Wide-angle photography has never been a strength for digital cameras. Manufacturers tend to focus their attention on delivering zoom capabilities and ignore wide-angle capabilities. Panasonic has taken a different direction, though, by attempting to deliver both types of lenses in its Lumix DMC-LX2 digital camera.

In addition to its wide-angle capabilities, the DMC-LX2 includes a 4X optical zoom lens, which is above average. Although this model is a little pricey at around $500, it's an interesting option for those photographers who need some added flexibility in the types of shots they can create. Note that you may see this digital camera called the DMC-LX2K (black) or the DMC-LX2S (silver), but they all are essentially the same digital camera; the different model numbers refer to the camera body's color only.

Response times during our tests with the DMC-LX2 were very good. You can shoot your first photo about 3 seconds after pressing the power button. Shutter lag was essentially not noticeable, and shot-to-shot delays were good, too, ranging from 1-3 seconds, depending on the distance to the subject. The DMC-LX2's continuous-shot mode wasn't as fast as some other models -- allowing for a photo about every 2 seconds, for up to five photos.

One major disappointment with the DMC-LX2 is its overall image quality. This model works well in good lighting conditions -- as do most digital cameras -- but it struggles in low light or in tricky lighting. The DMC-LX2 seems to leave a lot of stray pixels and noise in the images when the conditions are less than ideal, which means there's a lot of editing work to do to correct these imperfections in the photos. You can shoot photos at the maximum 10.2 megapixels of resolution and then downsize them to improve image quality, but that defeats the purpose of buying a high-resolution digital camera.

For a digital camera that costs almost $500, the image quality should be significantly better.

It also would be nice if the DMC-LX2 included an optical viewfinder; you have to use the LCD to frame all photos. Some photographers will find this feature extremely annoying, although the digital camera's 2.8-inch LCD is outstanding. It's easy to see in all kinds of exterior lighting. The DMC-LX2's LCD also is wider than LCDs on most digital cameras, which is handy for a model that provides wide-angle photos.


Pros: Nice mix of wide-angle and zoom capabilities, LCD is outstanding, very good response times
Cons: Photo quality is disappointing for a high-resolution model, no optical viewfinder, price is probably too high

Warranty
1 year, limited