Odd title, yes? It refers to an obscure Japanese idiom : 団栗の背比べ which comes out as "comparing the height of acorns" and refers to what we might call in English a "pissing contest", i.e. arguing over basically nothing. The mantra of most camera companies now is "more" : more megapixels, more dynamic range, more FPS, more, more, more. So I now proudly present the "mystery camera" I mentioned in the last post.

It has 2.5 times more megapixels! (When compared to a first generation iPhone)

It has better autofocus! (When compared to a Leica M9) 

It has more dynamic range!   (When compared to slide film. Maybe).

It shoots faster! (When compared to an 8x10 view camera operated by a sloth).

OK, enough silliness. It's actually a Panasonic DMC-LC1, also known as "the Leica Digilux 2 without the red dot tax". I used to have a Digilux 2, and it was a really fun camera, so when I found essentially the exact same camera on sale and in good condition for next to nothing, there was no way I was passing that up. It has one of the earliest EVFs, a very nice 28-90mm equivalent lens which (almost) stays at F2 throughout, and the all important thing : it feels great when you use it.

It's a perfect carry-around, available light camera (assuming there's a reasonable amount of light : it's essentially an ISO 100 camera, but with steady hands and good technique you can go way under the 1/fl rule) and here are some early results from using it around Tokyo. Hope you enjoy them!

It's usually the case that when I get a new camera, I use it a lot. This one is no different, so there will be more to come (as well as photos from the other cameras, all of which do some things better than the others).

Thanks for looking!