My settings for Panasonic LUMIX LX100
May 22, 2020
May 22, 2020
This article, well inspired by Medo’s My settings for Panasonic LX100 article, lists my custom settings for the LX100, which is the camera that use for photography and video shooting.
Also the full manual is useful to get all the details about different settings.
Similar to Medo’s approach to his article, this mostly serves as a reminder for me to which settings I’ve changed from defaults (also heavily inspired by Medo’s article) and why did I do so, as well as remembering the purpose of some of the settings whether I tweaked them or not.
The tables below are organized in the same way the LX100 settings menus are, and I’ve put in bold the values that I changed from default.
| Name | Value | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| 1/7 | ||
| Photo Style | STD | I like the look like that |
| Picture Size | L | Greyed out since I use RAW |
| Quality | RAW | |
| AFS/AFF/AFC | AFS | |
| Metering Mode | Multi-Metering | |
| 2/7 | ||
| Burst Rate | H | |
| Auto Bracket | (default) | |
| Self Timer | 10 | Usually I use Q.MENU to set the custom timer when I need it so then I’ll put 2, 10, or 10/3) |
| Highlight Shadow | (default) | |
| i.Dynamic | OFF | I manually turn it on on video recordings sometimes, using a function button |
| 3/7 | ||
| i.Resolution | OFF | Not a fan of the effect |
| Simultaneous record w/o filter | OFF | Greyed out since I use RAW |
| iHandled Night Shot | OFF | Greyed out since I use RAW |
| iHDR | OFF | Greyed out since I use RAW |
| HDR | OFF | Greyed out since I use RAW |
| 4/7 | ||
| Multi Exp | (default) | |
| Time Lapse Shot | (default) | |
| Stop Motion Animation | (default) | |
| Panorama Direction | LTR | I dont use this, I like to take multiple RAW shots and do the panorama in post |
| Shutter Type | AUTO | This will use mechanical shutter if possible and electronic shutter otherwise unless in silent mode where it’s always electronic |
| Flash | (default) | I rarely ever use flash |
| 5/7 | ||
| Red-Eye Removal | OFF | Never had red eye issues |
| ISO Limit Set | OFF | |
| ISO Increments | 1EV | |
| Extended ISO | OFF | |
| 6/7 | ||
| Long Shtr NR | ON | |
| i.Zoom | OFF | Greyed out since I use RAW |
| Digital Zoom | OFF | Greyed out since I use RAW, this is just cropping zoom anyways so I would rather do it in post |
| Color Space | sRGB | From what I’ve read online, don’t change that unless you actually know what you’re doing |
| Stabilizer | Vertical & horizontal | |
| 7/7 | ||
| Face Recog. | OFF | |
| Profile Setup | OFF | Kids and pets stuff |
| Name | Value | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| 1/4 | ||
| Photo Style | STD | I like the look like that |
| 4K PHOTO | OFF | At first I thought it’s nice to enable for 4K video recording because the preview shows the 4K crop so there’s no surprise when composing before recording, and you can use the shutter button to start recording which is nice, but this forces 4K 25p and I record in 24p, so instead I change the default preview size setting to video mode when I want to compose my frame for video recording (I assigned a function button to this setting so it’s always handy) |
| Rec Format | MP4 | More convenient to handle than AVCHD for my needs |
| Rec Quality | 4K 24p | |
| AFS/AFF/AFC | AFS | |
| 2/4 | ||
| Picture Mode | motion picture priorities | I don’t take pictures while I record, but if I was to, I don’t want that to alter my recording |
| Continuous AF | ON | I wish I could change that with a function button, for some static shots where the camera and the subject doesn’t move, I prefer to have continuous AF disabled as otherwise it happened to me that autofocus decides that some random shit in the background is the subject and should be in focus, and my actual subject ends up out of focus even though my initial focus point was solid, but for other shots where my subject and camera is moving a lot, I rely a lot on continuous focus especially when I’m actually not behind the camera to adjust focus all the time |
| Metering Mode | Multi Metering | |
| Highlight Shadow | (default) | |
| i.Dynamic | OFF | I manually turn it on for video recording sometimes (note that this setting affects both photo and video regardless of the menu you set it through), I never want it for photos as, since I shoot RAW, I can lower exposure manually a bit while shooting and adjust the shadows in post, which is essentially what this feature is doing, however since this camera have no RAW-like format for video, using i.Dynamic yields better results than doing an equivalent processing in post since the shadows are raised in-camera before the encoding of the video |
| 3/4 | ||
| i.Resolution | OFF | |
| i.Zoom | OFF | Greyed out since I use RAW |
| Digital Zoom | OFF | Greyed out since I use RAW |
| Mic Level Disp. | OFF | |
| Mic Level Adj. | LEVEL3 | |
| 4/4 | ||
| Wind Cut | AUTO |
| Name | Value | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| 1/9 | ||
| Utilize Custom Set Feature | OFF | At first I used those to switch between profiles whether I want to shoot pictures or record videos, but sometimes I make some adjustments like turning on or off continuous AF and I realized the hard way than when you do so, the setting only stays the time the camera is on, but if you turn it off and on it will be reset to whatever was saved in the selected profile, and I’m never gonna remember to either save the profile again when I do such an adjustment for a shooting session or to do that adjustment again every time I turn off and on the camera, so I just don’t use profiles anymore |
