ON TRIAL LEICA DIGILUX 3
Classical film cameras are enjoying a revival, so what about a classical digital camera? For starters, is there such a thing? And, secondly, why would you bother when the current tech is so good? Well, if anything, the design of contemporary digital cameras has become quite conventional compared to the early days, so there is some fun to be had with models from the days when everybody was still feeling their way around. And, given nobody has really been taking much notice of older digital cameras, they can be very cheap indeed. The Leica Digilux 3 that we’ve chosen for our first classic digital camera test cost $4,300 when it was new back in 2006 (although it was definitely overpriced) and now you can pick one up for around $600 to $700 for the body only, or the region of $1,000 to $1,200 with its standard lens. That these aren’t exactly garage sale prices indicates this model still has some appeal nearly 17 years after it was launched. The Leica badge will certainly have something to do with this – even though the Digilux 3 was built in Japan by Panasonic – but there’s more to it than that… in reality, as you’ll see, this is still a very usable camera.
So, is it worth taking a punt on a preloved digital camera? Well, the answer now is a qualified ‘yes’. As digital camera technology was going through its main growth spurt, superseded models were pretty much immediately obsolete, especially in terms of resolution. Now that maturity has been reached, the performance-related developments are less
