LX3

Panasonic announced the LX3. Major upgrades to the LX2. F2.0 24-60 lens, larger CCD, wide angle conversion lens and available external viewfinder.

I love my LX2 but will admit the images are way too noisy. Looks like a huge upgrade. Considering several manufactures offer housings for the LX2, the apparently much better LX3 may become a player in the UW camera market.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0807/08072102panasoniclx3.asp

I wonder if Ikelite could get it into this housing?

http://ikelite.com/web_two/nik_l18.html

Like you, I am also interested in the LX3. I called Ikelite and they told me no Panasonics. Let's hope they change their minds. A housing with a dome port would have been great.

I talked with Roger at Ikelite about the LX2. He said they would consider a housing if enough people requested one.

If this camera is as good as the Panasonic press release implies it could be a good choice for UW use. Considered that UK Germany and Époque made housings for the LX2, It seems likely that someone will make a housing. Two other things I noted. The new model has a hotshoe and they claim a shutterlag of .005 sec.

Aquatica and Subal made housings for the CP 5000. I would guess that they didn't sell well due to the camera's shutter lag problem. This new camera has a similar wide angle lens, wide angle conversion lens, and macro capacity. If they solved the noise problems like they claim to have they may have a winner. It wouldn't be hard to imagine a housing not much different in size from that of the Nikonos V.

Great news, this camera has built in opitcal earthquake.

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=ht...en&ie=UTF-8

Scroll down near the bottom.

Optical earthquake is superior to digital earthquake, by at least 1.5 aftershocks !

And yes, the LX3 looks like an interesting camera. Looking forward to playing with one. Photokina is about 2 months away I think. Lot's of new cameras should be coming out soon.

I've tested one & it's great. I'm actually contemplating on getting one once the Panasonic underwater housing is out for this model. It has an F2.0 Leica lens!!! And the FZ28 is not bad at all too!