Gary Wilde
Member
Just bought this camera from digital-rev for £330, and used extensively on a cruise holiday last week.
I really like this camera. It is much lighter and smaller than my SLR, which makes it ideal for travel photography. Because of all the clever electronics it is easy to get decent quality snaps, where my lesser Canon ixus would have failed in some way. The ixus was useless with fill-in flash, leaving the subject dark. The DMC-LX7 copes with fill-in flash really well. I took several back-lit shots which all came out well balanced.
The fast lens is a real bonus, enabling a fast shutter and no flash in low light situations such as inside cathedrals.
It is good for portrates in bright light, as the built-in 3 stop ND filter lets you utilize the f/1.4 aperture to blur the background.
One feature I used a lot was the HDR function. If you have a scene with a mixture of shade and light, it takes several photos and combines them to give the best exposure for the whole scene.
I like the fact that there are proper switches and dials. which are much more intuitive than searching through dozens of menus.
Even in full auto, you can quickly adjust the exposure, depth of field. I would have liked an option in auto to adjust the flash balance as well.
The results from our trip are really good. Well exposed, nicely saturated detailed photos.
I would recommend this camera a lot. I was going to get a hybrid, but could not find one compact enough, and one which had a 24mm equiv lens. This camera fits the bill.
Problems:
The panorama function is very hit and miss. I found that it worked for about 50% of scenes. Anything with good light and varying subject, it worked well. Try to take a sea-scape, with some land and islands and it failed every time.
In full auto mode, the flash is a bit aggressive when taking pictures of people. Not quite washed out, but could do with a stop less flash.
Could have done with an automatic lens cap. Its a bit of a fiddle taking it on and off.
I really like this camera. It is much lighter and smaller than my SLR, which makes it ideal for travel photography. Because of all the clever electronics it is easy to get decent quality snaps, where my lesser Canon ixus would have failed in some way. The ixus was useless with fill-in flash, leaving the subject dark. The DMC-LX7 copes with fill-in flash really well. I took several back-lit shots which all came out well balanced.
The fast lens is a real bonus, enabling a fast shutter and no flash in low light situations such as inside cathedrals.
It is good for portrates in bright light, as the built-in 3 stop ND filter lets you utilize the f/1.4 aperture to blur the background.
One feature I used a lot was the HDR function. If you have a scene with a mixture of shade and light, it takes several photos and combines them to give the best exposure for the whole scene.
I like the fact that there are proper switches and dials. which are much more intuitive than searching through dozens of menus.
Even in full auto, you can quickly adjust the exposure, depth of field. I would have liked an option in auto to adjust the flash balance as well.
The results from our trip are really good. Well exposed, nicely saturated detailed photos.
I would recommend this camera a lot. I was going to get a hybrid, but could not find one compact enough, and one which had a 24mm equiv lens. This camera fits the bill.
Problems:
The panorama function is very hit and miss. I found that it worked for about 50% of scenes. Anything with good light and varying subject, it worked well. Try to take a sea-scape, with some land and islands and it failed every time.
In full auto mode, the flash is a bit aggressive when taking pictures of people. Not quite washed out, but could do with a stop less flash.
Could have done with an automatic lens cap. Its a bit of a fiddle taking it on and off.