Digilux 3 - your recommendations

[digi2ap]

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Having just bought a D3 with the kit lens, I'm interested to know which other lenses D3 users recommend - portrait particularly. I don't have existing four thirds or Leica R lenses so the options to buy are really wide open. And finally, are there still regular D3 users and does this forum have a D3 users group?

[roguewave]

Welcome to the Forum. I don't use the kit lens at all. There are several very fine R lenses that I use with my D3, mostly for portraits. The R Summilux 50 & R Summicron 50, which employs the adapter ring, are both excellent, giving one an effective focal length of 100. Love the bokeh of both these lenses with the D3. These lenses compliment the smooth rendering of the D3 sensor.

 

I have also used my R80 Summilux with the D3 as well.

 

Here's a sample with that combo

 

[ATTACH]248665[/ATTACH]

[Clifton D-LUX 5]

Beautiful photo!

Is it taken in the Lexington ave E train station? If not that gentleman gets around!

[Paolo.Battista]

Leica D 25 f.1,4 is a really nice lens on the Diglilux 3.

For R lenses, the Olympus E-3 body is much better, both for the really larger viewfinder and for improved IQ and system accessories. Obviously, it's not as cool as the Diglux 3 body. I own both, but for shooting with R lenses today I use mostly the E-3 body. I use twelve R lenses on the E-3 and I'm really satisfied with the results.

[ASpes]

Having just bought a D3 with the kit lens, I'm interested to know which other lenses D3 users recommend - portrait particularly. I don't have existing four thirds or Leica R lenses so the options to buy are really wide open. And finally, are there still regular D3 users and does this forum have a D3 users group?

 

 

Manual lenses are not my cup of tea, so, besides the kit one, I have a number of lenses from the Panasonic and Olympus line, that I use depending on the situation I plan to meet.

The P/L 14-150 is outstanding and makes for a real all-round lens, but given your interest in portraits maybe the best choice could be the Oly 50/f2 macro lens, best in that it couples top optical quality with a fair price. If anything has to be said against it, is that its focussing is not the fastest kid in town, but we should not forget that it's born as a macro lens.

If however your wallet can reach up to the top Oly range, the 35-100/f2 is one of the best lenses around for portraits, and the D/3 really shines with the Oly SHG lenses.

 

As for your last question, while there's still a good user base, I'm sorry to say that I am not aware of any user group for the D/3, guess it's because it's one of the most underrated cameras that came to the market in recent years. Point is that it just works without any problem day after day delivering good pictures, and this makes no headlines.

 

All the best.

[digi2ap]

Thanks for all the replies.

The R80 Summilux picture looks like a painting, remarkable. I'd like to see more D3 pictures like this.

Back to my purchase and I am now weighing up the benefits of the Oly 50mm F2 against the R50 Summicron lens. The little research I have done suggests these would be similar costs - new v. second hand of course. Having a smaller lens than the kit lens is appealing too.

 

If users have other favourite combinations with the D3 I'd love to hear more please.

[Karlumix]

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Most (>90%) of my L1 (Panasonic version of the Digilux 3) use is with the 14-150 Leica-D. In many comparisons with the kit 14-50, it significantly outperforms that fine lens and extends the telephoto range greatly. Chromatic fringing at the image corners in the 125-150mm range is observable when pixel peeping and is easily correctable in Lightroom, but in practice I have seldom needed to do.