Originally Posted by
GadgetFreak
Ive been looking around at point and shoots and found one that people might find interesting. It is brand new and has 10 megapixels and gives the user either totally point and shoot photography or full manual control and pretty much everything in-between. It even allows manual focusing. It seems to be sold as two cameras, one marketed by Leica (Leica D-Lux 3) and by Panasonic. The Leica version is about $600 and the Panasonic about $100 less. They may be slightly different but are at least nearly identical. Both have a Leica lens and the same electronics it seems. Im thinking seriously about springing for one once they get in stock in stores and the price does the inevitable slide.
You are referring to the Panasonic DMC-LX2 (aka D-Lux 3). Nice camera IMO (I recently bought one). The only slight dissapointment is the low light performance; anything above ISO 400 is sub par in terms of noise and noise reduction though I have managed some quite decent hand held night shots with it.
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasoniclx2/
The killer feature of these cameras is the ability to take 16:9 photos (really good for panoramic shots).
Reading around the internet, the internal photo processing software may or may not be different between the two cameras (sounds unlikely). If you go for the Leica, you are effectively paying the extra for the name (but, possibly also a better gurantee depending on what you can get by shopping arond for the Panasonic).
Oh, and I think you can also get the Panasonic versio in black.