Anybody own a Panasonic DMC-LX3?

[claredin]

I've owned many, many cameras, starting with the Epson PhotoPC 700 and 850Z to my current set of cameras, which includes a Nikon D300, a D40, an F100, and a PowerShot SD1000 (which I will sell soon on ebay). I'm used to using a lens like the 17-55mm f/2.8 on my Nikons and I shoot a lot of club pics for my weekly parties so when I heard that the LX3 was coming out, I was overjoyed with the possibility of taking more ambient light pics. The more I play with my LX3 the more I say "where have you been all my life?" I now consider almost all compact cameras to be pieces of garbage. I've had a love/hate relationship with the four PowerShots I've owned for a long time. The LX3 just blows them all away, especially when it comes to taking indoor pics with no flash. The image stabilizer gives you a good chance of getting reasonably sharp ambient light pics most of the time. Now, here's the funny thing. I think the built-in flash really sucks and it messes with the white balance and blows out the highlights. I've tried lowering the flash brightness, but I think I really need to diffuse it with tissue or translucent tape. I try not to use the flash at all. I reserve flash use with my Nikons.

The LX3 will NEVER replace my SLRs, but it does what it does really well, so much so that I find it really fun to use because it's so small and lightweight. I heard and read that a lot of photographers are going ape over the dynamic b&w mode, which really gives you contrasty film grain quality images. I've been experimenting with that mode and the corresponding color mode and find that both are really fun modes to work in.