News Interesting new camera coming? Lumix DC-L10

[pdk42]

While the L10 is interesting, if I was going to spend that amount of money on a compact I would prefer an APS-C sensor and a 35mm or 40mm (equivalent) f/2 prime, so basically an X100VI. I think Panasonic could produce a real X100VI competitor and take some of that business away from Fujifilm, and that would be a lot more interesting than the L10.

Given that Panasonic have no APSC sensor products at all, I think it is highly unlikely they would do anything like an X100.

But i think the L10 is priced right for what it is.

 

[Jonathan-Mac]

Given that Panasonic have no APSC sensor products at all, I think it is highly unlikely they would do anything like an X100.

But i think the L10 is priced right for what it is.

Yes, Panasonic have no APS-C but that doesn't stop them from producing a fixed-lens compact with an APS-C sensor. it wouldn't really compete with their micro 4/3s offerings.

Or even a fixed-lens m4/3 compact using the whole sensor with a 17.5mm f/1.7 lens on it - same equivalent focal length as the X100 series with almost the same depth of field wide open, if they could make it smaller then it could be a hit.

I would also say that this camera isn't the nicest-looking - either go ultra-modern with some cutting-edge design or go old school and make it look a bit vintage, but the L10 looks like an ugly compact from fifteen years ago.

 

[CharlesH]

I ordered on day one, directly from Panasonic USA, so I'm fairly hopeful it will ship on time.

My L10 arrived yesterday, July instead of June. I really like the Titanium Gold, and the camera looks really nice. It handles well; better than the S9 in my view. I was not thrilled with the idea of the Auto Lens Cap. Fortunately a conventional black lens cap was also included, and in my view this looks better. Plus I won't worry when using filters. The viewfinder is much better than my old LX100, it is basically like my S1II, and with a little better view when wearing glasses. I've worried about hand held video with optical stabilization instead of IBIS, but it handles my jittery hands pretty well. On the down side, photo image quality is not up to the full frame S1II. For snap shots it is perfect, so easy to carry and handle. For something more serious I'll stick to a full frame camera, and it will be interesting to see which camera I use most over time.

 

[CharlesH]

On the down side, photo image quality is not up to the full frame S1II. .... For something more serious I'll stick to a full frame camera

I have been looking at this issue. A way I've coped with poor performing lenses in the past is with DxO Pure RAW. This is a plug-in I use with Lightroom. (Of course regular DxO users get this lens correction stuff built into Photolab.). So I took a look at some otherwise nice L10 photos, where edges and corners were far from acceptable, and even center focus was not stellar. I had Pure RAW version 5, and the latest upgrade that works with the L10. The results were not encouraging, whenever I adjusted Pure RAW with enough strength to get good enough detail at the edges and corners, over sharpening was abundant. The cure was worse than the sickness, so this was not a solution.

DxO has been pushing an upgrade, Pure RAW 6. I had not upgraded from version 5 to 6 because DxO upgrades are not free, I had mostly used Pure RAW to de-noise high ISO photos, and Lightroom Denoise has become so good I wasn't using Pure RAW that much. But I looked at the reviews again and for the hope of improving the L10, I purchased Pure RAW 6. The results have been stellar. I have been using DeepPRIME XD3 with the default parameters, and the first picture I looked at I thought was an accident - probably not an L10 photo. It was really good and everything since has been the same. I'd say DxO has characterized the L10 lens perfectly, and with version 6 and DeepPRIME XD3 they have figured out how to do the correcting without the sharpening artifacts.

Pure RAW has an irritating characteristic - It generates a new DNG file whenever it processes a RAW file, so you are left with the original RAW plus the DNG. Version 6 still has this, with somewhat smaller DNGs, but still pretty large, so it is a hit to your computer memory. It also has a batch mode and can read your card and generate the DNGs (I have not tried this yet). Other than Lightroom it can also run as a plug-in for Photoshop, Capture One, Apple Photos, and Affinity Photo. And it can run stand-alone and give you a bunch of DNGs. DxO Pure RAW does take a while to process photos. For L10 RAWS it take half a minute or a little more on my Mac M1 Max, probably less on a newer Mac. After I get the DNG I work with it exactly the same as a native RAW with Lightroom. I've mentioned before, I always process my photos in HDR, so there isn't a way to show the results on this forum. When I get a chance I'll try to remember how to process in SDR so I can show this.

For now I'm happy with this solution. I take photos with the L10 and if they aren't up to snuff I process them with PureRAW 6.