Product Photos: Mitchell Clark

The Panasonic DC-L10 is an enthusiast compact with a Four Thirds sensor and a 24-75mm equiv. F1.7-2.8 lens with motorized zoom. Like the latest entries in Panasonic’s LX100 and Leica’s D-Lux series of cameras, the camera doesn’t use its entire sensor, instead letting you preserve the same diagonal angle of view from 4:3, 3:2 and 16:9 crops of it, which use up to 81% or around 183mm² of the sensor.

Key Specifications:

• Up to 20.4MP images from a 26.5MP BSI CMOS Four Thirds sensor
• 10.9 – 34mm (24-75mm equiv.) F1.7-2.8 lens with OIS
• 2.36M dot OLED viewfinder
• 1.84M dot 3″ fully articulating display
• Phase detect autofocus with 6 subject recognition modes
• Metal body
• 5.2K open-gate up to 30p
• 1x UHS-II SD card slot

The L10 will be available in June, with the black and silver versions costing $1499. There will also be a special edition “Titanium Gold” version for $100 more, which will be available from limited stores and include a threaded shutter button, leather strap and a color-matched automatically-opening lens cap (the latter accessory will be available to buy separately for the standard editions in silver and black).

Index

• What’s new
• How it compares
• Body and handling
• Autofocus
• Video
• Initial Impressions
• Sample gallery
• Specifications

What’s New?

The LX100 II (left) is a fair bit smaller than the L10 (right).

Panasonic is pitching the L10 as the start of a new line of compacts, rather than a direct successor to the LX100 II from 2018, but the cameras’ shared DNA and place in the market make it worth seeing what else the removal of an X and a zero has changed. The biggest difference is, of course, the design, which will be covered in the body and handling section.

Updated sensor

The L10 uses the same 26.5MP Four Thirds (225mm²) sensor that’s found in the GH7 and G9 II. This results in images that have better dynamic range and are slightly higher resolution than you could get out of the LX100 II: up to 20.4MP in its 4:3 mode, rather than 17MP.

The L10 continues Panasonic’s tradition of cropping in on its sensor to produce a multi-aspect ratio shooting experience, where the different crop modes it offers generally have the same diagonal angle of view. Graphic: Richard Butler

The bigger improvement, though, is the addition of phase detect autofocus. The L10 has essentially the same autofocus we’ve seen in all of Panasonic’s most recent cameras, with algorithms for recognizing six kinds of subjects (humans, animals, cars, motorcycles/bikes, trains and planes), as well as part priority (e.g., focusing on a rider’s helmet, or the cockpit of a plane) derived from machine learning.

New processor

Panasonic has used its latest processor in the L10, the same one found in recent models like the S1RII. The camera runs Panasonic’s latest-generation of firmware, so it’s compatible with the company’s Lumix Lab app and has features like HLG HEIF output, Live View Composite (a multi-exposure mode that shows you the image as it builds up, and lets you stop it when you choose), in-camera processing of focus stacking bursts and the Real-Time LUT system, which lets you bake custom-designed color profiles into your JPEGs and videos.

A cornucopia of colors

While the Real-Time LUT system (for which there’s a dedicated button on the rear plate) lets you use custom color modes for your JPEGs, the camera includes a few new built-in color modes too, which Panasonic says are “film‑inspired.” These are “L.Classic,” which the company says is low-saturation and highlights greens, and “L.ClassicGold,” which gives your photos a very warm, amber look.

Standard Color Profile	L.Classic Neo	L.Classic	L.Classic Gold

The decision to include these new modes was apparently based on the popularity of the L.ClassicNeo profile that it’s included in its cameras for years. For video shooters (or photographers looking for a video-like look), the camera also includes a suite of “Cinelike” modes designed to give you a pleasingly flat look that, unlike the also-included V-Log, can be used for output, but which also offer some editing flexibility in post.

How it compares

One of the most exciting things about the L10 is that it’s a new enthusiast compact camera aimed at photographers, which is something we haven’t seen in quite a while. Companies like Canon and Sony still sell the latest entries in the G7X and RX100 lines, but both cameras were introduced in 2019, around 7 years ago.

While it can be tempting to compare the L10 to cameras with fixed prime lenses like the Ricoh GR4 and Fujifilm X100VI, the use of a zoom lens means that it’s targeting a different kind of photographer. Likewise, vlogging compacts like Canon’s PowerShot V1 and Sony’s ZV-1 II are much more focused on pleasing videographers than photographers.

By virtue of being the newest camera on this list by at least seven years, the L10 has the benefit of many modern features we’ve come to expect: subject recognition for more than just faces, fast wi-fi transfers to a modern app, pre-burst capture, full-width video even at ambitious resolutions and frame rates and more. And while Panasonic typically hasn’t matched the autofocus performance of Sony and Canon’s latest systems, the systems used by the compacts discussed here are noticeably less advanced.

