Glad to see this had a good ending and cooler heads prevailed.

What I really like on the X1 is the control scheme. Not many compact cameras have nice manual controls and the X1 looks good here. Even before Kirk Tuck wrote his article about a new strategy for buying cameras I decided to spend more of my money on lenses. If this was a m4/3s lens I probably would of spend extra money on it. I've really wanted a nice manual control scheme on a compact camera. I probably would of spent a bit extra just to get it in a m4/3s body. No matter how good the lens is, I'm not spending $2000 dollars on it if I can't move it to another body. Digital has come a long way and cameras now are high quality, but it's still moving very quickly. I'm sure some will still be shooting with a X1 years from now, but the technology will be eclipsed in two years. AF would still be an issue, but I wonder how the X1's reception would have been if Oly's 17mm had been a great lens rather than a so-so one.

Do you have a link for amazon.co.jp?

I'd really like to see j/k as next and previous messages. it's a lot less finger twisting and it's a fairly common standard. especially for vi users. I believe gmail and reader use that as standard too. Anyway, very welcome improvements.

"If the camera relies on software to correct lens distortion, is it going to be fully compatible with other manufacturers' micro 4/3 lenses? Hard to see Olympus being in a rush to tell it how much adjustment is needed for a Panasonic lens." This information is part of the lens firmware and passed to the camera, so it should work fine no matter what combination of body and lens you use.

Great pictures! I love the write up too. I wish I could write half as well. Hope you learned a lot and I'll be looking forward to your pictures in the future. -Charles

I have to say I'm confused about which Leica too. In particular would you recommend something without a light meter, or with? (M3/4 vs M6, as an example) I've been interested in RF cameras for a while and this is finally pushing me over the edge. There are a lot more variations between the cameras then I expected and picking one is difficult.

I'd like to hear your half dozen reasons. :) Do you agree with the other posters that it needs to be a manual camera? I haven't really shot manual before. Is other equipment required, or should the camera have specific features?