The Panasonic Lumix LX100 II may be the nicest camera you didn’t know you needed. It’s a point-and-shoot camera in an age where they’ve seemingly been replaced by smartphones. DSLRs are available for enthusiasts and pros who want more versatility. Mirrorless cameras are versatile without being bulky. But, point-and-shoot cameras still serve a purpose for enthusiasts seeking a fast and compact option.

You can get a good standalone camera for $999.99, which happens to be the price of the Panasonic Lumix LX100 II. Usually you can get a good body and maybe a zoom lens for that price. Faster prime lenses or an upgraded zoom drive the price up if you want to invest in your photography. 

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Or, you can opt for a point-and-shoot camera with a 17-megapixel sensor, a fast Leica DC 24-75mm lens with an optical image stabilizer, and an electronic viewfinder in a compact body. That’s a compelling argument for any camera.

Compact and powerful

Right off the bat, the Panasonic Lumix LX100 II looks and feels the part. The classic styling and textured grip fits nicely in your hand. It’s a nice looking camera that will get plenty of compliments. The Lumix LX100 II is retro in looks only and boasts plenty of muscle to capture any image or video.

The 17-megapixel multi-aspect sensor lets you switch between 4:3, 3:2, and 16:9 ratios to frame your shot without changing the focal length. You can toggle between aspect ratios with a switch located above the lens. Coupled with the Venus Image Engine, the Lumix LX100 II promises crisp, accurate photos and reduced noise in low-light situations. 

Focus areas are what you would expect from a modern camera. You can choose between Face/Eye Detection, Tracking, 49-point area, custom focus area, single-area, and pinpoint focus that includes a magnifying option for more control. You can also adjust the focus after taking a photo by turning on the post-focus feature. It’s a handy to adjust depth or highlight an interesting area, but can be a bit awkward as you try to make edits in the camera. 

All the buttons feel nicely spaced on the Lumix LX100 II. The shutter button is underneath your right index finger, the exposure compensation dial is next to that, and you also have a shutter speed dial on the top of the camera. 

You can adjust the f-stop on the lens barrel. The Leica lens is nicely built with a f-stop range from 1.7 to 2.8. At f-1.7 you create great portraits and avoid cranking up the ISO in low-light situations. With a zoom range of 24-75mm, you can shoot from a distance without having to stand completely still. Another switch on the lens lets you switch between auto focus, manual focus, or auto focus with macro. 

One note about the f-stop range. It says f-1.7, but you can only drop it that low at 24mm. Even though you can “set” the f-stop, it will increase as you zoom out.

You’ll find the menu and quick control buttons next to the display. You can do a deeper dive into the camera’s settings, adjust the ISO, white balance, or focus area from here. 

The Lumix LX100 II has a three-inch touchscreen where you can adjust the autofocus and other features. It loses some versatility because it’s locked in place. If you want to take a low-angle image, you’ll either have to bend down or hold it by your knee and hope you get the image you want. 

Other features include 4K shooting for photos and videos, monochrome options for more stylish black-and-white photos, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, USB charging, and a large electronic viewfinder. 

A compact point-and-shoot should be ready to capture any moment. The locked-in display is one strike against the Panasonic Lumix LX100 II and second strike is the camera itself. You have to switch on the camera using a lever, which leads to the lens physically deploying. You’ll experience a slight delay before being able to shoot, so you’ll either need to anticipate your shot or hope your subject stays in place. 

That aside, the real fun is when you start shooting.

Capturing the moment

I was rusty using a point-and-shoot in 2019. I was so used to switching lenses or lining up a photo with my phone that I wasn’t quite sure what to do with the Lumix LX100 II. The camera itself was intuitive and there wasn’t anything different from countless other cameras. I guess I expected to do more work, like change a lens, but I was more than happy to let the Lumix do the work for me. 

I started with some night shooting because it gives me a good sense of general limitations. Chances are you’re going to be fine shooting in the day. Colors may be a bit muted, or blown out, but you can adjust that easily within the camera or in post. A grainy photo lacking sharpness is harder to fix. 

New York at night, cliche line aside, is beautiful and difficult at the same time. Bright lights and black combine to give any camera fits. If it compensates too much, the light will obliterate any detail. I found the Lumix LX100 II to handle low-light shooting with relative ease. In one photo, the Empire State Building was brightly lit in the background and you can make out each window. The buildings in the foreground were also captured in great detail. 

There was some noticeable, but not distracting grain at ISO 1600. The black-and-purple sky was a bit spotty, but again it didn’t detract from the image itself. If I dropped the ISO down a bit, and maybe zoomed out to drop the f-stop to 1.7, those issues would have been reduced.