Body and Handling

The L10 isn’t a tiny camera by any means; it’s noticeably larger and heavier than its Type-1 competitors, and even the LX100 II, though it’s essentially the same size as Fujifilm’s ever-popular X100-series. It feels solid, with ample grip and some breathing room for its controls. While the top plate controls aren’t the most premium feeling – they’re similar to the S9’s – they’re well-placed for one-handed use.

Controls and customization

The L10 has a wide variety of customizable dials, buttons and switches along almost every surface. While this affords a lot of flexibility to customize the camera how you want – you can easily set it up in a way that lets you largely avoid the main menus while shooting – some of the defaults aren’t the most sensible in our view.

As an example, when you’re in aperture priority or manual mode, the top plate command dial is set to control aperture… which it won’t do unless the dedicated aperture ring is in the ‘A’ setting. If it’s not, turning the wheel does nothing, wasting the camera’s single top plate dial. In our view, it’d have made more sense to control exposure compensation by default, at least in aperture priority mode.

Most of what were dedicated controls on the LX100 cameras have become customizable. What was previously a shutter speed dial is now a mode dial, and what was once a marked exposure compensation dial is now a customizable dial with a button in the middle.

Speaking of aperture, though, we appreciate that the ring is clicked, and that it handles the variable aperture in a sensible manner. For example, if you have it set to F1.7, but have the lens at 75mm equiv., it’ll set the aperture to F2.8. The aperture setting will stay the same as you rotate it, until you hit F2.8, at which point it’ll begin to change.

Behind the aperture ring is a customizable control ring. By default, it’s set to control the power zoom (another redundancy; the toggle rocker around the shutter button does that, too), but you can have it control things like exposure compensation, ISO, white balance, AF mode and more.

Switching between the ‘A’ setting on the lens and the aperture range takes a bit of force – it’d be difficult to accidentally knock it out of your preferred position. Conversely, we found the focus mode switch to be a bit too easy to knock into macro mode.

Finally, there’s the four-way switch on the top barrel of the lens. By default, it controls your aspect ratio, and you can customize what the 1, 2 and 3 positions do; the first position hands off control to the body. If you prefer, you can remap the control to do something else, like switching between three color modes, focal lengths or subject recognition settings.

You can also set any of the physical zoom controls to work linearly, smoothly zooming in through the lens’ entire range, or to jump between common preset focal lengths (24, 28, 35, 50, 70 and 75mm equiv.). You can also have the camera remember what focal length it was at when you turned it off, and return to it when you start it up again.

EVF and display

The OLED panel in the L10’s view finder is bright and high-resolution for a compact. While its eye point is only 20mm, we found it was relatively easy to see, even when wearing glasses. Thankfully, the color tearing of the field sequential displays that Panasonic used in the LX100 series is no longer an issue.

The rear monitor is fully-articulating, offering nearly unlimited flexibility in what angle you shoot from, though not the quickest deployment if you’re just trying to shoot from above or below. Panasonic has created a vertical version of its on-screen UI, so if you’re shooting in portrait, the details on the screen will be much easier to read, as they’ll be in the correct orientation.

Ports

You can have audio input, but you can’t monitor due to the lack of a headphone jack.

The L10 doesn’t have aj immense amount of input and output options. There’s a USB-C port for charging and data transfer, which you can do quickly at 10Gbps, and a 3.5mm microphone jack. The camera also has a fully-functional hotshoe, which can be used to connect to a flash, digital microphones, and even Panasonic’s XLR2 accessory that lets you record four-channel and 32-bit float audio, all but eliminating the risk of clipping.

Battery

The SD card slot gets its own dedicated door, rather than having to share one with the battery.

The L10 uses the same 16Wh BLK22 battery found in many of Panasonic’s full-frame mirrorless cameras, providing a CIPA-rated 410 shots per charge when using the EVF, and 420 shots when using the display. It’s not unusual to get double those ratings in real-world use, so many users may be able to get through even relatively heavy weekends of shooting without having to recharge.

Autofocus

The L10’s autofocus can recognize several types of subjects, not just humans. Panasonic L10 | 30mm equiv. | F2.1 | 1/60 sec | ISO 800

The L10 has several modes for selecting your autofocus point: the fine-grained pinpoint, a resizable single area, area-plus, a customizable zone, horizontal/vertical zone, full area, and tracking.

The L10 doesn’t have an autofocus joystick, so selecting your AF point will require using the touchscreen, or setting up the multi-direction controller to move it around. You can also set the screen or a portion of it to act as a touchpad to move it when your eye is up to the viewfinder.

