-Manual Control Feast- Lots of buttons and dials and quick access in the menu
-Built strong and robust, and high quality magnesium for most of the body.
-Excellent detail and dynamic range straight out the camera, Raw even better.
-Firmware update added actual usable features to the camera, which already had plenty.
-Comfortable and Stylish all in one
-Unintimidating to the public (doesn't look like a DSLR)
-Excellent control over color and black and white image parameters in camera
-Reasonably quiet
-Built in focus assist lamp for in the dark focusing
-SSWF anti dust technology- best in the buisness
-Superb handling and balance
-Begs you to use it, all the time
-Unique two position flash on board allows for bounce flash- and its reasonably powerful
-Two custom function buttons
-Throw back to older film cameras with a real shutter speed dial on top of the camera
-Utilitarian rangefinder design
-Plenty of resolution from raw files (*7.5mp files take well to upsampling to 12mp)
-Reliable
-Professional feature set
-Excellent live view
-Multi-exposure mode allows for in camera HDRs or creative image overlay (available with free firmware upgrade from panasonic)
-Today's used prices are a steal

-Image quality suffers at ISO 800 and above
-Some banding occurs in low light/under exposed images (both jpegs and raw so be careful to expose correctly)
-No weather/dust resistance specification
-Optical viewfinder smaller than competition (but you can buy an olympus eyepiece magnifier that helps matters greatly for cheap)
-Not a point and shoot
-Standard resolution a bit low by todays standards (but see * in positives above)
-Discontinued, hard to find, may not be under warranty (call panasonic)
-If you can find one new, very expensive (but less than the digilux 3 clone)

Well I've been using my DMC-L-1 quite a bit in my rotation of late, even doing infrared photography with it using a Hoya 72 filter with good success. I'm absolutely positively in love with this design.

In fact I love it so much, I went and bought another L-1 because I want to have them around for quite some time to come. I am getting one permanently converted to IR, and I'm picking up a Zuiko 12-60 Oly lens for landscape duty as well. Upsampling to 12mp in raw with sharp lenses yields impressive results printed at 13x19 .. even to 20x30 uncropped.

When carefully exposed, black and white images are flat out stunning out of camera, and I love the extensive b/w options and custom settings and functionality. Raw image quality is superb at ISO 400 and below, 800 and 1600 be warned.

As a big fan of "another brand" I have to say that I didn't expect to be so smitten with the DMC-L1 in the long term. I was impressed initially when I bought one, but the design has grown on me much more so since then.

I may even buy a third body in the future, just because I want to have this camera design around me for years and years to come.

In a way I think that digital camera technology has reached a sort of plateau in performance for the time being, and these cameras perform pretty darn close IQ wise as anything that is out today (and trust me, they have some serious competition in my stable), which is testament to good design nearly 5 years old now.

This is the first time in my photography history that I've bought a duplicate of a particular body, and I've seen and handled, and owned many many cameras.

Working with the L-1 gives me a satisfaction completely unique from other cameras I have used, and I'm totally satisfied with the Raw output for professional use and printing.

I find the optical view finder more than satisfactory for framing, and if I need to check critical focus, I just switch to live view and look at a magnified view anywhere I choose on the image.

To me, the L1 is a professional camera (used with their means) by all cross examination. It handles better than most cameras I have ever used (can't think of another that handles better at the moment), looks and performs magnificently, and should be a design coveted by photographers from all walks and brands.

Truly unique, I'll love them both for life. At least I intend too the rest of mine.

Customer Service

Haven't had to use them yet, thankfully.

Similar Products Used:

Olympus E450/620
Panasonic LC1

Great image quality.
Nice one touch buttons
Small size

Live view does not show exposure changes
Menu can be difficult to navagate

I purchased the L1 as a gift for my wife. I read plenty of reviews before I bought the camera Some of the complaints I read about the L1 was the dim viewfinder, cluttered back and hard to navigate menu. I did find the the viewfinder was fine. I have no issues see in it or composing a shot. The is little info in the finder. Shutter speed, f/stop and a meter but really that is all I need. The back is cluttered with buttons but I use most all of them and I have no problems with there location. I do like the fact that I can switch foucusing modes with the simple flip of a switch and need not navigate through a menu. I also like the one button ISO. The switch at the top to switch between one frame, three or timer is also nice.
The live view works well but really doesn't show exposure changes, you really need to watch the meter on the LCD for that. The two position flash is also nice. You can shoot straight or ceiling bounce with the touch of a button. The flash works fine unless you are really wanting to get serious.
The image quality is also very nice too. There is noise at 400 iso and above and it increases as you go up.
With the 25mm pancake the L1 makes a nice street camera.

Similar Products Used:

Olympus 500,510,E3 and Leica M6