Trolleyed at St Pancras

[andybarton]

D-Lux 3

This ain't no point and shoot - it's a little handful. I'm not sure if I like it yet...

Anyway...

You could spend a whole day here...

08/12/07?

trolleyed.jpg

[stuny]

Andy -

Terrific composition with its symmetry nicely broken by the trollies. Also like the colors, detail, light and depth. Give the little D-Lux a chance. My PanaLeica C-Lux is surprisingly good, and Caryl Ritter's similar camera is delighting her (she of M8 fame).

[jmr]

Andy,

a strong perspective on the place. I suspect that once you're used to it, you'll love the differences from the DMR and the extra opportunities presented.

[elansprint72]

Looks good to me.
Can you explain about the camera- I thought it was a frame and click jobby. I'm dithering over a C-Lux but I don't know why because there is a perfectly good Sony on my shelf.

[andybarton]

Pete

The D-Lux 3 is much more than just a P&S. It has manual exposure, aperture and speed priorities, program mode and all those daft scene modes. Now, I always use aperture priority on the DMR and, obviously, fully manual mode on the M2

What has particularly annoyed me is the way that the max aperture reduces as you use the zoom. It goes from something like f2.8 up to f6.3 at the full zoom (from memory). I am used to using a 90mm f2.0, not a 90 f6.3. It means that ISO 100 at full zoom is a non-starter, unless you want really long shutter speeds.

There are also loads of auto-focus options. Yesterday, at St Pancras, it was seeming to focus on three things at once (three green boxes were coming up...) I need to set it so that I know where it is going to focus on, and then use the focus lock.

When taking a shot in portrait mode and then reviewing, the review image is reduced so that is shows as portrait even when holding the camera horizontally. I'd rather look at it on full screen, not a tiddly bit in the middle

Noise is an issue.

I really ought to read the manual, but as with any japanese product manual, I tend to lose the will to live after a few pages. It would be nice if Leica spent a little bit of the five hundred quid, publishing their own manual.

[biglouis]

Andy

Great capture and a good demonstration of why the D-LUX range (2 or 3) are such good digicams. Shooting RAW it is surprising what good results can be achieved - with the caveat that anything over iso200 is unfortunately drowned with noise. Colour and framing are both excellent - I like the way the trolleys appear to be looking for an owner.

LouisB

[spylaw4]

Good shot Andy with great perspective. I dare say that there will be a lot more appearing after 8 Dec!

[elansprint72]

Andy,
Right; I understand some of the frustration; I think that the aperture change is an engineering function of the new-generation miniaturised zoom lenses, unless you have a massive diameter front element you will inevitably reduce the maximum aperture as you increase the focal length- basic laws of physics apply, as always.
Maybe you should try to guess what the design brief was for this product: I would think it said something like: produce an expensive retro-chic camera which pays homage to old-school high-end name but is really best used on fully auto everything and in that mode will turn out winners 95% of the time, for 95% of the client-base.
Why not give yourself a week of using it just on fully auto and analyse the results, then a week of putting your M2 head on... compare the results of week one to week two?
When I bought my D2 (my first "modern camera") a couple of years ago I spent weeks thinking that I knew better, comparing in-house meter readings with my Weston Master V; manual this, manual that... most of the shots were crap (not talking about content here, that is consistently crap ), when I let go and used all the auto-gizmos... hey, some pretty good shots!
This thing is not a DMR/R8 or an M2, you have gone from being an expert in your field to a beginner in the pocket camera world. If you still hate it in 6 months, I'll give you a good price...............