Leica C-LUX 1

Opinion: A beauty.

That's why you buy it.

It's the design.

Very good handling. And PS4E included, that is a very good idea. Anti-Shake is a must for a small cam like the C-Lux. 28mm are a pleasure to use for composing.

The whole cam is fun to use.

Opinion: Solid little camera except for the battery compartment hatch. Menus simple and fonts easy to read without reading glasses. Nice little package.

Opinion: The short review….. I LOVE this little camera. I never imagined anything so small
performing so well. Though, small can be an issue if your an oger and used to
balancing an SLR with a 70-200mm lens on the end of your nose. I mean… it’s
small.

The settings are pretty straight forward, though there are some pre-programmed
settings that are pretty impressive. How about a pre-set for food? Or night scenery…
or even Self Portratit. And guess what? They work. It’s Pictbridge compatible, has
expanded ISO settings up to 1600 and shutter speeds from 8 to 1/2000 sec.

I was a little put off by the lack of a viewfinder… though, I quickly got over it. The
LCD screen is huge… and it has two brightness settings and an unusal setting that
helps view it when you are shooting with the camera overhead. The screen is very
clear and exceptionally birght. And the optional grid feature you can deploy is great
for keeping horizons straight or employing the rule of thirds.

The camera is feature packed. I’m sure there are folks who’d like more zoom… and
maybe manual overides etc. etc. But, hey…. it’s a point n’ shoot. And that’s what I
wanted. I wanted a small camera that takes great pictures that can stay in my
pocket or carry-on. More importantly, I wanted a small camera that would provide
image quality that would live up to pro-standards if the need arises. To me, there’s
nothing worse than having a great shot only to find out, the image quality won't
support a large print or other channel of publsihing. This camera passes that test
with flying colors.

The first images I downloaded blew me away. The Leica lens fully lives up to the
Leica reputation. Crisp, clear, sharp and wonderful color. At 6 megapixels, you can
do anything you want with the image. They’re really that good.

Battery life has been excellent. The 64mb SD card the camera ships with is useless.
I’m guessing a 512mb will probably match up with the battery life for 200-300
images at the best quality setting. Speaking of the battery, the charger is a simple
wall mount, the battery is the size of a compact flash card but about 1/4 inch thick.
There is a current promotion for a leather case and extra batttery. It’s a nice case
protecting the camera… but it doesn’t hold any accessories. I found that not to be
an issue.. since there are no accessories.

Ok… so it has a movie mode and audio mode.. I haven’t played with those features
since they hold no interest to me. I want great stills. This camera gives me that.

Two weeks into my ownership, I’m enamored with this camera. I keep it with me
and have even trusted it to family outings. It’s everything I want. And it’s so simple
to use, my four-yearold was running around taking everyone’s picture at a July 4th
celebration.

Like past Leica consumer cameras, this model is also available as a Panasonic/Lumix
at a savings of $100 or so. Plus the Lumix is available in colors, whereas the Leica
just silver or black. I opted for the black.

So there you have it…. a great little camera, a fabulous lens, beautiful image and all
the features you need.

Opinion: I've owned this camera around 1,5 years now and I've shot a few thousand images with it. I hesitated about buying this camera first, because of the lack of manual control. This, however, turned out to be no problem at all. With such a tiny sensor, you usually get everything sharp, no matter what aperture setting you use. So, the camera may just as well select it for me, then. In macro mode, the camera usually selects the widest aperture, which I really like.

The strong points of this camera:

- Portability: it's really small; I carry it anywhere.
- Build quality: not your average plastic digicam, but full-metal sturdy ultra-compact quality build.
- Image stabilizer: simply put, it just works and lets you shoot at shutter speeds of around 1/4th of a second hand-held.
- Macro mode: focusses at around 4 cm distance; great for shooting mushrooms (a hobby of mine).
- Lens sharpness: at least in the center, the lens is nicely sharp.
- Zoom range: 28mm is very nice, 102mm is more than enough for my type of shooting.
- Looks: really cool camera to look at:)

The weak points of this camera:

- Noise reduction: only ISO 80 in good light gives you good image quality. Luckily, the stabilizer increases the chance that you get away with ISO 80. But even at ISO 80 the noise reduction, which cannot be switched off, can be horrible: it just washes out complete parts of the image, leaving something that doesn't even come close to showing any detail:(
- Corner softness: at the widest settings, corner softness is really visible.
- Macro mode only allows shutter speeds of 1 second or faster.

Not the noise, but the noise *reduction* is by far the greatest problem of this camera. If it would have a RAW mode, for instance, you could get some pretty stunning images with it. I prefer noise over detail smearing.