Would be great to see a comparsion to the Sony hx9v, i am no Sony fanboy but can imagine its better video wise

@goofy23 The big difference from hx9v is that the LX7 has full manual control of video, and can lower the shutter speed to 1/30, 1/25, 1/20. 1/15, 1/13, 1/10 or 1/8 if you are in a really low-light environment. It packages them into the AVCHD container. Donald Graft's DGindex is best for pulling them out smoothly. Indoors, I routinely use shutter preferred, with 1/30 shutter and change the ISO to control my average (auto) aperture. Outdoors one has the inbuilt ND filter, which with ISO80, allows a 1/30 shutter even in the California sun. BUT - the camera is crippled in shutter preferred in that the minimum F stop is 4.0 when you engage the ND filter in shutter preferred creative video. So I carry around a 37mm ND to get over this and allow bokeh in the sun. Panny did a couple of silly things to limit the LX7 utility for 'pros' and were blind-sided when Sony released the RX100. Which IMO has bad video, BTW, saturated shadow grading in particular.

Btw, we today purchased LX7 for hack.

@Vitaliy Great news! - Without the 30 minute limitation, the LX7 would be very nice for video. Its battery is good for about 2hrs continuous...

I did notice that resolution charts with 1080p on the LX7 were a little more moire and slightly lower resolution that FZ200, I suspect that is beacuse of the fewer pixels on the sensor. But I guess we will know soon :) :)

f1.4 gives at least a minimal bokeh, along with significantly better low light performance than the FZ200.

There is another interesting crippling I found. On Creative Video I set "Shutter Priority" to 1/30 and then fix ISO at 800 (say). The auto aperture opens to as much as f1.4 to expose correctly (range f1.4 to f8). But when I engage the ND filter, the auto aperture only opens to f4, giving a very limited range of auto exposures (f4-f8). With ISO left at 'auto' the aperture opens fully with ND engaged, except you can't control the aperture very easily to get a fixed level of bokeh. Take a look when yours arrives (after you have played with all the other neat stuff on this very nice camera).

I use a 1/30 shutter for indoors work, as my target is web, and the extra sensitivity over 1/60 is usually welcome :) If you set Creative Video, Manual Exposure (don't forget to switch the lens to manual too) the LX7 will allow you to select a shutter speed as low as 1/8 second (as will the FZ200). Might be useful in pitch darkness, I guess :)

$299 was a crazy deal, but there was "TURKEY10" coupon code for $10 discount from J&R.

In this morning I contacted them via J&R's contact page and got the discount. I wish it's mine. It's for my little brother. Hope a lot more people became LX7 users.

After taking $10 off and 10% cashback and 2% store credit, net cost would be $255 for me. Hehe. I'd get it in this Thursday and tune it up before handing it over to my little bro. He has no idea how good it is.

I live in VA.15 mins away from DC downtown. Lynchburg is kinda far. I'd see you after I learn mountain climbing. Hehe. Gawd GH3. I'm getting envious!!!

Just got my LX7 from the $304 Amazon deal. Let me just say I am impressed. Great little camera. I just canceled my GH3 order. This little LX7 is just so great I decided to ditch m4/3s.

:O

Just kidding of course. The LX7 isn't going to replace a GH camera. However, it does shoot very good 1080p @ 60 FPS video and rather nice stills. If you are shooting home movies this would definitely be a good choice. The macro capabilities are fantastic too. Depth of field and dynamic range are definitely not anywhere near m4/3s territory. However, they are not terrible like so many other compact cameras.

If you are shooting home movies this would definitely be a good choice.

Get Sony TD10 for home movies (<$700 on ebay), as your ancestors will be asking stupid questions why all is so flat :-)

Some clever bugger will invent a software for 2D to 3D simulation VK

Yep. I already heard this previously.

Wait, it was guys talking that you don't need proper lighting and good sound, as you can do all in post.

I have already seen this on Samsung 3D TV. Really weird how they can make it work. One of my clients played back their wedding movie on it and I was stunned how good it looked: 24p GH2 material in 3D! The software seems to pick out foreground and background on the fly with no artifacts worth mentioning.

@oscillian

Thing is, it is not 3D :-) And never will be.

@VK hey not so fast. You brought 3D element to LX7 topic!!!