I am in Tokyo this week and had the pleasure of visiting the Photo Expo 2002 event. A lot of activity, many many people visiting.

I stopped by the Leica booth and they had both the Leica M7 and the Digilux 1 there, so I got to play with both of them for a little bit.

There's not much to say about the M7 that hasn't already been said. The most important thing to say is "big deal, it got an electronic shutter and aperture priority AE." Most any way I fooled with it, it's simply the same as my M6TTL. I like the on/off switch, I like the ap-AE, I like the electronic shutter. If the rangefinder doesn't flare as much, that's a plus. Nice job.

The Digilux 1 was interesting to me. They put a very nice LCD on it and it feels remarkably good in the hand considering it looks like a brick. (I always did love the Argus C3... :) The optical viewfinder is ok, nothing to rave about. I presume it will take a good picture. I played with the Panasonic sibling too and found it to be excellent as well, but it takes some new weird form factor memory media.

I stopped by the Minox and Sharan booths too, I love the Sharan replica miniatures. The new Hasselblad SWC is to die for.

Otherwise, there wasn't much that I hadn't seen already. Tomorrow, I'll head up to Akihabara and see what I can find in consumer electronics toys that will be new and different...

Godfrey

-- Godfrey (ramarren@bayarea.net), March 23, 2002

Answers

mmm...Akihabara... *drool*

-- Dexter Legaspi (dalegaspi@hotmail.com), March 23, 2002.