Panasonic ‘Leaks’ New LX5 Digicam
Posted in: lumix, Today's Chili
It’s tempting to call this information a leak, but when Panasonic posts a new camera in full on its store, and then leaves it there, its more of a “stealth launch” than a leak. The camera in question is the LX5, the successor to the well-regarded LX3.
The LX3 is Panasonic’s high-end point and shoot, characterized by a high-ISO, low-noise sensor and a fast, wide Leica lens, opening to ƒ2.0 and 24mm. The new LX5 keeps the same 10.1 MP sensor (although adds a wishful ISO 12,800 to the top end of sensitivity) and the same fast and wide maximum lens settings, but makes a lot of tweaks to an already very good camera.
First, the lens can now zoom out to 90 mm (against 60 mm) but the maximum aperture drops from ƒ2.8 to ƒ3.3 at the long end (still better than the widest aperture on most point-n-shoot cameras). The shutter speed now tops out at 1/4000th sec (previously 1/2000th sec), there is an option to use an electronic viewfinder (the LX3 only had an add-on optical finder), a jog dial instead of a nubbin for manual-focus, and the LX5 gets HDMI-out and VieraLink outputs.
There are other small changes, but they are incremental and incidental. What about price? As the LX5 has yet to appear in the Panasonic store, we can only guess. And my guess is that it will replace the LX3 and cost the same $500 RRP.
LX5 product page [Panasonic]
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