Panasonic Lumix LX100 – EVF

Yet another sign that the Panasonic Lumix LX100 is out to net enthusiasts is that it has an electronic eye viewfinder. It sits to the top-left of the back panel, and has a rubbery outer part that means you don’t have to get quite as close to it as you do with the Sony RX100 III’s EVF. This was one of our criticisms of the Sony model, and another case of Panasonic valuing substance over style.

However, the performance of the EVF is disappointing. We find its colour accuracy to be fairly poor, with over-saturated colours and over-egged contrast making it a pretty bad way to judge how the LX100’s images will actually look. It’s good for basic composing only.

It’s a 2.36M-dot EVF, significantly greater than the resolution of the 1.44M-dot Sony RX100 III model, so it’s disappointing to see Panasonic drop the ball quite this badly with the basics of the display’s calibration. Our guess is that it wanted to hide/mitigate its use of an LCD EVF rather than than an OLED one, by misguidedly aping the screen characteristics of OLED: ultra-high contrast and vivid colours. It hasn’t worked too well.

Panasonic Lumix LX100 – Screen

The Panasonic Lumix LX100’s rear 3-inch display makes for a much better way to judge what your photos will actually end up looking like. Its colour reproduction is far more natural, with the more relaxed shades we expect of an LCD panel.

Resolution doesn’t impress too much, though. It’s a 921k-dot LCD, less than both the 1.44M-dot screen on the Sony RX100 III and the Canon G7 X’s 1040K-dot one. However, it’s still a good display that we were pretty happy with quality-wise, especially after the disappointments of the EVF.

It’s rather basic, though. There’s no touch operation and the display is fixed – it doesn’t rotate or tilt a single degree. 

Panasonic Lumix LX100 – Features

As you’d hope in a new compact camera that costs £700, the Panasonic Lumix LX100 has NFC and Wi-Fi, letting you transfer photos to a mobile device and control the shutter remotely.

However, it doesn’t have everything. There’s no built-in flash, for one, although you do get a unit that slots into the hot shoe. We’re content with that trade-off.

There’s no ND filter, either, but there are measures in place to make up for it. Shutter speed goes up to an incredibly fast 1/16,000, meaning you should be able to use the f/1.7 aperture setting even in daylight. The Sony RX100 III only goes up to 1/2000 of a second, although it does have an ND filter.

The Panasonic LX100 offers versatility at the other end of the shutter speed dial, too. We found that the excellent 5-axis stabilisation lets you shoot handheld with exposures up to half a second without resulting in a blurred mess.

Add to this the larger sensor and you have an everyday workhorse camera that’s supremely flexible. For those who also enjoy the lighter side of photography, there are plenty of the creative modes you normally get in a compact, including HDR, time-lapse video, stop motion and panorama.