| Silent Mode | OFF | I turn it on when I need it |
| AF/AE Lock | AE LOCK | |
| AF/AE Lock Hold | OFF | |
| 2/9 | ||
| Shutter AF | ON | |
| Half Press Release | OFF | |
| Quick AF | OFF | |
| Eye Sensor AF | OFF | I don’t want the camera to refocus automatically when I start to use the eye sensor |
| Pinpoint AF Time | MID | I mostly don’t use pinpoint AF |
| 3/9 | ||
| Pinpoint AF Display | PIP | |
| AF Assist Lamp | ON | This never bothered me |
| Direct Focus Area | OFF | |
| Focus/Release Priority | RELEASE | I’d rather have a blurry picture than no picture at all |
| AF+MF | OFF | I never manually adjust autofocus, if I want manual focus I go in manual focus mode |
| 4/9 | ||
| MF Assist | control ring | |
| MF Assist Display | PIP | Picture in picture works for me |
| MF Guide | ON | |
| Peaking | ON | I like to have the blue dots to highlight the focused area |
| Histogram | ON (bottom right) | Always nice to have an histogram |
| 5/9 | ||
| Guide Line | 3x3 | Great for composing shots |
| Highlight | ON | This blinks overexposed parts of the shot in the preview after taking a picture |
| Zebra Pattern | ZEBRA2 (100%) | Show a zebra pattern in the overexposed areas in the preview zone |
| Monochrome Live View | OFF | |
| Constant Preview | OFF | |
| 6/9 | ||
| Expo.Meter | ON | Display aperture and shutter speed values when you change them |
| Dial Guide | ON | |
| LVF Disp.Style | Monitor style display layout | I like to see the bigger picture |
| Monitor Disp. Style | Monitor style display layout | Same |
| Monitor Info. Disp. | ON | |
| 7/9 | ||
| Rec Area | Picture | I have a function button mapped to this so I change to motion picture when I’m going to shoot video and want to compose reliably |
| Remaining Disp. | Picture | |
| Auto Review | 2SEC | |
| Fn Button Set | Fn1: Rec Area, LVF: i.Dynamic | I set Fn1 to Rec Area to quickly switch to video crop or full picture size according to what I’m doing, and I remap LVF to i.Dynamic as I like to use it on some video shots, so it’s handy to have it here especially that allows to quickly preview and compare what i.Dynamic would look like at different levels |
| Zoom lever | (default) | |
| 8/9 | ||
| Control Ring | OFF | Too easy to move the wheel by accident, and it still works for manual focus even if disabled here which is actually what I want |
| Zoom Resume | OFF | |
| Q.MENU | PRESET | |
| iA Button Switch | Press and hold | Too easy to hit by mistake with Single Press and I always realize too late that I was in iA mode |
| Video Button | ON | I like to record videos |
| 9/9 | ||
| Eye Sensor | (default) |
Not a settings menu, but just to keep track of the settings I actually left default in the Q.MENU.
| Name | Value | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| AF Mode | 49-Area | I tend to use that for photos, however I flip to Face/Eye Detection for video recordings where I want to stay focused on faces (no shit Sherlock) |
| Sensitivity | AUTO ISO | Unless I want to go manual temporarily |
| White Balance | Auto White Balance |
For some reason even though I’m in Canada, my LX100 came in PAL mode which only allows me 24, 25 and 50 FPS.
While I don’t really care about not having 30 FPS, even though that would be the standard for non-cinematic footage in my country, I kinda want to have the 60 FPS option instead of 50.
I mean not really, because it’s only 1080p anyways, but I guess for slow motion I’d rather have the option of a proper camera looking footage in 1080p or a GoPro looking footage in 2K, than just be stuck with the GoPro.
So why do I want 60 over 50? Well, first if I slow down 50 FPS two times in my 24 FPS timeline, I’m gonna be dropping one frame every second, and that idea is making me more uncomfortable than it should. While if I shoot 60 FPS, I can slow down by 2.5 and get not only a slower slow motion but a perfect 24 FPS that’s consistent with the rest of my footage without dropping frames.
And THAT is neat.
So, how to do that? Well this post on DPReview gives a pretty neat solution.
With the camera off, press Right + DISP. + AF/AE LOCK simultaneously and turn the camera on.
Then press Playback (to enter the playback screen).
Then while pressing Up + AF/AE LOCK, turn off the camera.
If you see a yellow triangle, you got into service mode, turn it back on, set your favorite video mode, shoot and smile.
Here you go! And this operation is reversible:
If you decided not to shoot videos for online use anymore, you can exit service mode by turning on the camera, then:
Pressing MENU/SET + Right, while turning the camera off, to get the option of factory resetting the camera.
After factory reset, the yellow exclamation mark disappears, just like the 30/60 FPS video modes, so you can shoot for PAL TV frame rate for VHS, according to the original Panasonic design (shame on you, Panasonic…).
I don’t mind the yellow exclamation mark when I turn it off, so I just leave that all the time. Actually, that might even make a fun conversation starter when I’m shooting with fellow filmmakers!