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Panasonic's LX100 has one of the largest sensors we've seen in a compact camera

Panasonic's LX100 has one of the largest sensors we've seen in a compact camera

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Camera manufacturers have been fitting bigger and bigger sensors into compact bodies, and today Panasonic is announcing a new compact that fits in one of the biggest sensors we've seen there yet: the Lumix LX100 uses a Micro Four Thirds sensor, which is large enough to easily let its image quality rival or best some of the other top compact cameras out there. Beyond that, the LX100 is pretty capable too. It's able to capture video in 4K, it includes a built-in electronic viewfinder (with a 2.76 million-dot equivalent resolution), and has a fairly bright lens, with an aperture ranging from a maximum of F1.7 to F2.8 as it travels between its 24-75mm equivalent range. For photos, the LX100 can capture up to 12.8 megapixel images.

The LX100 is not a tiny camera, as you might imagine. All around, it's about a half-inch larger in each dimension than Sony's much-loved RX100, a top competitor when it comes to high-quality compacts. The LX100 offers quite a bit of power for its larger size, though. That includes the camera providing a number of manual controls — an aperture ring, a shutter speed dial, and an exposure compensation dial. That all makes the LX100 more likely to be an alternate camera for the pros than your first compact, but that just goes to emphasize how capable this camera ought to be. According to DPReview, the LX100 will go on sale in November for $899, about $100 more than Sony's latest RX100.