so pocketable Fujifilm X10's 2/3" sensor.

- Lens seems to be sharp (enough) in the center.

- Face Detection works quite well (DOF of smaller sensors helps a lot with that).

- Spot exposure metering meters on the spot of the AF frame, not on the center of the image!

- Pleasing (enough) skin tones with built in flash as far as not being too "flash" like is concerned. Auto white-balance is problematic, though.

Cons:

- Lens very soft at the borders and corners with very visible aberrations. These are not easy to remove in Lightroom other than using strong defringing settings that affect other parts of the image.

- Lens slow between normal and long end.

- No JPG controls beside white balance and vivid colors. Sharpness, noise reduction, contrast and all are automatically set by the camera.

- Kind of funky auto white-balance. Overall tendency towards blue/magenta to my eyes and compared to Lightroom's AWB.

- Somewhat slow menu operations (lagging) and too much menu scrolling necessary to reach certain parameters.

- Could be faster to shoot after turning on. Standby is practically not possible while carrying it in pockets as the buttons to easily pressed.

- Very low EVF/screen refresh rate in shadows and darkness.

- The power button is extremely inconveniently placed, leading to many accidental button presses. Happened to me several times that I turned the camera OFF instead of taking a photo! And even happened that I turned the camera ON and thus made the lens extend while I tried to pull the camera out of a trouser pocket.

- It's a dust magnet. Too much plastic I guess. When I pull it out of my trouser pocket I find fluff all over it. It's not a real problem, though.

- Lens protection is made of light plastic that is a bit too easy to push open (and likely bend) by outside force.

- EVF shows funky colors and should preferably be looked at straight on to prevent even stranger colors. It's quite a tunnel and not very large. But the eye-piece is rectangular and the tunnel adds to the benefit of not having to push your eye all the way on to the small eye-piece to see the whole image.

- Flash placed very low and close to the lens, which theoretically increases red eye effects, but practically seems to work reasonable well.

- Tripod mount not centered to the lens.

- Not much to hold on to. Could use a bit more grip area, especially because its surface is quite smooth (Canon S100/110 feels better, because it has a more abrasive surface).

- Only 25/50 fps video in Europe, even though many displays run at 60 Hz here, too (computer, smartphone, tablet, projector).

- Zoom motor audible in videos.

Practice:

Keep in mind that I am using the LF1 as a snapshot camera to take family pictures where an iPhone would offer less quality and reach and my E-M5 isn't present. As such the LF1 delivers exactly what I hoped for, I can carry it in any of my pockets for several days in a row without feeling too constrained by its presence. You cannot have it all in one small package, though, and even when my list of cons seems longer than the pros, the pros weight more.

Having a fast lens available at the wide end helps for occasional indoor shots, especially when you cannot use flash. The lens being slow between normal and long end is not so much of a problem for me, because outside I usually use it in daylight on family trips. This is where the EVF can come in handy in very broad light, albeit I likely will make less use of it than I would make use of a tilt screen (I am large, my kids are small). Small depth and the presence of a VF when needed are more important, though.

The high level of lens aberrations at the borders likely disqualify the LF1 for too serious landscape and large groups shooting. But putting single people and small groups close to the center - as done with most snapshots - is not a problem. With the latter the lens smoothing around the borders may even help isolate the subject a bit more than what the small lens/sensor combination are normally capable of. And upon pixel-peeping inspection and some manual work in a RAW converter you can get pretty usable results from the borders. My lens seems to be centered well enough, so that's a plus that helps, too.

In lens stabilization seems to work really well! Coming from a 5-axis IBIS E-M5 I expected to find it more troublesome, but it does a good job. Once I find time I will try to get a better picture of how well I can shoot longer exposures with Panasonic's OIS.

According to German "Stiftung Warentest" the true equivalent length of the lens of more around 31-220 mm, which may pose a problem at the then not so wide end. I still have to check this in practice and comparison with other cameras I have access to.

During my still limited time with the LF1 it seems not to be the quickest, especially when it comes to being ready and to focus. More time and opportunities will tell how this works out in practice. Due to the small size there only is a very limited number of direct controls. And with the lack of a touchscreen and accompanying quick menu there is too much clicking and scrolling around menu for some settings. Nevertheless one has to keep in mind that this is a compromise in for getting some bang in a small package.

Getting the LF1 out of a pocket quickly can be problematic, because when I place the very small backside grip part towards the pocket opening it can happen too easily that I hit the really badly placed power button. When I turn the camera around there is little grip to hold on to when pulling it out of a tight trouser front pocket. I keep the backside screen and EVF placed towards my leg where it cannot get hit accidentally, but I don't feel very confident about the thin plastic protection of the lens. Still, it's an additional protection that the screen does not have and generally fits better into pockets with the smaller lens part turned outside.

I feel like the price could have been a bit lower, having paid 360 EUR for mine. At the same time the Canon S110 cost aroud 230 EUR and the RX100 MK1 around 500 EUR. On the other hand the announced S120 is already listed for around the same 500 EUR as the RX100 MK1, so in relation to that it's still an OK price. And given the fact that there simply isn't any other camera with this combination of overall size, sensor size, lens reach and viewfinder it's a pretty nifty package.