Traveling Light with the Lumix LX100 II: What You Gain—and What You Give Up

During a recent trip through Colorado, I used the Lumix LX100 II at Great Sand Dunes, along the drive from Alamosa to Rocky Mountain National Park, and around Estes Lake.

The camera is small enough to fit into a jacket pocket, but it still has a built-in 24–75mm equivalent f/1.7–2.8 Leica zoom, a Micro Four Thirds multi-aspect sensor, a viewfinder, physical controls, and RAW capture.

It handled nearly all the general travel photography I wanted to do, and I was happy with the image quality. I used it for landscapes, fall color, old buildings, water, and smaller details along the way.

The main exception was birds and wildlife. For those subjects, 75mm was not enough.

That experience gave me a good sense of what the LX100 II offers as a minimalist travel camera—and what I give up when I choose it instead of a larger system.

Small Enough to Pack and Carry

The biggest advantage of the Lumix LX100 II is its size.

There is no separate lens to pack, no decision about which zoom to carry, and no need for a large camera bag. The camera takes up very little space and is small enough to fit into a jacket pocket.

Once I arrived at a location, I could carry it without committing to a full camera setup. That worked well at the different stops during the trip, whether I was photographing the dunes, fall color along the road, or the landscape around Estes Lake.

A larger interchangeable-lens camera gives me more flexibility, but it also means carrying more equipment. The LX100 II gives up some of that flexibility in exchange for a much smaller setup.

That is the basic tradeoff behind traveling with this camera.

A Useful Lens for Most Travel Photography

The built-in Leica 24–75mm equivalent f/1.7–2.8 zoom covered most of what I photographed on this trip.

The wide end worked well for the open landscapes at Great Sand Dunes and the mountain views farther north. At 75mm, I could isolate parts of the landscape and simplify the composition.

The limitation was birds, wildlife, and distant details. For those subjects, 75mm was not enough.

Panasonic includes an Extended Optical Zoom feature, but it requires a smaller JPEG image size and is not available when shooting RAW. Since I normally shoot RAW, the Extended Optical Zoom feature does not fit my workflow.

For landscapes, buildings, fall color, and general travel photography, the lens worked well. When birds or wildlife are part of the plan, I still need a camera with more reach.

Composing with the Aspect Ratio Switch

One of my favorite features on the LX100 II is the physical aspect ratio switch. It lets me select 4:3, 3:2, 16:9, or 1:1 without going into a menu.

Because the LX100 II uses a multi-aspect sensor, these formats use different portions of the sensor rather than simply cropping one fixed image. I explain the design in more detail in Mastering Multi-Aspect Ratio Shooting on the Panasonic LX100 II: Why It’s So Powerful.

For this trip, the important part was choosing the shape of the photograph while composing it. A wider format emphasized the horizontal layers of the dunes and the mountain behind them. For the flowers, a taller composition allowed me to place them in the foreground while still including the shadowed dunes, sunlit ridge, and sky. I could crop later, but making those decisions in the camera helped me compose each scene before taking the photograph.

Shooting Handheld with the LX100 II

I used the LX100 II handheld for all my photographs on the trip. Its small size makes it easy to carry, while the viewfinder and optical stabilization help when composing and shooting without a tripod.

I also used exposure bracketing handheld when a scene had a wide range of light. In good light, the stabilization helped keep the sequence steady enough to merge the photographs later.

In lower light, I can raise the ISO to maintain a shutter speed that is easier to handhold. Higher ISO introduces more noise, but that is less of a concern with the noise-reduction tools now available in Lightroom and DxO PureRAW. There are still limits, especially with slower bracketed sequences, but for the photography on this trip, the LX100 II worked well without a tripod.

Good Controls on a Small Camera

Traveling with a small camera does not have to mean giving up direct controls.

The LX100 II has an aperture ring, shutter-speed dial, exposure-compensation dial, aspect ratio switch, built-in viewfinder, and customizable Q.Menu.

