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Rating: 
Summary: Holy Pixels Batman
Review: Boy was I worried about buying this camera. I have read ALL the reviews and there was just enough negative pub to give me pause. But I'd seen Steve Lang's sample pics at a Fry's display and was impressed with its potential, even though he is a National Geographic photographer. I was worried about the durability issue, but then I remember even my Minolta Maxxam 5000 went down on me a couple of times. Well, I saved enough on the camera to buy a 5yr service contract, bit the bullet and bought it, got it home, zipped through the booklet and rattled off a few macro pictures of some cosmos growing in my alley. Holy pixels, Batman, the clarity, the color the beauty of that Leica lens just blew me away. Ya gotta READ the booklet to get the MOST out of this camera, but even without it the pics are simply glorious . . . and that's just the screen renderings! Bear in mind this camera is optimized for PRINTS not SCREENS. I can't wait to print some of these beauties. OK so the built in flash is a bit strong inside, but which one isn't? I was excited to learn you can program it to adjust the flash output, the exposure, saturation, quality and other features. The neat thing is I got GREAT pics without the flash inside with just ambient light. It looks, good, feels good, the big screen is GREAT, the pics are stunning and it is EASY to use. I just looked at a self pic I took last night here in my room with a tripod and the 10 sec delay, no flash and just ambient, incandescent light. The flesh tones are so natural and the definition is so frighteningly clean that my ugly mug almost jumps off the screen. Scary! This is one SCARY neat camera too! I understand it has been discontinued. Too bad! If you can find one buy it! It will impress you!
Rating:
Summary: leica?
Review: excelent hide option, no difference with leica digital cam but big saving, compair them, both offer the same things except for the brand.
Rating:
Summary: DMC-LC5S has the feel of a 35mm camera
Review: I am impressed with the optical quality and features of this camera. The feel is like a 35mm range finder camera. It may not be as small as some but it fits just right. The controls are well placed. I like the Leica lens and it is fast enough for me. No surprises with this camera, works as expected.
Rating:
Summary: This is a Leica Digilux1
Review: I don't own this one, but after getting a killer deal on a Panasonic DMC-LC40, I dug around a little. This camera here (LC5) is virtually identical with the Leica Digilux1. The Digilux1 is Leica's top of the line for point and shoot digital cameras. The only step up is a CCD backplane adapter they offer for their SLR line, which will cost you (including the SLR body plus lens) the equivalent of a new car! After playing with my LC40, which seems to have the same lens as this one, I have taken shots that I never had from my 35mm SLR set in almost 25 years in the hobby. I would not hesitate to get an LC5 (if I were not already happy with my LC40), as the Leica optics, coupled with the fast action and high resolution Panasonic electronics have a created a combination that blows everything else out of the water!
Rating: 
Summary: Many strengths and a couple of weaknesses
Review: I purchased my Lumix LC5 for personal use after using one in my profession for displaying enlargements and for publication. After 1300 exposures and half as many prints at many degrees of enlargement I feel very at home with the LC5.What caught my attention immediately was its similarities in appearance to the Canon G series, and a couple of major label 35mm German rangefinder cameras of recent years. Picking the camera up and trying it out in the store I was reminded of the size, weight, and controls of quality traditional film cameras.
