Jon Sienkiewicz Blog

Last weekend I stopped into a busy electronics store to check out their holiday camera selection. They are part of a regional chain—not a national big box store—with salespeople who are knowledgeable and well known for their aggressive helpfulness. I had a Panasonic LX3 hanging from a strap around my neck but stuffed half-way into an inside jacket pocket in such a way that it barely peeked out. I wasn’t hiding it exactly; I was keeping it from banging around as I walked.

The sales guy spotted it at once. “Is that an LX3?” he asked, nodding toward the bulge in my jacket. I told him yes and his smile broadened. “That’s a very cool camera!” he exclaimed.

I think this the first time I’ve ever had a sales person admire the camera I brought into a store. Especially a store that’s known to have sales people who’d rather lunch on roofing nails than let a customer leave the store without buying something. It’s common to hear some lame line about how cool the camera they’re selling is, but it’s remarkable that this person identified the camera at a glance.

It is a cool camera. Whisper “24mm f2 lens” to any photo hobbyist and they’ll salivate. There’s more to a Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3 than the Leica lens—much more—but the lens alone is enough to justify owning one.