New LX7 not sharp enough, what am I doing wrong??

I also noted that both photos were taken at 24mm (equivalent) focal length, so I'm not sure what you mean by "zoomed" in the second photo.

Also, I looked at the detailed EXIF data and the second photo shows custom rendered=1, while the first photo shows custom rendered=0. I believe that means the camera was set differently, though I see no difference in the saturation or contrast settings. The EXIF data say that both photos were processed through Adobe Photoshop Elements, but that could just refer to your cropping.

To be very honest, your third (ZS19) sample seems over-sharpened on my monitor. I see halos and other sharpening artifacts. In any case the difference is noticeable.

Perhaps you can post another sample or two from your LX7 for us to look further, because I think there may be a probem. In my opinion, the LX7 tends to produce somewhat soft photos in the default standard mode, but I have found they can be sharpened beautifully with a little post-processing.

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Darrell