I used the viewfinder for most of my compositions. It is especially useful in bright sunlight, when the rear screen can be difficult to see.

The customizable Q.Menu keeps frequently used settings such as Photo Styles, creative filters, and exposure bracketing in one place, so I can change them without searching through the camera’s full menu.

The LX100 II includes several Photo Styles and creative filters for experimenting with different looks. It predates Panasonic’s Real Time LUT feature, and I would not expect that capability to be added through a firmware update.

No Articulating Screen

One of the more noticeable limitations is the fixed rear LCD.

The screen works fine at eye level, but it becomes frustrating when I want to photograph close to the ground, hold the camera above something, or work from an unusual angle.

The flowers at Great Sand Dunes are the kind of subject where an articulating screen would have been useful. I could still make the photograph, but a movable screen would have made the low composition easier.

This is one area where newer cameras like the Lumix L10 have an advantage.

Carry Extra Batteries

The LX100 II is small, and so is its battery.

One battery may be enough for casual photography, but I would not depend on it for a full day. I carry extras when I expect to photograph throughout the day.

Fortunately, the batteries are also small. Carrying two or three does not add much weight or take up much space.

Two Useful Accessories for the Lumix LX100 II

I do not carry many accessories with the Lumix LX100 II, but two are particularly useful.

The first is a Neewer 43mm circular polarizer. A polarizer can reduce reflections from water, glass, and foliage. It can also deepen a blue sky and improve color saturation when the light and shooting angle are right.

It was useful for the water, sky, and fall color I encountered during the Colorado trip. Because the LX100 II uses 43mm filters, the polarizer is also very small.

The second accessory is the JJC ACLX100 automatic lens cap. Its blades open when the lens extends and close when the camera powers off. It also closes with the polarizer attached, so the two accessories can remain on the camera together.

It sounds like a minor convenience, but it makes the camera faster to use. I can pull it out, turn it on, make the photograph, and put it away without removing or keeping track of a separate lens cap.

The LX100 II Versus the New Lumix L10

The new Lumix L10 follows a similar idea but updates it with a newer Micro Four Thrids sensor, phase-detect autofocus, subject detection, Real Time LUT support, and a fully articulating screen.

The L10 sensor has 26.5 megapixels in total and produces approximately 20.4-megapixel images. It keeps the 24–75mm equivalent f/1.7–2.8 lens, so it does not solve my main concern about reach, but it addresses several of the Lumix LX100 II’s other limitations.

The Lumix L10 is also larger and more expensive.

The L10 launched at $1,499. Used LX100 II prices remain unusually high: at the time of writing, dealer listings were around $1,040 to $1,200. That reduces the price advantage, so the condition and price of a used LX100 II matter. 

At current used prices, the LX100 II is not automatically the better value. The L10 offers several meaningful improvements, while the LX100 II remains the smaller camera. The older model makes the most sense when compact size is the priority and it can be found at a price that provides a meaningful savings over the L10.

Final Thoughts

The Lumix LX100 II proved effective at each stop during my Colorado trip, and it produced photographs I was happy with.

It handled the dunes, mountain landscapes, fall color, buildings, water, and smaller details. I could shoot RAW, work handheld, compose through the viewfinder, and edit the resulting photographs in Lightroom Mobile while traveling home.

The main limitation was reach. For birds and wildlife, 75mm was not enough. I also missed having an articulating screen, and a full day of photography required extra batteries.

Those are real compromises, but the Lumix LX100 II covers a surprising amount of travel photography in a very small package.

For me, traveling light does not mean carrying as little as possible. It means carrying enough for the photographs I expect to make without bringing more equipment than I need. For general travel photography, the Lumix LX100 II does that very well.

Want to Learn More

• Panasonic Lumix LX100 II in 2026: Still Worth Buying Used?
• Mastering Multi-Aspect Ratio Shooting on the Panasonic LX100 II: Why It’s So Powerful
• Panasonic Lumix L10 vs LX100 II: Finally a Modernized LX100