{"id":75,"date":"2012-08-05T22:14:23","date_gmt":"2012-08-05T22:14:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=75"},"modified":"2012-09-14T11:18:38","modified_gmt":"2012-09-14T11:18:38","slug":"installment-3-lumix-lx-3-part-1-an-everywhere-camera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/installment-3-lumix-lx-3-part-1-an-everywhere-camera\/","title":{"rendered":"Installment 3: Lumix LX-3\u2014part 1 An Everywhere Camera"},"content":{"rendered":"

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On March 30, 2012, a northward CSX auto rack train passes beneath the Bear Mountain Bridge near Fort Montgomery, New York, on its way up the Hudson River. This afternoon image was exposed with my electronic Lumix LX-3. This is the in-camera jpeg, made with the \u2018vivid\u2019 color profile with the camera set in the \u2018S\u2019 (shutter priority) mode using pattern metering. It was exposed at 1\/640 of a second at f 5.0.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

\u00a0Technique: Bring This Camera Everywhere!<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m a big proponent of always carrying a camera. And as I\u2019ve written elsewhere, \u2018If you don\u2019t have a camera, you can\u2019t make a photo.\u2019 As soon as you let this guideline slip, a unique visual opportunity will occur and you<\/em> won\u2019t be able to capture it. A caveat is: always carry a good<\/em> camera (why lessen the magic of a unique event with a poor quality photo?). My father had given me an antique Leica IIIa for my tenth birthday and I carried it everywhere and made photos of everything. When I was in school I was \u2018the kid with the camera.\u2019 While many of those photos aren\u2019t very good, the point is that I was always<\/em> ready \u2014constantly going through the motions of making photos taught me how to work under numerous lighting situations. I never relegated my photography to \u2018perfect sunny days.\u2019<\/p>\n

Over the years my philosophy has resulted in towing around various and different amounts of equipment. Constantly carrying a film-based SLR with a full set of lenses really was\u00a0pretty awkward, not to mention the big bag of film! It\u2019s one thing to have a<\/em> camera, it\u2019s another to try to anticipate every possible situation all the time. Beginning in 2001, my \u2018everywhere camera\u2019 was a Contax G2 range finder, which had its benefits, but was comparatively heavy, and while it came with interchangeable lenses, these tended to fill my pockets.<\/p>\n

In summer of 2009, my digital guru Eric Rosenthal lent me a Panasonic DMC LX-3; I was immediately convinced of its merits and bought one. Since then I\u2019ve made great use of it, and I feel it is as near as perfect an \u2018everywhere camera\u2019 as I\u2019ve ever owned. The LX-3 has a variety of kin, including the newer LX-5, as well as the almost identical Leica D-Lux3\/4\/5 models, with newer models recently introduced. I\u2019ve only used the LX-3, and I\u2019m not intending to compare my camera with the gamut of similar models or its competitors available to photographers today. Rather, I describe its pros and cons, and how this tool has benefited my photography.<\/p>\n

The LX-3 offers several key qualities that have allowed me to make numerous excellent photographs: it\u2019s compact, versatile, flexible, fast, durable, and offers exceptionally high quality images for its relatively small size. I can bring it just about everywhere (within reason), and with it I have a dependable tool to make photos. Three of my principle objections to many small. \u2018snapshot-style\u2019 cameras are their low-quality optics, an inability to operate the camera manually, and an unavoidable delay from the time the shutter-button is pressed to the time the shutter opens. With the LX-3, not only I can get around all of these problems, but I get performance that rivals that of much larger camera systems.<\/p>\n

The LX-3 is equipped with a great lens \u2014 a Leica Vario-Summicron f2.0-2.8\/5.1-12.8 [mm] ASPH, which is extremely sharp, fast, and offers a nice color palate. While the LX-3 has a variety of modes, it has manual capabilities that allow me to set shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and focus settings (although manual focusing is awkward). Furthermore, when automatic settings are used, these allow for a degree of manual override including the ability to change metering modes and make adjustments with exposure compensation. The degree of delay varies depending on how the camera is set; when the LX-3 is used as a fully automatic camera, or allowed to \u2018sleep\u2019 between exposures, there is an objectionable delay. However, when operated manually, setting focus and exposures using the toggle switch, and leaving it \u2018queued up\u2019 and ready to go, exposure can be made virtually instantaneously. I\u2019ve used my LX-3 set at 1\/2000th<\/sup> of a second to capture a German ICE-3 gliding along at more than 160 mph\u2014no easy feat even with an SLR. If you ever want that \u2018deer in the headlights\u2019 feeling, try photographing a truly high-speed train full frame with a standard lens (and no 10 frames-per-second motor drive!).<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve found several failings with the LX-3. It lacks a built-in view finder. While there is a separate viewfinder attachment, I\u2019ve shied away from this for two reasons: it\u2019s relatively expensive, and I\u2019ll surely lose it. So while in most situations the window at the back of the camera works reasonably well, it suffers in bright daylight, and I don\u2019t like to stand around with the camera at arms length trying to compose an image. While other models have longer zooms, the LX-3\u2019s range is limited to a view roughly equivalent to 28-65mm on a traditional 35mm film camera. This ranges suits about 85 percent of my requirements, while having the side effect of taking away the \u2018telephoto crutch\u2019, which forces me to work with more conventional focal lengths. The battery life on the LX-3 is poor, so as a result I carry three or four batteries with me, especially in cold weather. On a busy day, I can easily tap through three batteries.<\/p>\n

Another flaw is slow cycle time, which is partly a function of how I\u2019ve set up the camera. I expose both a RAW and large JPG file simultaneously. While jpegs suit most of my requirements, I\u2019m not just taking photos for today, and I\u2019m uncomfortable with long-term storage problems and compression qualities inherent to JPG format. Furthermore, RAW files offer considerably more data, and this can be valuable both for publication and situations where post processing manipulations are necessary (both topics for another day). But, I\u2019ve made prints from in-camera jpegs up to 13×19 inches that are fantastically sharp and colorful (including the photo displayed here). And I\u2019ve used LX-3 jpegs in books and magazines.<\/p>\n

The LX-3 also offers a variety of in-camera color profiles with various color palates and saturation levels; while these are strictly applied to the jpegs, they allow for added creativity when composing images. It has an excellent image stabilizer, which allows for very slow shutter speeds hand-held, and can be switched off when necessary. Another distinctive tool is the ability to control the aspect ratio (external dimensions) in camera; its four standard ratios range from a square to 16:9. In addition, there are myriad controls that enable a high-degree of customization for both user convenience and file output.<\/p>\n

Control, flexibility, and high quality are the prized qualities that sold me on the camera. The LX-3 may appear as a snapshot camera to the unknowing observer but it offers most of the control and quality that I\u2019d expect from a high-end SLR. My intended purpose for LX-3 was as a \u2018everywhere camera\u2019 to be carried when I wasn\u2019t carrying my full camera kit, but it soon developed into my staple tool for railway photography, as well as urban adventures and other projects. Later installments of Tracking the Light<\/em> will highlight images made with the LX-3, to demonstrate its abilities as a high quality image making machine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On March 30, 2012, a northward CSX auto rack train passes beneath the Bear Mountain Bridge near Fort Montgomery, New York, on its way up the Hudson River. This afternoon image was exposed with my electronic Lumix LX-3. This is the in-camera jpeg, made with the \u2018vivid\u2019 color profile with the camera set in the … Continue reading Installment 3: Lumix LX-3\u2014part 1 An Everywhere Camera<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[10],"tags":[3786,4537,36,35,39,37,34,38,5,6],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-1d","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":380,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions\/380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}