LCD, Viewfinder, Live view and Video
As previously mentioned, one of the major new features of the DMC-LX5 is the addition of a port below the camera’s hotshoe that allows the use of the Panasonic DMW-LVF1 electronic viewfinder. Although we weren’t able to test the LX5 with one of these viewfinders, we have previously used the same 202,000-dot viewfinder with the Lumix DMC-GF1 and found it very clear, bright and easy to use. However, at around £150 the EVF is an expensive accessory for a compact camera, especially given that the 3in, 460,000-dot LCD screen is of a high quality.
An optical viewfinder is also available in the form of the DMW-VF1. This offers a 24mm angle of view but costs around the same price as the electronic viewfinder, so I cannot see it being a particularly popular accessory for the LX5.
In bright conditions an electronic viewfinder may be slightly easier to view than the rear LCD screen, but I didn’t find the screen difficult to use in bright light. It is also has an extremely high angle of view, making it useful for low and high-angle photographs.
One slight bugbear I have is that when captured images are shown on the rear screen, a fairly medium-quality preview file is shown. This means details don’t look as good on the rear of the screen as they do when displayed full size on a computer. This is something to consider when using the camera to assess images.
Like nearly every other compact camera being released at the moment, the LX5 is capable of HD video capture at 1280×720-pixel resolution. The way video is saved is improved from the LX3, with the AVCHD Lite codec now available as well as the motion JPEG format. The former option offers higher quality video, while reducing file sizes.
