Panasonic Lumix LX3 Night shot at Eastwood

Sometimes working at home can get boring and makes you want to just go outside and take a walk. This year I've taken up amateur photography as a quick hobby to take off the monotony of sitting down all day at home. I bought a Panasonic Lumix LX3 .

Now, why not a DSLR? I've been browsing around photography forums and asked so much about Nikon D40 or D60. Their prices are rising, they've even taken out the Columbia warranty that seems be the major distributor here, so if something goes wrong and that is irreplaceable - only Columbia can handle it, if you don't have that warranty you're out of luck, prepare to spend a huge amount. Now if you buy from Columbia the price is ridiculously higher than the other stores like the ones in Carriedo / Hidalgo.

One of the big things that put of me off an SLR:

• Price - expensive to maintain, you definitely need the columbia warranty if you want to keep it for a long time.
• Lens prices - from 15-25 to 30k, it's like buying the body of the dslr itself.
• Not portable - quite a bit thing for me since I'm only using it for vacation shots, some creative hobby shots and stock photography.

Now, why Lumix LX3? check out the review here and also check out the photography forums of why this particular camera is praised so much. It is so popular that it's become a 2nd backup camera for DSLR users. Wander around Hidalgo at Quiapo and find that this is always out of stock and in the waiting list at Digital Walker Zoom in Greenbelt5. I took a glance at their cabinet (D.walker) and found nearly a dozen reservations.

I'm looking for an SLR, but at my budget and usage the D40 may qualify, but the increase in price and being stuck at 6megapixels (most stock photo sites prefer higher resolution images for printing) it just won't do it. D60 however will do, but somehow rose up in price the time I checked up on it.. probably because the D40 is slowly phasing out. Lastly, the maintenance and lens prices - at the cost of a single lens I could've bought another backup laptop instead. Photography really is not my profession anyway.

The Lumix was able to capture fantastic shots which almost comes close to a D40 quality (but of course, not as close ... it's still a digicam - but with Leica Lens(!) ). Night shots are still the ones I'm perfecting due to the large amount of options but I was able to capture some decent ones overnight. The look is so retro it feels like an old nostalgic camera from way back... but if you flip it around the large lcd and plenty of buttons and settings to play around with makes it very capable to take great shots despite it's classic look. Oh I forgot to mention it can also take HD video (!) , and that's a big plus. Lumix also has some optional filters, flash and lenses available, though quite a few it is something that an ordinary digital camera doesn't have.

For now I am cursed to buy accessories, everyone else that buys gadgets like these are afflicted with it. I bought a samsonite camera bag to protect it, the original leather case of the Lumix looks nice... but feels cheap and delicate when you fold it 1.8k . There are better leather cases being sold at Digital walker (both original and capdase brand) but they are worth like 5k to 3k, fantastic cases but ridiculously expensive.

Lumix LX3 is a fine fine camera... I'm not surprised DSLR users prefers this as a backup camera with all it's features and capabilities. It's also much more portable. The Leica lens bulges up a bit though, you can't really put this in your pocket - a small camera bag will do.

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