Leica D-Lux 5 December 2010

The Leica D-Lux 5 is the successor to the Leica D-Lux 4. The new version of the top-end bridge camera features a 10.1Mp sensor, and a 3.8x optical zoom that starts at a wide 24mm and extends to a 90mm telephoto.

The camera's also capable of grasping HD video at 720p resolution, which can be written to an SD memory card (along with the still images) in the memory-efficient AVCHD format.

Leica D-Lux 5 first look video review

The D-Lux 5 has a large 2.0 aperture for a camera of this class, which can be used to effectively blur the backgrounds or foregrounds of images if desired.

On the rear of the camera is a 3-inch LCD for shot composition and reviewing, but should you want to compose shots through a viewfinder, then an electronic one can be mounted to the hot shoe mount on the top of the camera. The same fitting can be used for an external flash, however both accessories can't be used at the same time. The camera comes with a built in flash too.

Full manual shooting

The camera features aperture and shutter speed priority modes alongside its full manual control settings. The ISO can be set to a maximum sensitivity of 12,800 - although not at full resolution. According to Leica the camera can capture a photograph every 2.5 seconds in its regular shooting mode.

The model is very similar to the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5. The differences include the on-screen menu layout, and the Panasonic model has a more pronounced finger grip. The internal image processing is likely to be slightly different too.

The Panasonic LX5 performed very well in our tests, and we expect the Leica to do so too. We aim to have a full results of the Leica D-Lux 5 in our bridge camera reviews in January 2011.