Combining walking and photography

The advantage of using a point-and-shoot is that you can combine walking (or any similar not-too-strenuous exercise) and photography, at least if your photography ambition is a bit more modest, as mine is.

The Panasonic LX3 seems to be quite a nice compromise between pocketability (jacket pocket) and features plus image quality. I have used it now for just three days, so can't say whether it can really do more that any typical point-and-shoot camera, but it definetely has some promise.

I have thought a bit about the latest (and very negative) review of LX3 at DCI (Digital Camera Info), and I must say that their findings about low resolution and poor low-light performance seem to be suspect. Somehow they managed to rate elsewhere quite poorly regarded compacts (for example Panasonic TZ3) as better that LX3 or Canon G9.

I suspect that the methodology used at DCI doesn't work, and the reviewers don't have the skills to really analyze the results. This also shows that a review based on direct interpretation of image data (especially in jpeg format) is fraught with peril.

Update: It is interesting to compare the DCI review with a reasonably detailed review at PhotoReview Australia: "Low light performance was excellent with little noise visible up to ISO 800 and only a slight progressive increase thereafter." Both reviews are using a similar kind of testing setup, and although there are some similarities in the findings, the test results and conclusions are very different.