Panasonic has released a significant firmware update for its premium DMC-LX3 compact camera, bringing the firmware from Version 1.3 to 2.0. While most camera firmware updates just bring a few bug fixes, this firmware adds quite a number of new features to the camera, despite the camera already being on the market for over a year now. The two main improvements to existing features include faster focusing speed and improved white balance.
The new features include the ability to capture pictures with a 1:1 aspect ratio, white balance bracketing, a high dynamic scene mode, additional exposure compensation of up to ±3EV and an adjustable guide line position. For the playback mode, new features include the ability to show highlights, add the user name to the EXIF of photos and a redesign of the red-eye removal system. For powering on/off, new menu items have been added to allow the saving of the last zoom position, manual focus setting and the last menu option that was selected.
Like other cameras featuring a high dynamic mode, the new High Dynamic mode feature addition allows the user to take photos where there is a wide contrast in the picture, such as with the sun in the background. This mode gives a choice of three colour effects - Standard, Art (stronger contrast & colour) and Black & White. The high dynamic mode does have a few limitations: The ISO sensitivity is fixed at ISO400, RAW and Burst modes are not available and only the slow sync flash mode is available (besides Off).
The firmware, including instructions on how to update the camera's firmware can be accessed on Panasonic's website here. Some further info can be found on this Dpreview story and this Panasonic guide explaining how to use the new features. At this time of writing, Panasonic has disabled the firmware link, so if the link is still down, the firmware can also be downloaded from our mirror here.