The built-in stabilization helps when you’re zoomed out to 75mm, but you’re not covering a lot of distance with the zoom. You’ll be a little closer to the subject, but it’s not a significant leap. Again, it’d probably be better to shoot at the optimal settings and crop it later.

Shooting in daylight produced true-to-life images. Colors were muted at times, but other times the colors popped. I’m more likely to blame the cloudy days than the Lumix LX100 II in these cases.

Enthusiasts will also enjoy the multiple shooting options. You can adjust the format using the switch on the barrel with a 16:9 ratio giving you a wide shot while a 3:2 is a little tighter and taller. A 4:3 ratio is narrower and taller than the other aspect ratios. There are also a range of color options, including three monochromatic options with additional ways to tweak the contrast, saturation, and grain level.

Throughout it all, the autofocus was fast and accurate. I could turn the camera on, point at a subject, and snap a picture quickly. Burst shooting also helps you capture faster moving subjects.

Last, but certainly not least, the Panasonic Lumix LX100 II has a robust suite of 4K photo and video options. The Lumix LX100 II combines a sequence of photos to create a 4K photo sequences. You can also shoot 4K video, but it’s slightly cropped compared to HD video.

Better than the rest?

The Panasonic Lumix LX100 II is a fun and powerful compact camera. You’re going to get great shots and have enough features to flex your artistic muscles. You’ll likely take more than a few photos that’ll impress viewers. However, it faces formidable competition in the point-and-shoot field. 

Canon has a formidable range of point-and-shoot cameras boasting big sensors and displays that can flip out. These cameras are also a bit cheaper, although the top-of-the line PowerShot G1 X Mark II retails at $300 higher than the Panasonic Lumix LX100. However, there are options out there where you’re trading image quality, lens speed, and low-light performance for a camera that’s $200 cheaper and a more versatile touchscreen. I wouldn’t make that trade, but it’s something consider if you want a camera upgrade and don’t shoot frequently enough to justify a $1,000 purchase.

Sony offers even stiffer competition with its RX line of compact point-and-shoot cameras. Again, the RX100 VI is $200 more than the Lumix LX100 II and boasts a formidable array of features that stack up to any point-and-shoot on the market. The RX100 V is the same price as the LX100 II and features a 20.1-megapixel CMOS sensor, 4K video capture, fast autofocus, and an adjustable display. It’s also smaller than the Lumix LX100 II, so it fits in your pocket whereas the Lumix is a tighter fit. Again, there are rivals from Sony that are $100 or $200 cheaper that are also compelling options. 

The Lumix LX100 II faces competition from other Panasonic point-and-shoot cameras. The Lumix ZS200 is a solid camera with a 20.1-megapixel sensor, 4K photo sequencing, and fast autofocus with the same non-tilting touchscreen. At $799.99, it’s also worth your consideration.

These comparisons aside, the Panasonic Lumix LX100 II is a great point-and-shoot camera. It loses points with its price and touchscreen, but it’s fun and fast. You have a robust range of shooting options, solid low-light performance, and you’ll take some very good photos. The question is, how much is that worth to you? 

Out West, the future is dry.

Amid an unprecedented 19-year drought in the expansive Colorado River Basin — which supplies water to 40 million Americans — seven Western states have acknowledged that the 21st century will only grow drier as temperatures continue to rise. And that means less water in the 1,450-mile Colorado River. On Tuesday, water managers from states including California, Utah, and New Mexico announced a drought plan (formally called a Drought Contingency Plan), which cuts their water use for the next seven years — until an even more austere plan must be adopted.

Already, the drought has left water levels at Lake Mead — the nearly 250-square-mile reservoir that’s held back by the formidable Hoover Dam — at their lowest levels in half a century. The water shortage has left telltale, white mineral “bathtub rings” around the basin, well over 100 feet high. 

“This is a long anticipated step that clearly needed to happen,” Brad Udall, a senior water and climate research scientist at Colorado State University who had no role in the plan, said in an interview. 

“The bad news is we still have a lot of work left,” added Udall. “As the climate continues to change and warm in the Southwest, all science shows that the river is expected to decline in the future.”

“We all recognize we’re looking at a drier future,” Tom Buschatzke, Director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, said in a call with reporters on Tuesday. 

The Colorado River and its reservoirs — though certainly not yet low enough to imperil millions of Westerners — are gradually evaporating while the desert land grows ever drier. The West is still expected to see yearly fluctuations in extreme precipitation, though the region can’t escape the consequences of a steadily rising thermostat. “We’ll continue to see odd and unusual climate extremes, both wet and dry,” said Udall. “But these warmer temperatures just add an environmental load onto the system in very harmful ways.”

