LOW LIGHT PERFORMANCE
I am shocked! That’s probably the best way to describe my feelings about this camera’s performance in low light. Firstly, I focuses very accurately and with good speed as long as there’s some contrast to focus on. Secondly, the noise performance is outstanding, even for a full frame camera, especially compared to my Leica M.
From ISO 1600 it matches the Leica M and from ISO 3200-6400 it actually exceeds it. I’m sorry I don’t have side by side comparisons but I don’t do those kinds of reviews, in case you haven’t noticed, so you’ll have to take my word for it. The reason why it exceeds the M is due to the fact that the M suffers from banding in certain lighting conditions due to the frequency of the light, and underexposure. Luckily, the Micro Four thirds sensor in the D-Lux handles low light like a champ, and combined with a little noise reduction in Lightroom, the files look outstanding. Below is a shot take with friends in Singapore and you can see how good the file already looks at ISO 1600. Colours with a little tweaking are accurate and there's no sign of noise. The only thing I could have done to improve this picture would be to add some fill flash, but I'm still very happy with the result. if you're curious as to why I would add flash to this scene, see my 'What Photographers are NOT considering when using HIGH ISO' article
During my recent ‘Mastering Low Light’ Workshop in Bangkok, I even put down my M as I had enough faith in the D-Lux to pull off the job with ease, and the results I achieved were no lesser pictures than those I had taken from previous workshops with the M. I shot up to ISO 3200 and the files look great with little noise reduction, and colours are much better than I expected.