Amarcord: Panasonic Lumix DMC-LC5
Image courtesy: Tanaka.
Unlike Olympus Panasonic has no history of film cameras. Their first cameras were the digital [shoplink 37499 ebay]DMC-LC5[/shoplink] and DMC-F7 released in 2001. The LC5 was (or is) a very nice camera with fixed lens while the DMC-F7 were particularly ugly ([shoplink 37498 ebay]to see here on that eBay auction[/shoplink]). But the real unique features of both cameras were the fact that they used a Leica designed lens. At that time Leica was in huge crisis and maybe Panasonic should have bought Leica :)
The LC-5 had a 3,8 Million Megapixel CCD sensors, a rangefinder look and a built-in optical viewfinder. The major drawback from the camera was that it could take only 1 image every 6 seconds because of the slow processor. Anyway, what you will notice is that the LC5 has the one elegant style that Panasonic keeps reproducing on modern digital cameras. And it may be that the future GX2 or high end compact cameras will look even more like the LC5.
You can read two reviews at DCresource and Steve Digicams. Great camera!
DMC-LC5 auctions on [shoplink 37499 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].