Leica d-lux4 - lovely camera

Picked up a new Leica d-lux 4 (panasonic LX3) a few weeks ago and am very quickly falling in love with this little camera, its nothing like my much more serious Olympus E3, but there is a very "something" feeling about the way it handles highlight and burnout, more filmish than many things I have seen.

Shown here with my old Zeiss 21mm optical viewfinder and a prototype wood lens-hood. (BTW the lens-hood can be ordered from me through PayPal.)

Saturday November 1th Bill and I took the car to Death Valley and had a great time in the rain, I found myself using the lens shade prototype the entire time, not so much for the few moments of sun as for keeping the rain off the lens. it worked great.

 
Black and White from the Leica D-lux4, one of the things I really enjoy about this camera is how smoothly the highlights burn, most digital P&S cameras have almost a sharp edge where the highlight burns out, the Leica d-lux4 seems to simply gradate smoothly to the hot area, its by far the most "filmish" look I have seen from any digital pocket camera, particularly notice the water density moving from the camera to the truck, how the highlight come in so nicely.    Though lets not kid ourselves, I shot the same image with my Olympus E3 and one do not confuse the files when studying them at 100%.    That being said, the d-lux4 is doing exactly what one would expect from a pocket size camera and it does it very well.

If I were to pick one thing to be critical about, Jim Radcliffe is right,it would be the settings dial on top of the camera, it is too easy to accidentally rotate it, in a perfect camera this dial should have some much stronger click stops, so that it can not be easily rotated, however this small flaw is not enough to affect my overall impression of the camera

Updated Dec 7th 2008
I have now owned the Leica D-lux4 about 2 months and have it have found a comfortable spot in my camerabag and everyday life.   The lens-hood design have been cleaned up and is very helpful photographing in the California sun, I really think Leica should have included one in the box.

Verdict: The leica D-lux 4 is a outstanding pocket size digital camera, it is designed for a very specific group of users, and the lens covers territory typically favored by Leica M film photographers. This camera makes no excuses for what it is and do not try to please socker-mums but instead focuses on pleasing sofisticated users with real photography features.  HIGHLY RECOMENDED.!

My article about the problems with a fullsize sensor in Leica M - Click to read

My Template for coding Leica rangefinder lenses for the M8  - Click to read

Some of the links I find interesting at this point.

Amazon.com have the DMW-LA4 lens adapter so you can put lenses on this camera.

Jim Radcliffe have posted not a review but his feelings about the camera and a very inspiring gallery - Click here to see

Peter from Hungary have been doing some interesting images with the Leica D-lux4 also note the vignetted images which was photographed through a camera viewfinder - Click to read

EJmartin on dpreview posted a analysis of the dynamic range - Click to read

Also the guys at Luminus Landscape seems to like this camera quite a lot - Click to read

My random Leica d-lux4 images - Click to see Gallery

D-lux4 pictures from Death Valley Nov 1 2008 - Click to see Gallery

Comments

[JH]

Thanks for sharing your impressions of the LX3. You described in an interesting way the highlight-burning properties of most compacts, this is indeed a plus for the LX3.

[Alex Weiss von Trostprugg]

Hi, nice comments on the D-Lux. I bought one couple of months ago and fully agree with you, a little and very enjoyable camera.Maybe a little bit more. Anyway, it seems that you have the only available lenshood for it. Can you tell me a little bit more? Still made out of wood? How do you fix it? I woud love to order one.
Thank you very much
BEst regards
Alex