D Lux 3 a good street camera

[streetshooter]

Well, after 4 days of hard use the D Lux 3 found it's way to my vision.
I've been digital for many years and know what I want/need in a camera. The camera is very intuitive and fast to set up and more importantly, change settings quickly.

My other compact in a CanonG9. A very good camera but it doesn't have that Leica feel.
That feel for a streetshooter is not a feeling of metal or plastic but that the camera feels like an extension of the body...and responds as such.

Image quality is more than adequate for web stuff or prints. I sent 20 files to MPIX and the prints are beautiful....no doubt the processing helps but the raw files have the meat to make great prints.

My favorite feature is the ability to change the aspect ratio in a fraction of a second. This feature and the speed/ease of it's use is the Key feature on the street. It allows another way of cropping before exposure. This feature is definately Leica Genius at work.

The joystick works great as I use Aperture Priority....Spend a few minutes with that stick and then without looking at the camera, you can tell exactly what Fstop your at...the the M series Lens. Manual focus is great and the magnifier really makes it a joy to use....

I use Manual and do a kinda Hyperfocal Distance style easily....Shutter lag is no problem at all but and that's a BIG but...the record time in RAW is somewhat slow...this doesn't bother me as I only make 1 frame per image....but there were a few times that I wanted a fast 2nd frame and well...forget it...ya only need 1 frame anyway....

to sum it up...there's a lot of bad press about this camera and about how the other model is cheaper.....for me...I Love the Red Dot...it's my way of supporting the company that makes cameras I love to make images with....

Will this camera replace my M8's...nah..ain't about that....
what this camera does that no other compact camera can do for me is...

allow me to look like a tourist and still use a Leica......

shooter