Smartphones have rendered most pocket digital cameras obsolete by now but there's been a resurgence of popularity among the younger end of Gen Z, at least allegedly. I can certainly see the appeal in a disconnected imaging device that's not constantly dinging with notifications. In that spirit I decided to go through some of the vintage digital cameras I have laying around to see how they hold up, especially with modern RAW processing software like Darktable. This is the first in that series, or at least what I hope becomes a series.

The LX3 was a bit of an atypical bridge camera for 2008 with it's f/2.0 lens on the wide end (f/2.8 on the tight end of the zoom). It still had the 1/7" common in other bridge cameras at the time, but Panasonic was one of the first to step back from the megapixel wars and stuck with only 10MP. It was definitely lower noise for the time although these days any recent smartphone will have cleaner output with better dynamic range through things like stacking multiple exposures in software.

The main appeal of this camera to me, besides the disconnected nature, is the fact it has physical buttons and a grip that fits better in the hand than flat smartphone. Having actual optical zoom is nice as well. While I wouldn't run out and buy this camera today, especially if any trends have driven the price above about $20-30 USD, it does OK when put in RAW mode and the files are tweaked in Darktable. For more you can check out my YouTube video here:

Also, here are a few edited photos from the camera. It really does make a decent pocket camera even today. These aren't meant to be the greatest photos ever, just day to day shots.