Besides pinpoint, all of those modes can be combined with subject detection, which can be set to recognize several different types of subjects. If there are multiple recognized subjects, the camera draws a box around each of them, highlighting which one is selected, and allowing you to switch to another one. In general, it does a good job of respecting your chosen AF point; it won’t jump to a recognized subject unless it’s quite close to your selected area, letting you leave it on most of the time.

The L10’s tracking mode won’t fall back to generic tracking if it doesn’t recognize a subject

The one exception is if you’re a fan of the track to recompose method. Like the S1II-series, the L10’s tracking mode won’t fall back to generic tracking if it doesn’t recognize a subject. The AF point will stay in the same place in the frame, instead of trying to stick to whatever you placed it over. This means you’ll have to constantly engage and disengage subject recognition mode depending on what you’re shooting, which you can do with a custom button or using the lens’ four-way switch.

Video

The L10 has a lot of video capabilities, but cuts down on at least some complexity due to its lack of advanced codecs like ProRes and ProRes Raw (which would likely be too much for an SD card to handle).

While the company mainly pitches it as a stills camera, the L10’s use of the GH7’s sensor means it has an extremely robust set of video features. In its H.265 mode, it can capture 5.2K 4:3 open gate at up to 30p, and full-width 4K at up to 120p. As we’d expect, there are a lot of other options too; 60 in total, with All-I recording modes, 17:9 aspect ratios and >4K options.

It also incorporates Panasonic’s MP4 (Lite), which is designed to produce files that are good enough quality for social media, but that are relatively small and therefore easy to transfer and upload. That codec supports 4:3 open gate at around 4K at 30p, which gives you the flexibility to take both horizontal and vertical crops for different platforms, as well as output-ready UHD 4K and FullHD, but, strangely, only in 60 and 120p.

The L10 mostly continues the tradition of offering every video assist feature

The L10 mostly continues Panasonic’s tradition of including every video feature under the sun*. It has Log and HLG recording modes, and view assist tools for them, waveform exposure monitoring, multiple customizable frame guides, the Focus Transition tool that lets you do automated, repeatable focus pulls and more. All of its autofocus subject recognition modes are available in video, even when shooting at high frame rates, and you have a lot of control over which settings are or are not shared between your stills and video modes.

This means that it can be used as both a simple point-and-shoot video option for photographers who occasionally want to just capture something in motion without thinking too hard about it, and as a tool for someone serious about getting good video (though its form-factor comes with plenty of inherent limitations, despite its 43mm thread technically allowing you to attach an ND filter).

* There are a few omissions: unlike other Panasonic cameras, it doesn’t offer a false color overlay for judging exposure, nor is there the option to use shutter angle instead of shutter speed.

Initial Impressions

Since the L10 launched, I’ve read hundreds of comments about it, a large portion of which focused on what the writers wished it was instead; a Micro Four Thirds interchangeable lens camera, a fixed-lens compact, a smaller, more direct sequel to the LX100 II, a full-frame follow-up to the S9, the list goes on. And while I understand why people want the cameras of their imaginations, we should set our dreams aside and focus on what it actually is: an enthusiast compact with modern tech.

At a high level, there are a few reasons to get a compact camera: you might want something that’s flexible, but still provides an engaging experience without being a burden to carry around. Or you want a step up from your phone to something that’s still relatively easy to use, but that has better zoom and subject separation.

I suspect the L10 produces better photos than my iPhone 15 Pro. I know it’s more fun to use. Panasonic L10 | 33mm equiv. | F2.8 | 1/125 sec | ISO 125

To me, the L10 checks those boxes handily. Having the latest autofocus with several subject recognition types makes it easier to use for beginners, and features like pre-capture and capable video expand the envelope of what an experienced photographer can easily do with it. It lets you easily get the look you want in camera with LUTs and aspect ratios, then offload them to your phone, but doesn’t preclude editing in post. And its EVF and copious control points provide an engaging shooting experience, though you might have to spend some time in the customization menus to get a setup you find truly satisfying to use.

While none of this is revolutionary for cameras in general, it’s not something you get with many of the other compacts on the market, with the closest competitors to the L10 dating back to 2019 (read: the age before cameras really figured out how to talk to phones).

There are still frustrations with it. While the camera’s UI is snappy and responsive the lens, which is an older design, can be ponderous, taking around two seconds to extend when booting the camera up, and another few beats to make its way through its zoom range. And while I’ve found the tracking AF performance to be decent so far, there have already been times where it fell down, making me wish I had a direct control for my focusing point. It also doesn’t feel quite as premium as the marketing and price tag lead me to expect.

I remain enthusiastic about this compact.

Figuring out how those affect the shooting experience, and if there are any other hidden gotchas, will require a bit more time with it. But at the moment, my dreams of what this camera could be haven’t been shattered by actually using it.

Sample Gallery

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