Latecomer encourages a passion for good pics

By PETER GRIFFIN

Panasonic's DMC-LC5 Lumix comes from the top end of the digital camera range. On the outside it looks similar to professional shooters of old, with its chunky, black body, gaping lens and abundance of buttons and knobs.

The LC5 is more expensive than its kid brother, the F7, it weighs more and does not quite have the same sexy body - but it is packed with enough features to give the wannabe pro plenty to work with.

For starters, it is a 4 megapixel camera giving greater detail and crispness. And Panasonic, although late into the digital camera space, has teamed up with Leica, a German company known for top-notch lenses. Behind the glazed eye is an array of delicate technology gently whirring away.

Variable resolution allows you to choose how quickly you want to fill your SD card - the LC5 comes with a 32MB card.

Pics solely for the web or destined for your electronic photo bank will look okay at 640 by 480 pixels. But if you're printing you need to break the 1 megapixel barrier (you can go to 2240 x 1680).

An inbuilt speaker and record function allows you to dub audio over your stills - or go the whole hog and take clips of video with a soundtrack.

The camera also comes with an A/V outlet which means you can gather around the TV with friends and family for a slideshow - if your enthusiasm stretches that far.

The LC5 comes with the flexibility of manual focus (you can twist the lens to suit). And a "Macro" setting lets you take shots of things really close up - arty subjects such as insects or dew on leaves.

So-called mega-burst shooting (at four frames a second) is perfect for fast-paced sporting events.

My favourite feature of the LC5 is the 2 1/2in LCD screen which allows you to line up a shot easily without squinting into the camera's eye piece, even if it does suck battery power a tad quicker.

Selling for around $2300, the LC5 is for moneyed amateurs with a passion for good pics. In the 4 megapixel band it sits beside Canon's PowerShot G2, the Olympus Camedia C-4040 Zoom and the Sony Cyber Shot DSC-S85.

After fiddling with the LC5 for a couple of weeks, sliding through the settings and on-screen menus became second nature and my camera phobia evaporated.

That developed after being trapped for two hours in the world's biggest camera shop, Tokyo's Big Camera, where a chorus of Japanese schoolgirls screamed "biggu biggu biggu big camera!" over and over.