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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].
17 Responses
Is this camera a rumour?
I appreciate the confirmed rumours, the news, the special discounts at some dealers, but this site is talking about everything besides rumours, and now even nostalgic stuff. It seems it should at least stay with the most current things, if not rumours. Otherwise, please have different tabs, headings, or pages, so that we don’t have to keep reading irrelevant things. I believe most people come here to find out about the absolute latest things, news, even if unsubstantiated (rumours) and not to talk about some Brownie camera blah blah.
I know, they could call them “Rumors” “News” “Reviews” and “Deals” and put something like “Posted in Reviews” at the top of each post indicating to which category it belonged.
Remind us why we should care? Meanwhile…. OM to m43 speedbooster released?
Booo hiisss etc…. where’s my pitchfork at>? 🙂 just kidding
Wow, Harsh crowd. Actually I love reading about these cameras. I was was just playing around today with the Canon G2, still takes great pictures.
Admin – actually Panasonic (Matsushita at the time) does have a history of film cameras. Mostly they did business as an OEM for some relatively well-made point-and-shoot 35mm cameras. This is reasonably well established though rarely publicized, similar to their (much larger) business as the world’s leading OEM of photographic flash units (Speedlites, Speedlights, classic Vivitar and many other brand flashes, including btw the current Olympus flashes).
For example the Leica “Mini” series, Minolta Freedom Escort, some Vivitar cameras and the own-branded Panasonic C-C-625AF were Matsushita-sourced film cameras. I have heard of others in the pre-digital point-and-shoot category, but I don’t know how extensive the product line was; these sourcing agreements are not usually disclosed.
Please continue posting interesting older camera tidbits when you have them; some of us are interested and are not afraid of extra information.
I think Matshushita is the concern and Panasonic(Like Technics for example) was one of the many brands under that main label. So it was prob another brand who did the film gear at that time.
Ulli, I’m not sure I understand your comment or conclusion. Panasonic was the most well-known worldwide brand of Matsushita Electric, until 2008 when the corporation changed its name to Panasonic Corporation. Prior to that, Japanese domestic products were branded with the name “National”; that name is now abandoned.
Technics (for audio) and now Lumix (for cameras) are sub-brands under Panasonic, starting well before Panasonic became the top-level corporate name.
By the way Matsushita->Panasonic is a huge company with nearly 300,000 employees, about twice as many as Sony for example. (Both have been fighting losses as we know).
It does seem that Matsushita manufactured the mentioned cameras though possibly in one of their non-Japanese factories. This shouldn’t be surprising at all; the technology for these was simpler than in their well-established video cameras and camcorders. Of course, like everyone else, Matsushita/Panasonic was and is willing to source parts and sub-assemblies from elsewhere. Possibly the lenses at that time (early 1990s) were sourced elsewhere. But they have been more supplier than buyer for many years, and they are justifiably proud of their modern lens-making facility in Japan that started up with simple CD-pickup optics in the mid-1980s.
Interestingly, the “National” brand is still going in some markets. I live in Qatar, I can can go and buy a “National” transistor radio or wall fan anytime….
That is interesting. I thought it was gone – I just did a quick search and this Wikipedia entry says it is “defunct”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_(brand)
You just need a sock, to put in it…
3.8 million MP? Damn, that camera was ahead of its time! 😀
I had a look at one of the links provided, plus the DPReview announcement of the camera: it was supposedly capable of 4 frames per second in an 8 frame burst?
compactcamerarumors.com
yes…Panasonic should have bought 50% of shares in Leica …
I like to think Admin is telling us something when he digs up a camera from the past. Perhaps he has a FT1 rumor regarding a Leica branded fixed lens Panasonic?
Reminds me of my black Canon G2, also from that time.
Wow, an oldie but sorta-goodie. This camera had a bit of controversy associated with it’s image processing (everyone called it ‘posterization effect’.) There was an alternate firmware that was tested with some users (such as myself) but never officially released, that improved images IMO. I still have some large prints from this camera that look pretty good, and it definitely looked cool. For quite a few years, I would get emails every couple months from people looking for the firmware (I had posted before and afters on my old PBase account), but since I had to actually send the camera to Panasonic for the firmware, I couldn’t help people.