The Travel Trail - Part Three - You're Going To Like A Panasonic Camera...

This is the camera that I would travel with...if I were travelling with a Panasonic camera. That's a personal value judgement and you're entitled to ask why - and then to make up your own mind. But here is my rationale for the Panasonic Lumix DMC- LX100:

1. The camera is all in one. No interchangeable lens to lose, no entry of dust or contaminants to the sensor. No cleaning. It is small and neat. It attracts little attention*

2. The lens is a Leica lens. Superb resolution and contrast. Aspherical elements so there is very little chromatic aberration - that is the killer defect of some other lenses for me and puts me off them. This one has no CA that I can see.

3. The lens has a true focal length range of 10.9 to 34 mm. This means that it has a chance of a very wide depth of field for landscape shots...and also for macro shots. The 35mm camera equivalent in the lens is 24mm to 75mm. That is classic landscape without distortion to classic portrait.

4. The lens will open up to to f:1.7 or f:2.8. That's low-light enough for most tourist shots w/out flash. It will stop down to f:16 and there's where the DOF becomes wonderful!

5. The sensor is 4/3" MOS - that's the same a Micro 4/3 size without the interchangeable lens to worry about. It cuts the world into 16.84 megapixels so there is plenty of resolution for A3+ prints....and I'd even test it out to A2...

6. It has an image stabiliser system - as it is small and light it needs something to keep it on track besides my shakey ol' hands.

7. Did I mention the close-up - goes down to 30cm at the tele end and 3cm at the wide end. I can take any details of cars or cannons that I want.

8. In case I want a flash there's a standard hot shoe and I can put a TTL flash on there.

9. 4K video recording for moving pictures. I have no idea what this is. I don't watch TV. I look at still pictures.

10. 4K video recording from which you can extract still pictures. Aha! Now I see where I could use this. I shoot a burst of frames of a Galapagos turtle streaking by and select the best one that is in focus. Interesting.

11. RAW/ JPEG and it's covered by my Adobe editing programs right now.

12. Eye-level viewfinder for the sunny days.

13. Direct control of aperture and shutter speed on traditional dials, with the option of a fast click off into aperture priority or shutter priority. This, camera makers, is the way it should be...always...

14. Quick external option for format change. This is a dangerous switch for the uninitiated as they may move it to a position that limits their results later on...and not realise they have done it. I shoot 3:2 mostly, but shift to 9:16 for big groups and 1:1 for some events where I don't want to be rotating the camera all night.

15. WiFi. I don't use it often, but when I am travelling I do like to fire some images back into the tablet for blogging. If I can do it without card shuffling and extra adapters, all the better.

So there. That's why I would travel with this Panasonic LX 100. As you see I travelled out to Jandakot to see what it did on the runway.

* I attract enough attention in other ways. That steam-powered destroyer siren was a darned good idea.

See the Panasonic LX 100 on the Camera Electronic website