Panasonic Lumix LX5 High ISO Test

These are the high ISO tests between the Panasonic Lumix LX5, Fuji F30, and Canon 1DMKII. One thing that's always seemed strange to me is how camera review sites always do high ISO tests with brightly lit subjects. The main reason most people use high ISO is for dimly lit situations, so it makes sense to actually test using a dimly lit scene. The second reason some people use high ISO is so they can get quicker shutter speed for action scenes, but that's not really something I'm all that interested in. Anyway, the test shots are of a corner of my studio, which is lit fairly dark since I'm on the computer all day long.

(Click on the thumnails for the full-resolution images. These are actual full-resolution images so they are quite big. I have slightly compressed the jpeg’s to 90% compression quality so that they are not so huge in size, but visually they look identical to the original versions, so they are perfectly fine for doing comparisons.)

ISO 400

LX5
	F30	1DMKII
LX5 @ 90mm

The 90mm LX5 shot has an insane slow shutter speed of 1/4 sec. That is possible because of the LX5's image stabilization feature. It won't do squat for moving subjects, but if you are shooting something that doesn't move, then it really is a blessing. Only with image stabilization are you able to use such low ISO level and still get a clear shot, otherwise you'd nee to bump up the ISO to about 1600, which will then degrade the image quality significantly.

 

ISO 800

(I don't know why the flash fired in the F30 shot. Sorry about that.)

LX5
	F30	1DMKII

 

ISO 1600

LX5
	F30	1DMKII
LX5 @ 90mm
	F30 @ 108mm	1DMKII @ 75mm

Notice that in the F30's 108mm shot, such a slow shutter speed is just impossible to get a clear shot without image stabilization, but the LX5 could handle it just fine, as previously shown at 1/4 sec. shutter speed in the ISO400 shot.

 

ISO 3200

LX5
	F30	1DMKII
LX5 @ 90mm
	F30 @ 108mm	1DMKII @ 75mm

 

Just for a laugh, here are LX5's insane ISO 6400 and 12800 shots (which goes beyond what my other cameras are capable of).

ISO 6400

LX5
	LX5 @ 90mm

 

ISO 12800

LX5
	LX5 @ 90mm

Notice how what you shoot makes a big difference in how the photo will look at extreme high ISO settings. If it's something with fairly neutral colors like the silver of the headphone/monitor controllers, it actually looks amazingly good, but if it's something with strong colors, then the image quality falls apart as high noise take over as well as losing subtle color identities.

 

Here's how a human being looks at 12800. Not recommended.