Just how much are the West’s rising temperatures and associated heat waves — so hot that they have grounded commercial jetliners in Arizona — drying out the winding Colorado River basin? A study coauthored by Udall last year found that climate change was responsible for half the Colorado River’s flow declines over the last century (with other factors like less rain accounting for the other drops). Though, a 2017 study found this number to be a bit lower, at around one-third. 

Either way, the climate effect is substantial and only expected to grow more potent: Over the last 40 years, Earth has experienced an accelerated warming trend and civilization’s heat-trapping carbon emissions probably won’t even peak for at least 10 more years. Already, the planet’s carbon dioxide levels are likely the highest they’ve been in 15 million years.  

“It’s projected to continue to get warmer,” said Ursula Rick, Managing Director of the University of Colorado Boulder’s Western Water Assessment, in reference to the Colorado River Basin. 

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Accepting the reality of hotter climes, the latest drought plans will manage the total supply of water, so that levels at the two greatest reservoirs, Mead and Powell, don’t drop to levels that would trigger automatic water restrictions and a takeover by the federal government. Lake Mead currently sits at around 1,089 feet. If it ever fell to 1,075 feet, water rationing would go into effect. 

“They’re [drought plans] meant to avoid a crisis on the river,” Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman said in a Tuesday call with reporters.

One important part of the plan allows upper basin states like Colorado to keep more water in Lake Powell (which generates great amounts of electricity and lowers their utility bills), rather than being required to send this water to the depleted Lake Mead — but only as a reward if upper basin states slash their water use. Meanwhile, lower basin states like Arizona and California are expected to cut their water use, too. 

Today’s water woes are a significant departure from the 1980s and 1990s, fruitful times when Lake Mead even reached its storage capacity. The lake’s levels were nearly 140 feet higher back then. 

“We’ve never seen 19 years like this. It’s unprecedented,” said Udall. “The old ways of managing water in the West aren’t working and won’t work in the 21st century.”

Although this latest drought contingency plan — which must now get approved by Congress — averts a near-term crisis, there’s still a gaping hole in the scheme. California’s thirsty agricultural Imperial Valley — which claims rights to a whopping 70 percent of all the Colorado River water the Golden State is afforded each year — did not agree to the plan. First, the Imperial Irrigation District wants $200 million in taxpayer dollars to fix the nearby environmental catastrophe that is the vanishing Salton Sea. (It’s California’s largest — and often stinkiest — lake, created by accident over a century ago, and is a long, winding water fiasco of its own.) 

But in the future, with water only growing more limited, the powerful water district will almost certainly have to slash its ample share of water consumption. “They’re going to have to contribute,” said Udall. 

The fate of the West over the coming decades, however, won’t only be determined by water cuts and humanity’s efforts to stymie climate change. It’s dependent upon how many people choose to settle in the seemingly-idyllic, sun-blanketed Western world. “The growth of the region is a big unknown,” noted the Western Water Assessment’s Rick. 

What’s more, the ability of water to sustain the region is dependent on how people will want to live, said Rick. “Will they want yards? Will they want their food to be locally grown?” she asked. 

In a warmer world, the state and federal government can intervene like they’re doing now to avert water crises and maintain societal desires. Though, at some point, water demand may be too great for a burgeoning, thirsty West. “They can reduce demand — but only to a certain point,” said Rick. 

“The old ways of managing water in the West aren’t working and won’t work in the 21st century.”

Now, states are watching the drought intently. It’s evident that water managers see a water-limited future, stoked by climate change. Back in 2003, Udall noted that when he gave talks on future climate impacts to the water management community, he was sometimes given “dirty looks.” 

But 10 years later, that changed. By 2013, the unprecedented drought caused Colorado River reservoirs to plummet. A truly unsettling drought had set in. And it hasn’t gone away.

“Somewhere around 2013 I think the light went on,” said Udall, describing how many water managers began to accept the scientific realities of long-term drought and climate change. “The light went on that climate change is here, and now we gotta prepare for it.”

In 2017, Kids Plus Pediatrics, an independent medical practice in Pittsburgh, posted a 90-second video on its Facebook page encouraging parents to have their children vaccinated against human papillomavirus (HPV), a sexually transmitted infection that can cause cancer. 

For three weeks, the post garnered positive, higher-than-average interest and engagement from the page’s followers. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the anti-vaccination attacks began. Thousands of comments from vaccine skeptics and opponents poured in from around the world. Chad Hermann, KPP’s communications director, says he spent 18 hours per day, over the next eight days, combing through the remarks, individually banning commenters, and trying to remove dozens of negative Yelp and Google reviews left by strangers who’d never set foot in the practice. 

“It’s incredibly overwhelming,” Hermann says, reflecting on the experience. 

