Panasonic LX5 Performance

A mixed bag in terms of performance.

Average startup and shutdown times here. Buffer clearing is also about average, though buffer sizes are small.

Shutter response is quite fast for a compact at both wide-angle and telephoto, at 0.35s and 0.37s respectively. "Prefocusing" the camera by half-pressing and holding down the shutter button before the final exposure results in a lag time of only 0.012 second, also very fast.

Shot-to-shot cycle times are about average, at 1.59 seconds for large/fine JPEGs, and the camera does seem to capture frames continuously at this rate. (That is, given a fast enough memory card, it doesn't have to pause every few frames to wait for the card to catch up.) RAW + large/fine JPEG cycle-time was 1.88 seconds, which is pretty good for RAW files in a compact, but with only 3 frames before the buffer was full and it slowed down.

The Lumix LX5's continuous shooting modes were a bit sluggish for its class, capturing large/fine JPEGs at only 1.77 frames per second. That's a bit slower than Panasonic's 2.5 frames per second spec. (We shot this test at ISO 200 to keep the shutter speed above 1/100s, so perhaps Panasonic's testing conditions are different.) The burst rate dropped slightly to 1.71 frames per second when capturing RAW + large/fine JPEGs. Interestingly, the buffer size remained the same whether RAW files were captured or not. As mentioned previously, buffer size was quite small at only 3 frames in our tests. The flash took 4.8 seconds to recharge after a full-power shot, which is about average.

Connected to a computer or printer with USB 2.0, download speeds were pretty good.

Bottom line, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5's performance was a mixed bag. Startup and shutdown times were about average, autofocus speeds and shutter lag were faster than average, but full resolution continuous modes and buffer depths were below average.

Battery
Above average battery life for a lithium-ion design.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5 uses a custom rechargeable lithium-ion battery for power, and ships with a charger. Although battery life is pretty good, we recommend you pick up a spare battery and keep it freshly charged and on-hand for extended outings.

The table above shows the number of shots the camera is capable of (on a fully-charged rechargeable battery as appropriate), based on CIPA battery-life and/or manufacturer standard test conditions.

(Interested readers can find an English translation of the CIPA DC-002 standards document here. (180K PDF document))

Storage
The Panasonic Lumix LX5 accepts SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards, and includes about 40MB of internal memory. Panasonic recommends at least Class 4 speed when shooting HD movies in AVCHD Lite format, and at least Class 6 for Motion JPEG format.

We strongly recommend buying a large capacity SDHC memory card at least a 4GB card, preferably an 8GB one, to give yourself extra space for extended outings and video. (Check the shopping link above, cards are really cheap these days, so no reason to skimp.)