Small, light, portable, but very powerful, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX2 has a lot going for it. To start, you get a full 10 megapixels to play with. You'll also find a mode dial, a focus switch, and other physical controls right on the camera body. My favorite feature, though, is the Aspect Ratio switch, which lets you quickly change between 4:3, 3:2, and 16:9 aspect ratios. The 16:9 ratio is most commonly seen on HDTVs, which Panasonic also makes.

The LX2 has a 4X optical zoom, which is just a bit more than the normal 3X optical, and it starts out at a very wide 28mm setting. The actual setting is a range of 6.3 to 25.2mm, which is equivalent to a 35mm lens with a 28mm to 112mm zoom. It has corresponding maximum f-stops of f/2.8 to 4.9. I'd like to see the telephoto end have a larger number, but perhaps the sensor or lens can't handle such a wide aperture at the telephoto end.

Even so, the 28mm is a great place to start, whether you're trying to capture a large group shot at a party or you want to send your in-laws shots of the new baby's room without creating panoramas. A 28mm wide angle gives you a bit of distortion at the edges, but I think you'll be able to overlook this considering that you can capture more of a scene. I also appreciate the high ISO, which goes all the way up to 3,200 ISO.

In the daylight and flash test shots, the LX2 really stood out. There was very little noise in both images. Colors were vibrant and accurate. The images had very good contrast, with no loss in detail. Overall, my pictures were very balanced and evenly lit, although the flash was a bit too powerful. In my tests, the camera had an average of 1,925 lines of resolution, which is very good for a 10MP camera.

The LX2 also allows you to shoot in RAW, which I've seen on another great enthusiast model, the 9MP Fuji FinePix E900. Yet what keeps the LX2 out of Editors' Choice contention is its weak performance—the recycle time, at 7 seconds, is way too slow for an enthusiast camera. There was noticeable shutter lag, and the 3.8-second bootup time is also disappointing.

Even so, there are many things I love about this camera: The ease of altering the aspect ratio and the ability to shoot RAW are quite compelling. What would have really tipped the scales to a more positive outcome is superb video. Unfortunately, the video quality was just average. The LX2 does feature a 1,080-by-720 resolution high-def mode, but it's not even at 30 frames per second. Instead, this high-def mode has a frame rate of just 15 fps, which renders action scenes choppy. And in low light, the regular .MOV files looked rather grainy and noisy.

I did, however, appreciate the wide angle in the video mode, which again, helps you capture group shots more easily. The lens was also quite good, displaying just a bit of barrel distortion and no pincushioning. Finally, the LX2's optical image stabilization did an excellent job of keeping photos shake-free.

In the end, I think it's a bit much to ask consumers to fork over $499.95 for a point-and-shoot, especially when the prices for D-SLRs, cameras with more features and capabilities, are steadily falling. Despite the LX2's excellent feature set, high megapixel count, and wide lens, its performance is below par. Canon's G7 and the Fuji E900 are both superior in terms of performance.

Benchmark Test Results
Check out the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX2's test scores.

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