Now that incident is the subject of a new study published in the journal Vaccine. 

Hermann and Todd Wolynn, a physician and CEO of KPP, partnered with researchers at the University of Pittsburgh to learn more about what drove the commenters to relentlessly harass the practice for days on end. 

The team randomly selected a group of 197 individuals who commented on the post, then used coding and computer analysis to assess every publicly available post on their personal profiles over a two-year period from 2015 and 2017. The researchers logged and coded posts, for example, that addressed water fluoridation, genetically modified crops, and “chemtrails,” topics that suggest broader views on the role of government and science in people’s lives. They also evaluated how the commenters were connected to each other or to the same Facebook groups. 

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Women who identified themselves as parents comprised the sample’s majority. Of the 55 people who indicated a political affiliation, more than half supported Donald Trump and a handful backed Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. The authors worked to verify that each account belonged to an authentic user by looking at a profile’s posting history, friend relationships, and pictures of real-life events. (The commenters surely didn’t expect to become part of a study in which researchers pored over their profiles. They weren’t notified of the study, but the researchers anonymized their information.)

The study found that the individuals clustered into four thematic subgroups: those concerned about “trust” in the scientific community as well as infringements on personal liberty; those focused on “alternatives” to vaccination, including homeopathic treatments; those interested in vaccine “safety” who also felt vaccination might be immoral; and, those emphasizing “conspiracy” on the part of the government, scientific community, or others to hide information about diseases and vaccines. 

“By knowing and categorizing, we’re going to be able to tailor what we do much more specifically,” says study co-author Brian A. Primack, director of the Center for Research on Media, Technology, and Health at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. 

Portraying vaccines as triggering the body’s natural immune system, for instance, could be an effective response to someone in the “alternatives” subgroup. Similarly, people worried about trust and liberty might be swayed by the argument that vaccines leave children free to pursue their lives. 

The study arrives at a moment of reckoning for social media companies, particularly Facebook and YouTube, accused of letting misinformation about vaccines proliferate unchecked for years, potentially playing a role in measles outbreaks across the country and globe. Recent reporting also suggests that anti-vaxxers coordinate or participate in massive digital harassment campaigns designed to silence people who advocate for vaccinations, including physicians and parents. 

Facebook announced this month that pages and groups disseminating false information about vaccines will receive lower rankings and won’t appear in recommendations and predictions driven by the company’s algorithms. Misinformation itself will not be removed from the platform. 

“We’re hoping to provide the science for regulators to make evidence-based policies.” 

“We have seen Facebook and other platforms making these adjustments, for lack of a better word, but our study provides an evidence base for the need for these policies,” says study co-author Beth L. Hoffman, a research assistant at the Center for Research on Media, Technology, and Health at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “We’re hoping to provide the science for regulators to make evidence-based policies.” 

Walter Quattrociocchi, head of the Laboratory of Data and Complexity at the University of Venice in Italy, wrote in an email that while the Vaccine study bases its conclusions on a small sample and “simple” analytics, it captures the “echo chamber” effect of social media documented in previous studies. Quattrociocchi, who was not involved in the new research, has studied vaccine misinformation on Facebook as well as echo chambers.  

Naomi Smith, a digital sociologist at the Federation University Australia who has also studied the anti-vaccine movement on Facebook, agreed that the study confirms previous research but cautioned against generalizing its findings. 

“I think this may be useful understanding flurries of anti-vaccination sentiment such as the one detailed in this paper,” she wrote in an email. “However, it is difficult to make a broader statement from a single incident about the overall landscape of anti-vaccination activity on Facebook.” 

Wolynn, who is a co-author of the study and has worked on “vaccine confidence” programs for Merck and Sanofi, knows that some readers may learn about his involvement with pharmaceutical companies and dismiss the new research out of hand. But he’s used to anti-vaxxers going after people who advocate for vaccinations and is more interested in is coming up with strategies to help the public make evidence-based decisions about vaccines. 

The study co-authors collectively call for increased media literacy, using entertainment to convey pro-vaccine messages and storylines, developing interventions to target the subgroups with effective messaging, and looking at the role medical professionals can play online. 

Both Hermann and Wolynn say they’ve spoken to physicians who’ve either been attacked after sharing pro-vaccine content or remain silent out of fear they’ll be targeted, which is why Hermann is developing a social media and communications toolkit for physicians. He also wishes that Facebook would make it possible for professional pages to restrict or pre-ban members of private Facebook groups, which would make it easier to prevent members of anti-vaccination groups from mobbing a medical provider’s page. 

“One of the reasons we’re doing this is if [physicians] don’t post pro-science, pro-vaccine information, that leaves a gigantic void on social media,” says Hermann. “And guess who’s going to fill it?”