Paul Barr at the Toji-in Temple (等持院) in Kyoto, Japan, in photos taken by two different cameras (whose names are included in the data under each photo).

最近小さいカメラ(パナソニックLX100)を買いました、サイクリングをする時に使うと思います。 僕の普通のカメラ(大きいなニコンのD4)と比べると質はどうでしょうか。京都市の等持院でテストをしました、同時二つのカメラを使って、だいたい同じ写真二枚を撮った。結局LX100は結構良かった。この記事の写真の下にカメラ名が付いている。

When I started cycling earlier in the year, I brought along my big Nikon D4, carried slung across my back like this so that I'd have it ready to shoot when I wanted (like this).

It's a heavy camera to carry, especially on steep uphill mountain rides, but I like the quality of photograph that it allows me to get. I don't think I'd be able to get these kinds of shots with a smartphone.

But the D4 is big, so for some of the more mountainous rides like this, I reverted back to my older, lighter Nikon D700.

Still, I hoped for something a lot lighter without sacrificing too much image quality, and after some mild searching, decided to give a Panasonic LX100 a try. Among other reviews, the review at DP Review was glowing, and this camera won out on its “Enthusiast Compact Camera Roundup”, which looks at “compactish” cameras from the point of view of someone used to a high-end SLR.

In the conclusion to the roundup they declare the LX100 the best with:

The LX100 offers just about everything you could ask it to: a fast, bright lens with an adequate zoom range, a large sensor, and well-thought-out, responsive controls. DSLR and mirrorless slingers searching for an all-in-one compact that will satisfy their needs for control and image quality will not be disappointed with the LX100

Good enough to give it a try.

The first thing I did when I got it was set it to record images in raw and not JPEG (because working with the raw sensor data gives you so much more latitude to work with in post processing, and to recover from exposure disasters that might happen).

Other than that I've not done much more than skim the 332-page manual, so I'm sure I'm not using the camera to its potential, but I'm quite pleased with it so far.

The first cycling outing I used it on was this jaunt with Manu, and then on the 330km ride around Lake Biwa, but before those I put it head to head with my Nikon D4 on a trip to the Toji-in Temple (等持院) with Paul Barr and Damien Douxchamps, a wonderful “hidden treasure” location that I learned about on a tour with NORU last month.

I tried to take comparable shots, and processed them in Lightroom to taste. It's a very unscientific test... sometimes I screwed up the exposure on one or the other, and had to recover it in Lightroom, but this is what I do anyway, so it's a real-world (for me) test.

Overall, given the convenient size and reasonable quality, I'm happy with the camera. I still need to understand more on how to use it best.

I've only two complaints so far. One is that you can't easily set the time to the exact second, something important when you intend to combine photos with those taken with another camera, or when you intend to geoencode the photos from a tracklog. You'd think that when you set the time to a specific minute, the seconds would start at “:00”, but it doesn't seem to be that way all the time. I haven't figured out a pattern yet.

The second is that I'd like to have the lens ring, which you can have perform a variety of functions, always be manual focus. That's what the ring does when you're specifically in manual-focus mode, but I'd like it to override autofocus mode temporarily and dump me into manual-focus mode if when activate it.