One thing to remember also with these photon-challenged small sensor cameras, the extra stop in speed of the LX3 lens is nothing to be sneezed at.
Indeed! The ability of the small P&S to take usable shots in low light without flash, yet still retain a good DoF, is one of its main advantages.
As one who spends much time fussing over noise and resolution factors, I find I'm psychologically unprepared to show much interest in a camera which, in the final analysis, is almost always going to produce technically inferior results to even a slightly heavier and bulkier system.
Whislt recognising that the main purpose of the P&S as a second camera is its portability, I'd feel a lot more comfortable about buying one if I were convinced that under certain conditions it could actually take better images than the DSLR. I wonder if the LX-3 makes it into this category.
Dpreview's comparison of the LX-3 with the G10 seems to demonstrate that at ISO 800 the LX-3 is clearly better by a fairly wide margin. Most P&S cameras, and perhaps all until now, are not really usable above ISO 400, except for very small prints. Is the LX-3 the first exception?
I get the impression, for images that are exposed to retain highlight detail, the LX-3's base ISO, like that of the G10, is closer to ISO 125 than ISO 80. Could we say that ISO 800 on the LX-3 is actually around ISO 1250? I'm thinking of the usefulness of a camera that, at F2 and ISO 1250, has the same DoF as a FF DSLR at F9, and the same shutter speed of that DSLR at F9, set at ISO 30,000 equivalent, approximately. I'd like to see a comparison .
Edit; Oops! I see that Dpreview omitted the ISO 800 comparison of the LX3 with the G10. What they show are comparisons at ISO 400 and 1600. The ISO 800 comparison was between the LX2 and LX3, with the LX3 being clearly better. Nevertheless, Dpreview seem to think the LX3 is noticeably better than the G10 at ISO 400 and at ISO 1600, and therefore by implication also better at ISO 800. These results seem to differ from Thom's conclusions, so maybe it's not a big deal one way or the other. However, that faster lens of the LX3 would allow one to use ISO 400 in circumstance where one would need to use ISO 800 with the G10 to get a sufficiently fast shutter speed.