LUMIX L10 - announced

[MrSMW]

https://www.43rumors.com/just-announced-new-panasonic-lumix-l10/

I wasn't that interested until earlier today when I went to set my S9 up for the imminent season only to discover the audio on it has stopped working.

Or is at least intermittent enough I can't use it until it's fixed and as there is zero chance of that happening before my season starts and I am between 2 countries so which to even have it fixed in, is a bit of an issue.

So ordered a used S5ii from @Andrew - EOSHD favourite used camera emporium to tide me over.

But then, less than 2 hours later, my YouTube feed gets flooded by the Lumix Bros who have been on another jolly and...actually, as above, wasn't particularly interested as I had my S9 as my compact C cam and social media unit...except, this would work even better, so probably going to put a preorder in as they should be available in June.

The only thing I find odd is that every man and their dog has a video or press release and the only one's who don't seem to have mentioned it yet, is Panasonic Lumix themselves.

Same funny old Lumix marketing department 🤔

[hoodlum]

A nice upgrade to the LX100, albeit at the new premium prices.  It is great to see that Panasonic was able to get their latest processor, battery and an EVF in a smaller body.  I am interested to see if there are any recording limits due to heat.  All of that new technology has added some girth.

[MrSMW]

Still smaller than an S9 but uses the same battery, which is good, as I have a ton of the things!

It’s not going to be a bit of kit for long takes, especially in high heat, but I would mostly be doing 10-15 seconds with the odd 1-2 minutes, so should all be good.

[eatstoomuchjam]

Just looking at the specs for this on B&H, it seems beyond exciting.  It's almost like someone from Panasonic is reading our messages on this forum and paying attention to what we'd want!

At $1,500, I'm not a buyer, but between $1,000-1,200 on the used market or on sale, I'll definitely become more interested.  Maybe some vendor will give a deal on a trade-in for my Sony ZV-1 that I still have kicking around here somewhere.

[MrSMW]

Yes, the price is a bit high, but if you can wait, these things tend to drop quite quickly. 

I’ll be wanting the titanium one.

Quite fancied that for the S9 but as I already had one, wasn’t going to trade just to get it, but if I’d had that choice from scratch…

GH7 sensor + S1II processor in a tiny body…

OK, fixed lens but it’s pretty decent. It’s not a ‘pro’ camera as such but one I think pros can have fun with which was exactly how they billed the OG GF1 in what was it, 2008/09? That was interchangeable lens but I drank that Cool Aid and bought one. 

[eatstoomuchjam]

I'm not worried about fixed lens, especially since it's a sufficiently fast zoom lens.  The bummer for me with the X100 VI series was that 35mm equivalent can feel a little cramped for tourist photos indoors - and the GFX 100RF isn't all that portable (for being a 44x33mm sensor, quite small, but enormous compared with an ZV-1).  Giving me a 24mm equivalent for indoors is great - and f/5.6 equivalent at 75mm should make for portraits with backgrounds just blurry enough to separate the subject from the background without converting the background into a toneh-esque watercolor painting with blobs of green and blue in place of trees and water.  It's pretty similar to the focal ranges for the ZV-1 which, overall, is still fantastic today - but  I'd really prefer 10-bit recording to 8-bit... and I'd gladly trade a little bit of body size for a battery that lasts a little longer.

Mostly, I'd see this as a "better than my phone" option to throw in a pocket when traveling - and that I could more easily bring out with me in places with high rates of gear theft and use without being too overt - and with a form factor that feels both more robust and more comfortable/ergonomic to use than the Pocket 3.

[newfoundmass]

This looked and sounded really good until they said there was no IBIS. I suppose this makes sense as they emphasized this is targeted for photographers, but I do hope they release a video focused model that includes IBIS because I would love a genuinely pocketable video camera like this. 

[MrSMW]

Normally I’d also want IBIS, but in this case, e stab is fine for me as my use case for this would be freestanding monopod use for video and handheld only for stills…so gets a pass.

The only comp for me really is a phone like the Xiaomi Ultra for around the same price which would also do the same job, but would be a ‘one & done EDC’ which a camera in addition to a phone, is not.

Plus my phone is getting a bit old and battered and will need replacing soon.

Hmmm, decisions decisions…

I did not want to do anything this year and was planning new phone only next year, but my current camera drama has forced the issue!

[BTM_Pix]

Does it still have the same caveat as the LX100 in having an MFT sensor but only having 85% of it exposed to the lens ?

The lens on the L10 being 10.9-34mm but being described as a 24-70mm equivalent does align with that 2.2x crop factor of the 85%.

Does it matter though ?

Not really, I really like my original LX100 and this addresses absolutely every one of its shortcomings including the OIS on the lens and the fixed screen let alone the internals.

As it should of course being twelve years after the launch of the original and at practically double the price.

I think Panasonic has jumped the shark so high with its MFT prices in recent years that they believe they can now position even a sub-MFT size product as a bargain and they are likely correct.

I think I’ll wait for the Leica badged version though as if I’m going to  pay through the nose for it then I might as well go the whole hog.

 

 

[MrSMW]

8 minutes ago, BTM_Pix said:

I think I’ll wait for the Leica badged version though as if I’m going to  pay through the nose for it then I might as well go the whole hog.

 

Ha, also another of my thoughts!

As I am in the twilight of my career and have not yet scratched the Leica itch, if the LUMIX option is not available prior to the end of June, I might as well skip it as half my season will be done before I got to use it…so would probably hold on until 2027 and pay the massive premium to get the same thing with a red dot and a fancier box to put in the back of a cupboard.

Or I might just upgrade my phone…

[kye]

Cool camera.  I literally did an ISO test on my GX85 less than an hour ago and was calculating what ISO/lens combos I could get away with for shooting street at night.  I love my GH7 but the size of the GX85 keeps quietly calling to me.

I see it as a fun little camera for photography with some cool video capabilities.

I also see it as an incredible sign we're likely to get a new small interchangeable-lens MFT camera, although maybe the form-factor would be a bit small for including IBIS, so we'll have to see if the size gets a bump.

I also see if as a fantastic sign that I missed the announcement completely as the only video in my feed about it was from Micro Four Nerds, so that's an encouraging sign about the amount of professional camera YouTubers I subscribe to! 

I'd go even further than @BTM_Pix about the crop-factor and say it's potentially even better than a 'normal' crop factor.
By the time you're playing MFT you're already doing lens math all the time, and my experiences with the GH5/7 and GX85 and OG BM cameras was that it encouraged curiosity in different lenses, different focal lengths, different looks (from different FOVs), and different creative directions from the different looks.  For me the (imposed) variety was a source of creativity rather than a limitation.  
I've seen videos recently talking about new 40mm lenses and the people struggled to understand the lens, and also seemed to struggle with the entire concept of how small changes in FOV can have large changes in how you use them, whereas this is something I'm very familiar with and seems to be an advantage over people who only ever use "proper" cameras.

The other thing that might be relevant is that the GH7 actually has some small crop-factors too.  Obviously shooting 5.7K doesn't crop, but C4K, UHD, and 1080p have subtle variations in their crop factors, so maybe that 2.2x is coming from the sensor?

Still, even if no future MFT camera materialises, this might end up with a spot in my lineup anyway.  The GH7 sensor has incredibly improved low-light (compared to any camera of a similar size) so the F1.7-2.8 lens should be quite serviceable in low-light and would have a shallow enough DOF for some nice separation in many situations too.

I'm keen to see some numbers about how large it is.