Almost DSLR quality

Author's Rating:

Pros: Lightweight, 2.0f, manual controls, RAW shooting, good range of shutter speeds, hot shoe, price.

Cons: High noise @ 600 ISO, zoom, flash unit is almost useless.

The Bottom Line: 
Great little camera that can produce DSLR quality pictures in the right conditions. Some minor limitations but for the average user and/or hobbyist this can save you alot of money.

Author's Review
Before I start, and you can skip this if you like, I just wanted to mention a couple things. This is my first review here so bear with me. Secondly, I'm a Jeep guy and some people i travel with have DSLRs. We are pretty much all novice shutter bugs but i have produced images that very comparable.

 Now that I've taken care of that we can move on, First impression of the camera is well its pretty small. Its alot of camera in a small package and you really get alot for your money. Since the LX5 has been introduced you can find the LX3 locally on craigslist for sometimes a good price. Everything about the camera feels very solid. The switches feel solid and the screen shows a nice clear image.

Using the the camera is easy as well. The LX3 I believe is classified as a full featured point-and-shoot so it should be easy to use but have the ability to fully control your shots. As i mentioned before, I am a novice. By no means do i consider myself even to be an above average photographer. For the most part i leave this camera on the "program" mode and let it do all the work. This will produce very nice looking stills. Other times I will cycle between aperture and shutter priority depending on the situation and very rarely use full manual control. I recently have started to play with both RAW shooting and auto-bracket feature to produce even better results.

 One of the best things about this camera in my opinion is the size. I recently took a trip to Vancouver Island and went into a couple open caves. I highly doubt i would be able to squeeze through some of the area's with a full size camera bag. The trade-off is that the sensor is small in comparison and that anything over 600-800 ISO becomes to noisey. This was semi-corrected with use of flashlights and the flash unit though. Talking about flash, the stock unit is really not the best, as is the case with almost any camera, but it does allow you to buy a separate flash unit and use the hot shoe. This is something that I personally have done yet, but its nice to have that option.

 I do have a couple small issues with the LX3 though. The zoom is almost non-existent. I know that the camera was not really designed for this type of shooting, but I thought it should be mentioned regardless. The flash as I've already said is lacking. The battery life indication seems to be inaccurate. Im not sure if its a known problem with the LX3's or maybe its just mine. Lastly, the manual focus can be abit tricky to use. I dont use this feature very much but if u like manual focus, then you should be aware. I maybe nitpicking a slight bit but I feel that these points are worth noting for the average user looking for a point and shoot.

Conclusion

For most people, this is more then enough camera. I see alot of people buying DSLR's that really don't need to. DSLRs have their place but for the average person a LX-series or even a Canon G-series camera will have all the functions you will need and then some. There are some limitations but in the right conditions you can produce some really high quality shots. This is a very big camera that comes in a very small package.