To be honest, I've always thought of Leicas as being kind of silly cameras. Especially the digital ones. Sure, they're pretty good, but the price-tag didn't jive with me at all. However, as regular readers will know, I have been struggling with finding a good point and shoot, and when a friend handed me his Leica D-Lux 3 and said to give it a go, I really wasn't expecting to be impressed. But I was.
The D-Lux 3 impressed me so much, in fact, that I went straight out and bought it after leaving my friend's house. And my better half bought one as well. What impressed us so? First up, the camera is sleek and light, yet its metal body gives it a solid feel. It has a 16:9 aspect screen and shoots 10mp photos in that same aspect, but you can change it to fit standard ratios, say, in case you want to print the photos on standard 5x7 paper. Furthermore, the D-Lux 3 can shoot in RAW, which only few point-and-shoots can, the saturation and light-metering is very good. But the very best thing about this camera: There is no delay!
My pet peeve with digital point-and-shoots has always been the delay from when the button is pushed to the shutter actually takes the picture. I have lost so many good shots due to this in the past, and when I saw how instantly the Leica worked its magic, I was pretty much sold. The D-Lux 3 is not a new camera (it dates back to 2006), but it is definitely the best point-and-shoot I have tried, which makes up for the $599 I ended up paying for it. Let's hope that this is the end of point-and-shoot hell for me. If not, you will know about it soon enough.
Rasmus Rasmussen is on loan from iStockphoto, where he is part of the image inspection team.
The vital components of the Leica D-Lux 3 and the Panasonic DMCLX2 are identical, but the Panasonic costs considerably less. (CCD by Panasonic, lens by Leica.) Leica claims that the the software defaults on the two cameras are different, but any differences are minimal and can easily be re-adjusted by the user.