What Camera Comes Closest That I Can Afford?!

[noalbany47]

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Panasonic L1. So much cheaper than the Digilux 3, and it is the same camera (despite what some Leica diehards will say. The lens is simply beautiful. And I've sen them as low as $1,200. now.

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The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[jrc]

The Pentax K10 -- an DSLR that I call the Poor Man's M8, and a good street-shooter. Very compact and discreet, not much visually bigger than an M8, with beautiful fast prime lenses (the Limiteds) which are smaller than equivalent M lenses. You can get the K10 (a 10mp chip) with three primes (21, 43 and 70) for less than $2,000. (Body is $800.)

 

The camera has auto-focus with in-camera IS which, with the fast lenses, means that you can hand-hold at about the same exposure values as the fastest M8 lenses. (That is, the 43mm f1.9 with the 1.5 factor gives the equivalent view of ~64mm; the Nocti 50mm f1.0 gives an equivalent view of ~ 66mm. With IS, I can hold a stop slower with the Pentax than with the Leica -- your mileage may vary, some people claim you can get two stops -- and I get a bit more DOF.) The system is compatible with almost all Pentax lenses ever issued, although some would have to be used in manual mode. And some Pentax lenses are among the best ever made. The system is weather sealed; there is a small pop-up flash which isn't quite useless. You also have access to a range of very good zoom lenses and macros.

 

The chip is not as good as the Leica's, and that starts showing up ISO 800. (On the other hand, you've got the IS, so you don't need the high ISO so much.) The viewfinder, while good for a small DSLR, is not an M8's. Wide lenses are a bit of a problem with the 1.5 FOV factor -- there's a good 14mm f2.8 (21mm equivalent FOV), which can be hand-held to the equivalent of f2 or f1.4, but it's pricy, and that's about as wide as it gets.

 

I just today sent my Pentax K10 and four lenses off to Sean Reid, who is planning to test them. Reid's site is a pay site, but worth the money. I suspect that he'll find that the Pentax comes up short of the Leica as a street shooter, but not all that short for the money...be interesting to see. If I lived in a really rainy/foggy/dusty/sandy place, I might pick the Pentax over the Leica just for the weather sealing.

 

JC