Canon PowerShot G7 X and Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX100 added to studio comparison

If "To the price I really consider the Sony A6000 with 16-50 lens instead.", I will pick NEX-6 @499 as NEX-6:

- Has better EVF than A6000
- Almost has the same IQ @higher ISO as A6000, and
- Almost has same AF performance as A6000

Sony A6000 with 16-50 kit lens is $748 on www.bandh.com
LX100 is $899 which makes Sony $150 cheaper.

That lens is garbage and F5.6 instead of F2.8.
The A6000 sensor is better but not 4 times better.
The F2.8 allows for 4 times lower ISO in low light.

The Sony will perform as good(and better in terms of resolution) with the 16-70mm F4 lens. However that lens makes the Sony 1599,-
wich is 700,- more.

From 2.8 to 5.6 is only 2 f-stops. The LX100 lens is also a compromise and I would judge when looking at real life examples if they are on par with each other. The 4:3 have the extra option to switch lenses; thus, not as portable then.

In my opinion the G7X is an absolute winner, for a compact. If the noise reduction at ISO 1600 can be reduced a bit - trade a bit more noise for a bit less detail smearing - then it's even better.

I see some lens issues with the g7x.
It seems to suffer from chromatic aberations and lack off corner sharpness at the wide-end.

But that said the Bokeh is nice and the ISO performance is as good as I expected.

Is it as good as the LX100? no it isn't but that sensor is twice the size. even if it doesn't use all of that space the difference is just too big.

@Rishi - Yes, I see what you mean. Looking again, the G7X seems to look particularly blurred in the area just left of center, where the black and white image of the gathering around the easel is, and the colour photo of the lady with dark hair. Strange. It actually looks OK in the top left corner! For whatever reason, the G7X has certain proved capable of making some rough images - have you seen the samples on Imaging Resource? At least part of the problem seems to be strong chromatic aberration, and no doubt the processing that tries to fix it.

It may be the G7X wasn't aligned parallel to the test scene. Look at the color wheel on the lower left vs. the upper right for the G7X. The upper right is much crisper, and actually a bit better than the RX100 in that part of the image. On the lower left, the two are reversed with the RX100 looking better. Both cameras ought to be re-shot with the lens wide open to check alignment before doing the final test image.

Photo Ninja

No peevee,
I agree with you a lot but not this time.
The 16-50mm would make the A look like junk.
People will stay away becouse the test results of the camera were bad.

And th-e Sony camera's are great bodies. They just need decent lenses. And there are plenty sharp primes available for not a lot of money.

Sigma's 3 primes and the Sony 35 and 50mm OSS.

"Sigma's 3 primes and the Sony 35 and 50mm OSS."

Yeah, the Art lenses are great (and still very cheap). I wish they'd also produce them for Fuji X.

Considering Fujifilm only makes faster higher-end lenses. They would probably sell truckloads of those.

"24 megapixels just makes a camera bad in low light. It doesn’t really help you with final resolvable detail."

I think you're only partly right.

1, assuming you use good-quality lenses with good-to-excellent resolution, there IS some major detail increase if you use a much higher-Mpixel sensor.

2, of course, as I've pointed out above, current tech still doesn't make it possible to produce 24 Mpixel m43 sensors without major tradeoffs in noise (and, most probably, DR). This is why Pana / Oly are still sticking with 16 Mpixel sensors.

"Right the ability to crop (a version of digital zooming) can be helpful."

So it does need it. And yes, with blight lenses like LX100 has, current pixel size on the 12mpix crop in LX100 is much bigger than Aire disk, there is plenty there to increase resolution, especially for digital zoom. It's not like you can change lens on LX100 for tele reach. And add even moderate 2x digital zoom (crop), and we are seeing 3mpix which is not nearly enough - at very very moderate 150mm reach.

"Not that many people actually print large format pictures anymore. The highest resolution commercial display is only 4K(8 megapixels)."

In 16:9 crop.
And moderate 2x digital zoom in 16:9 ratio on LX100 is below 3 mpix. If it would be 8, it would be just fantastic. But they need to start with 32mpix+ for that.
Again, on m43 it is not such a problem, lenses like Oly 40-150 can be had for $99, Pana 45-200 is not much more especially used. But for LX100, where not even all 16mpix of the sensor are used to begin with, higher res is very much necessary to compete.

