Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3

Manual Focus (5.50)
Point-and-shoot cameras that have a manual focus option are few and far between, as auto focus is enough for most users, but the LX3 offers a well designed manual focus mode. . Manual focus is enabled via a switch on the barrel of the camera, and is controlled by pressing up and down on the joystick. The focal range is displayed as a vertical bar along the right side of the LCD. The bar initially stretches from infinity to 0.9 feet, but if you continue to scroll down, the bar changes to 1.5 to 0.04 feet for closer objects. There are two types of manual focus assist. The first enlarges a square in center of the screen to double its size, so you can see what's in the middle of the shot in more detail. The second manual assist mode takes that same square, but enlarges it to take up the full LCD, giving you even more detail.


ISO (9.25)
The ISO range on the LX3 is extensive, running from 80 to 3200. At ISO 3200, you should be able to capture pictures in even very dark settings, but be prepared for significant image noise. The automatic ISO performed at about the same level of competency as most of the cameras we compared it to, which is to say not very well. There are a couple of options for the auto ISO: you can set an upper limit on ISO if you're shooting in well-lit conditions. There's also a mode called Intelligent ISO, which adjusts both shutter speed and the ISO concurrently, but in our tests it didn't perform any better than standard automatic ISO

White Balance (8.00)
The white balance features of the Panasonic DMC-LX3 are a strange combination of the inadequate and the highly customizable. In our testing section, the automatic white balance mode performed relatively well, but we were unimpressed with the presets. The flash preset performed poorly, and there is no fluorescent preset at all. Many cameras go so far as to offer multiple fluorescent levels, as the Kelvin value for fluorescent lights vary widely, but the LX3 has nary a one. The other small problem that came to our attention was the use of the term Halogen on one of the presets where most cameras use Tungsten or Incandescent. While technically the values for Halogen are very close to the others, it's a term used less frequently, and may cause confusion.

On the other side of the balance, if you're comfortable fiddling with white balance yourself, you'll find a number of options available to you. Most cameras offer a custom white balance setting, where you can aim your camera at a white surface to set the white balance. The LX3 offers two, so you can come back to various lighting settings later without having to manually reset the white balance. There's also an option to enter the Kelvin value of a light source, which is great if you know your lighting setup in sufficient detail.

Exposure (7.50)
Exposure compensation is adjustable to ±2 in 1/3 stops. It can be accessed in two ways, either by using the joystick or the Up button on the four-way pad. This latter mode gives you a continuum of exposure rather than just displaying a value, as well as the ability to access other options by continuing to press Up. This will first take you to auto bracketing, which will take three photos at different exposure levels. With some cameras, you have to physically press the shutter button three times to auto bracket, but with the LX3 as soon as you press the shutter button, three images are taken in quick succession. There's also the option to auto bracket aspect ratios, so the photo is taken three times, at 3:2 ratio, 4:3 ratio and 16:9 ratio. Finally, pressing Up a third time gives you access to flash exposure controls where once again you can adjust exposure by ±2 levels.

Metering (6.00)
The LX3 has three options for metering, all of which are fairly standard. There's Spot Metering, which measures only from the center of the screen; Multi Metering, which analyses the entire image; and Center Weighted, which draws data from the entire frame but places more emphasis on the middle. Switching between metering modes is straightforward, using the Menu button or via the quick menu accessed by depressing the joystick.

Shutter Speed (8.00)
The shutter speed on the LX3 ranges from 1/2000 of a second to a maximum of 60 seconds. However, getting exposures longer than eight seconds is only an option in Manual mode and the scene preset for Starry Night. It's unusual to see an exposure length so limited in Shutter Priority mode, but with this camera you can't go beyond eight seconds when shooting in that mode.

Shutter speed is controlled during shooting by using the joystick. You navigate to shutter speed by pressing left or right, and then use up and down to adjust the speed.

There's an option to set a maximum shutter speed in Program Mode, which lets you limit exposure length at one of nine levels from 1/250 of a second to 1 second.

Aperture (7.50)
The aperture ranges from f/2.0 to f/8.0 wide in 13 steps, and f/2.8 to f/8 tele in 10 steps. Due to the fact that this is a wide-angle lens, it has minimal zooming abilities and doesn't lose many aperture stops even when fully zoomed in. The aperture is controlled identically to the shutter speed, via the joystick.