Panorama X2 (1.02.04) vs Lukas LK-7950 WD (Fi07) - Day

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The Lukas is gathering lots of interest at the moment and rightly so as it is a very high featured dual camera.

The X2 has been available since October 2014 and the Lukas has just hit the market this month (March 2015).

Both cameras are high end Korean models featuring parking modes and builtin battery discharge prevention.

The Panorama has a touch screen display, whereas the Lukas goes for the minimal approach with just an old school LCD text display like the old clocks you saw in cars or on the front of a VHS player.

To balance things out, the Lukas has Wi-Fi connectivity and connects to your smart phone.

The Panorama runs at 15Mbps on both channels so 30Mbps total, and the Lukas runs at 7Mbps on the front channel and 5Mbps on the rear channel so uses just 12Mbps total for both channels - less than half the data.

The Panorama uses seperate microSD cards for front and rear video, whereas the Lukas uses one full size SD for normal driving video for both channels.

For these comparisons the X2 was running firmware 1.02.04 and the Lukas Fi07 - both the latest version available for each camera at the time of writing this.

So how much difference in picture quality is there?

Let's find out.
 
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You can see from the example screenshots that the Lukas has a noisier image due to extra sharpening and the lower bitrate on offer. If anything it has potentially too much sharpening on Fi07.

Both cameras use a fast exposure time but the X2 has the edge during the daytime, producing cleaner footage, but at the same time is using more than double the amount of storage that the Lukas does so it is a trade off.

The newer CPU in the Lukas means that it reacts to light changes slightly faster than the X2 which you can see from the shot of leaving the tunnel and the X2 is still slightly overexposed but catches up a split second after the Lukas.

The Panorama X2 also seems to give a slightly brighter image than the Lukas.

Both cameras are using the same Sony Exmor IMX322 sensor.

Picking between these two is going to be a choice between all out image quality or features - for all out image quality the X2 is better, but for features such as Wi-Fi the Lukas is better so it will all come down to your specific requirements.

Both cameras do the job of a dashcam well but firmware improvements will improve both.
 
THE most important requirement in a dash cam is image quality, so the superiority of the X2 makes this is an example of the proverbial "No-Brainer". All other features are essentially superfluous.
 
Yeah i wouldent bother too much with bitrate to make smaller files, with the ever dropping price on flash ram thats no issue, and both cameras support pretty large memory cards.
And in the future i am parying for with a SSD in the hidden main unit this will be a even smaller issue though dashcams will proberly allso venture onto the 4K path, at least the single channel ones.
 
THE most important requirement in a dash cam is image quality, so the superiority of the X2 makes this is an example of the proverbial "No-Brainer". All other features are essentially superfluous.
Exactly right mate but this forum just shows how many people keep buying the low end devices and then complain about the footage on them - there is a reason the Panorama cameras are highly thought of and it's because although they may not be the best in every situation they are a great all rounder - they can be sensitive to placement though. My X2 seems to be much happier since I took the Mini mount out of the frame - for whatever reason it was trying to set exposure taking that into account and was overexposing way more footage than it should have been. My fault though but something to bear in mind when setting them up.

The Lukas did have issues cutting off the last file on the first firmware release Fi05 but so far since I've upgraded to Fi07 that issue has gone away - that's a showstopper as far as I'm concerned for any camera that does that - the CDV300 has the same problem but that's sounding like a hardware issue that they can't fix - luckily the Lukas one was a software timing they have fixed.

I haven't done the rear camera comparisons yet but they will surprise you as they actually swing the ball back into the Lukas' court as it can handle privacy glass better. It only runs at 5Mbps average but in all honesty the Lukas rear camera produces video for me that is sometimes better than the X2 can manage which is nuts. To be honest it's got me wondering if my early X2 unit needs a focus tweak on the rear as it did for the front.

Yeah i wouldent bother too much with bitrate to make smaller files, with the ever dropping price on flash ram thats no issue, and both cameras support pretty large memory cards.
And in the future i am parying for with a SSD in the hidden main unit this will be a even smaller issue though dashcams will proberly allso venture onto the 4K path, at least the single channel ones.
That's exactly what I do mate, just chuck in a 64GB card as I know that will cover me for any journey length that I do and capture the lot.

I'm looking forward to those new ones mate - quite a few dashcams look better when they're scaled down a bit - the Lukas definitely does, so I'm intrigued to see how 4k looks scaled down as it could give us some awesome footage - I just want the most detail I can get and 1080p is pretty maxed out these days (although some still can't even get that right!!)
 
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