Panasonic Lumix DMC-LS2 Review

The 5 megapixel, 3x zoom Panasonic Lumix DMC-LS2 is the new entry level digital camera in Panasonic’s 2006 range. The Panasonic LS2 also offers a 2 inch LCD screen and optical image stabilisation system, plus the new Venus Engine Plus processing system. The Panasonic DMC LS2 has a competitive street price of less than £160 / $200, but is it the right digital camera for you?

Website: Panasonic Lumix DMC-LS2 Review

Published: Friday, March 31, 2006

Reader Comments

1. I was happy to hear that this camera has less noise than the previous
   Panasonics. Maybe it will carry over to the TZ1 (assuming that it uses
   the same CCD).
   
   I think you understated the purple fringing problem somewhat. I would
   have expected the problem in images where the subject is shown with
   a sky background, as in the example crops, but your sample image 16
   even has the problem with just a black railing against an off-white wall.

   GARY POGODA at 06:20pm on Monday, March 27, 2006

2. My wife has this camera and loves it as an entry model.

   ballet at 06:28am on Tuesday, March 28, 2006

3. Thank you for your review. This is one of the best reviews with lots of sample photos on the net. I found that you have mentioned about no sharpning feature on this model. I did find, however, that you could set it to vivid mode. I would think this is so called sharpning because the manual also said, "If the photo taken in dark is too noisy, set it to Natural mode." So I guess the natural mode could mean unsharpning to reduce the noise. What do you think?

   Eddie at 02:16pm on Saturday, April 22, 2006

4. Eddie, as I am sure you already know, the main purpose of Vivid mode
   is to saturate the colors. If you are using it to adjust the sharpening, it's
   kind of like buying an entire Chinese dinner, when all you really want is
   a fortune cookie.

   GARY POGODA at 06:44pm on Saturday, April 22, 2006

5. Eddie, you are correct, without a sharpening mode, little tricks will, in fact, affect the picture to appear sharper, or at least, more pleasant to view. a sharpening tweak is available later in software or printing processes, when needed.

   nick in japan at 12:12am on Sunday, April 23, 2006

6. Thank you, Gary and Nick for your comments. I use Canon EOS10D too but never activated the sharpening feature on the camera since I use the unsharpmask which seems to work better than sharpening the edge or simply sharpening.
   
   I wonder how I can set it to work as aparture priority mode. Or is this simply the point and shoot camera with some nice features?

   Eddie at 04:55am on Sunday, April 23, 2006

7. Eddie, I wish I could advise you on this Panasonic, I can't, I can tell you that the 10D is a wonderful camera in that you can set your Parameters to differnt settings, to suit your different styles, then simply select to tweak your pictures. Custom functions are set on mine as follows.. #2=1, #3=1, #6=1, #8=5, #14=1

   nick in japan at 05:25am on Sunday, April 23, 2006

8. Eddie, there is no aperture-priority mode, the LS2 is purely a point and shoot.

   Mark Goldstein at 02:46pm on Sunday, April 23, 2006

9. One of the reasons I wanted the aperture priority in this camera besides the DOF was to take an advantage of using the "sweet spot" of the lens. I don't know why the reviews of compact camera tends to ignore the fact that any lens regardless of DSLR or compact digital camera has better optics when stopped down.
   
   If I could set it to f4 or f5.6 instead of f2.8 at wide open, I could avoid the light loss at four corners. I have used this camera for few days and found that f-stop was fixed while the shutter speed varied depending on the exposure. So, f2.8@35mm and f5@105mm are fixed and there is nothing I can do about it.
   
   I also found that if you set to 16:9, the four corners are cropped while the resolution reduces.

   Eddie at 03:33am on Monday, April 24, 2006

10. Eddie.. There is a chance that the camera will set itself to F5.6 if you use flash. Try the forced flash setting, and check the results, you may be pleasantly suprised...

    nick in japan at 03:57am on Monday, April 24, 2006

11. Sorry but I have a little problem... I bought it but without manual in english or my national language... If you can help me, send the manual (in pdf or sth) to my mail kwink@.wp.pl ... thanks in advance...

    Kwink at 09:31pm on Sunday, April 30, 2006

12. Does anybody know where to get a English version of the Panasonic Lumix DMZ 5.0? I got a french manual and its of no use to me.

    Harsha at 07:09am on Friday, May 16, 2008