Panasonic has officially revealed the LX100, the company's first premium compact camera to use a micro four-thirds sensor, at the Photokina show in Cologne. Smaller than Canon's G1 X premium compact, and only slightly larger than Sony's excellent RX100 III, the diminutive body can shoot 4K video as well as high quality stills.
At 115x66x61mm, the LX100 is easily small emough to slip in a pocket, yet has the same sensor you'll find in Panasonic's interchangeable lens CSCs. Here though, you get a fixed 24-75mm, wide-angle Leica lens, with an f/1.7-2.8 aperture range and 3.1x optical zoom.
Inside, the 16-megapixel, 4/3in MOS sensor is paired with a new Venus image processing engine, and should be capable of shallow depth-of-field shooting not normally associated with compact cameras. It's a multi-aspect sensor, so you can shoot in 4:3, 3:2 or 16:9 in-body with no need to crop later. You can frame shots using the 3in, 921k-dot touchscreen display, or with the 2764K-dot Live viewfinder.
Panasonic has ditched the traditional PASM mode dial, replacing it with dedicated shutter speed and exposure compensation dials and moving aperture control to the lens. When you adjust the aperture manually, the camera automatically jumps into aperture priority mode, and when you turn the shutter speed dial it enters shutter priority. Change both at once and you'll automatically enter full manual mode.
Capable of RAW and JPEG capture, 11fps burst mode capture, 4K video shooting at up to 30fps or 1080p at 60fps, and the ability to grab full 8-megapixel resolution images from 4K video so you never miss a shot, the LX100 is packed with features for a fixed lens compact.
The LX100 should be going on sale in the UK from the 16th of October, with an RRP of £799. That's certainly expensive for a compact, fixed lens camera, but it compares favorably with its rivals and the built-in viewfinder almost certainly give it an edge.
We're hoping to get our hands on one later today in order to bring you some hands-on first impressions.
