photography blog
Panasonic’s new DSLR, the Lumix DMC-L10 was the highlight of the ‘special event‘ at the Tower of London last week. The L10 is only Panasonic’s second foray into the DSLR world, and they openly admit they were late into the game.
If you’re looking for an in-depth hands on review of the L10, you’re best of looking at DP Review. I really just wanted to give my initial impressions of the camera. Indeed, many of the features of the L10 have been designed specifically with people like me - the first time DSLR user - in mind.
Some of the key features of the L10 are:
For me, one of the nicest features of this camera is the LCD display. Not only does it fold out to allow viewing from almost any angle, but the Live View mode means that you never even have to look through the viewfinder.
This is a very welcome. For those of us who have been using compact digitals as our primary camera for years, the whole concept of looking though the viewfinder takes a bit of getting used to. Of course, the tilting LCD has other benefits - allowing you to take photos from very high and very low angles.
The other great feature for DSLR-virgins is Panasonic’s Intelligent Auto system. This automatically selects the best settings, including scene selection, motion detection, optical image stabilisation settings and face detection. Combine this with the Live View mode and you’ve instantly turned your expensive DSLR into a point-and-shoot that makes it really quite difficult to take a bad photo.
So would I buy a DMC-L10?
Well I’d certainly consider it - as a DSLR newbie, I think I fit the target market for this camera quite well. But I’d need to compare it to similar offerings from Canon and Nikon. I’d also want to spend some time with a final production version of this camera.
Although we took plenty of shots with this camera, Panasonic would not let us publish full resolution photos (which means there’s little point in us publishing anything at all). Looking at the photos I took, there is a distinct “blockiness” in all the photos, which I’m sure isn’t entirely down to my own lack of skill with the camera. I hope… assume.. that this is a problem with pre-production L10s, and will be fixed in the final version.
The L10 is expected to go on sale in the UK in early November for £899.
2 Responses
fran
September 28th, 2007 at 10:44 am
1The problem with this camera is that most DSLR users already have preferred lenses/accessories, and they’re mostly not Panasonic. OTOH, I’ve heard great reviews of Panasonic’s other cameras.
Dom
September 28th, 2007 at 11:27 am
2Fran: Panasonic are using the four thirds mount, so there are plenty of lenses out there. But you’re quite right, getting people to switch when they’ve spent a fortune on accessories is always going to be a problem for DSLR manufacturers.
Of course ideally, we’d just have a single lens mount system and all manufacturers would use it. Like USB for lenses. But then, you’d have to convince people to switch to the new system in the first place… sigh
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