[marknorton]

I'm sorry but I find it difficult to get too excited about this camera. The L1 has been a long time coming, previewed at PMA - not that anyone could try one out - and only now coming on the market at a price level which puts it right up against the competition from Nikon and Canon.

In principle, the 4/3 concept is a good idea, an opportunity for smaller manufacturers to make their contribution but not to have to do it all and also to share components to keep costs down.

The good news is that its predecessor, the LC1/Digilux 2 provided far better quality images than we expected and that's down to the Leica lens. Same magic ingredient here, even though the L1's effort to be both a real viewfinder/live preview camera seems an unhappy mix. The thing is also huge, the lens is huge, the body is huge. Look at the tiny sensor lurking inside the lens throat and you are bound to ask, why?

Leica talk about their third system camera and have signed up to 4/3. The L1 is likely to be their first camera in the new system and I expect to see the L1 rebadged as a Leica and two new P&S cameras to fit in between the C-Lux 1 and the new system camera. That gives them 6 digital cameras, providing of course they don't go out of production before the world has hardly registered they exist.