The Leica name on the lens really sold the camera before I had a chance to see its output. And therein lies the fly in the ointment, albeit a small fly if the user is familiar with post-camera photo editing processes to repair the fault. Clearly, the optics are outstanding. The menus are well thought-out. One can use vitually all kinds of metering methods and achieve wonderful exposures with the LC5. The weak point appears to be the processor which often "overprocesses" the 1680 X 2240 images. The result can be posterization effects in neutral areas, and eccessive "noise" appearing as grain on the monitor at high magnifications. This is especially observed at ISO's of more than 100. I have found however, that there is less appearance of these problems in print output than on the monitor. At times I've had mysteriously underexposed original files that needed post-processing as well. All of this is correctable if one has the time and skill and enjoys doing it. I found that using the 1600 X 1200 resolution setting seemed to clear up almost all of the problems. Perhaps the CCD and processor are really better designed for the smaller files. The problem is, I have a two megapixel camera for the price of a four, if I stick with the lower resolutions. This isn't a problem until enlarging above 5 X 7. So if you're not planning to enlarge much above that, the 2 megapixel solution works. But the question is: do you want to pay for a four megapixel camera that doesn't quite measure up to its competition? For the sake of the wonderful speed, build quality, optics, and camera-like handling, I'm still not too sad about the processor downside. But I might be changing up to another camera a year or two down the road for those really perfect enlargements the competition seems capable of producing at four megapixels and above. If you don't need the "Perfect" camera in this price range, the Lumix LC5 has a lot of things to offer.
Rating:
Summary: Many strengths and a couple of weaknesses
Review: I purchased my Lumix LC5 for personal use after using one in my profession for displaying enlargements and for publication. After 1300 exposures and half as many prints at many degrees of enlargement I feel very at home with the LC5. What caught my attention immediately was its similarities in appearance to the Canon G series, and a couple of major label 35mm German rangefinder cameras of recent years. Picking the camera up and trying it out in the store I was reminded of the size, weight, and controls of quality traditional film cameras.
The Leica name on the lens really sold the camera before I had a chance to see its output. And therein lies the fly in the ointment, albeit a small fly if the user is familiar with post-camera photo editing processes to repair the fault. Clearly, the optics are outstanding. The menus are well thought-out. One can use vitually all kinds of metering methods and achieve wonderful exposures with the LC5. The weak point appears to be the processor which often "overprocesses" the 1680 X 2240 images. The result can be posterization effects in neutral areas, and eccessive "noise" appearing as grain on the monitor at high magnifications. This is especially observed at ISO's of more than 100. I have found however, that there is less appearance of these problems in print output than on the monitor. At times I've had mysteriously underexposed original files that needed post-processing as well. All of this is correctable if one has the time and skill and enjoys doing it. I found that using the 1600 X 1200 resolution setting seemed to clear up almost all of the problems. Perhaps the CCD and processor are really better designed for the smaller files. The problem is, I have a two megapixel camera for the price of a four, if I stick with the lower resolutions. This isn't a problem until enlarging above 5 X 7. So if you're not planning to enlarge much above that, the 2 megapixel solution works. But the question is: do you want to pay for a four megapixel camera that doesn't quite measure up to its competition? For the sake of the wonderful speed, build quality, optics, and camera-like handling, I'm still not too sad about the processor downside. But I might be changing up to another camera a year or two down the road for those really perfect enlargements the competition seems capable of producing at four megapixels and above. If you don't need the "Perfect" camera in this price range, the Lumix LC5 has a lot of things to offer.
Rating:
Summary: AWESOME!!!
Review: Shopped for a higher megapixel camera for a few weeks - chose the LC5 for the quality optics and ease of use. I am EXTREMELY satisfied!
Rating:
Summary: An extremely good find
Review: This camera got panned in some early reviews. This is a very good thing, because the follow up reviews corrected the initial concerns, but by then people got afraid of the LC5. As a result you can get this $900 camera for about half price.
Now what happened? This camera is specifically designed to produce high quality prints. At the time of its introduction, monitors had difficulty reproducing its images. So it got panned. Reviewers said the camera was terrible, but they did not print anything. After the reviewers actually printed photos from the LC5, they recanted their initial comments.
At one point Panasonic issued a firmware update to make the images look better on monitors. Today, it's a non-issue and you are better off with the original firmware.
Net, net... this is a great camera -- especially if you are going to produce prints. I've got this coupled with an Epson 2200 and an Olympus P400 and the results are great.
My advice: if you can find one of these, and it feels good in your hands -- buy it.
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