"Not that many people actually print large format pictures anymore. The highest resolution commercial display is only 4K(8 megapixels)."

Noise is not ALWAYS a limiting factor. Plenty of shots are done in good light. And yes, current tech EASILY allows to produce not only 24mpix 4/3 sensor but even gigapixel ones. Just scale all those smartphone 1/3.2" 13-mpix sensor and you are in gigapixel territory. Upscale Sony's excellent BSI-CMOS 1" to 4/3" size, and you got 40 mpix - as you should today. Sensor like this in LX100 body would be a game-changer, easily compensating for lack of reach of the lens (even 2x crop still gives you quality of Fuji X30 for example). Of course they would need to update their processors too from the ancient 65nm tech they use, Qualcomm Krait manufactured on 20nm, like in almost all smartphones today, would be what doctor ordered.

Let us know if you ever plunk down the $900 for it.

kolyy:

So by that logic a normal high def display is 1080x1900x3. I've never seen that asserted, except perhaps for something like an HP DreamColor monitor.

HowabourRAW:

Then have a look at some camera specification page, e.g. LX100: LCD 921000, viewfinder: 2,764,000. What do you think is the resolution? Right, LCD 640x480=0.3Mpx, viewfinder 1280x720=0.9Mpx. Go figure.

Anyway, the point is that you should count pixel as pixel in the same way both for the sensor and the screen. A 24Mpx camera does not have 24 megapixels for each color channel, this is the combined number. On the other hand, a 4K display has 8 megapixels for each color, usually called subpixels.

"The point is that you are not using that extra detail if you are using a 4K or less screen or printing at 8x10 or smaller."

Wrong, 3 mpix is not enough for 8x10. And on any screen, you or somebody with whom you shared the picture might want to zoom in into the picture to see more details, or crop just part of the picture.
Again, 75mm-equivalent is very often not enough, and then all you have is crop. If it had been 200mm, I would not complain, 12mpix would be OK.

"Actually, the "low" resolution of the LX100 is one of the things I am attracted to."

Suntan, YOU is not the only person in the market. To compete in the market, a manufacturer have to generate volume sales, and A LOT of people will chose 20mpix RX100 over 12mpix LX100.
At least they could have provided the option of uncropped sensor readout, I am sure the black-rounded-corner look would become a signature look for the camera.

Peevee, I must have missed the part where I claimed to be talking for the entire market...

-Suntan

Suntan, you missed the part "will not sell for many customers" in my post to which you answered.

"Colour noise does not show up until it hit ISO 800, thats pretty high for small sensor."

Depends on what you mean by "color noise". The blue channel, as was easy to predict, is noisy even at base ISO. (Show me a non-Fuji APS-C or, even worse, m43 / 1" camera that has noise-free blue skies at base ISO!)

I am getting the V-Lux (same as LX100), to go along with the dlsr system, which I can keep at a higher level (FF, for example), for more difficult or more requiring shooting situations. A compact this size is very handy, when you don't need all the capability of a dslr. Compare the LX100 size and bulk to even a small dslr or ml, when lenses are included (and kit zooms tend to be very slow, if you want a faster zoom, size, weight and price climb very fast).

@WACONimages
Ok, you dont forget compacts, and dont look at those high iso images of D750 :-)

Eric I agree the D750 has a better sensor and will do better at high iso. No doubt about that. I make a living with photography and often I just don't want to carry around certain 'big' gear. Even the D750 is quiet small in it's class, it isn't pocket small. The LX100 and Leica version have a 24mm/1,7 and that is a big + for me. Gear are just equipment for a certain propose/job and often overrated as well. In the recent past I'd shoot several frontpages with a Lumix LX3, while colleges stood behind me with a D3s for example.

As I said, it is ok for noise and corner performance comparisons. And you seem to agree. I further agree it is useful for comparing JPG engines. Although this again is much profile dependent, esp. when it comes to color rendition.

Problem is most people use your studio comparison tool for doing sharpness comparisons which you seem to agree, isn't its primary reason to exist.

Rishi, how did you convert LX100's files? Is ACR updated for it? I thought not.

LX100 looks like a winner. Some have complained about lens wide open, in the longer review, please check that, since one of its most interesting features is the fast zoom.