A second glance: two takes on the Leica X

17 Nov 2014 • dpreview.com

One of the big selling points of this camera is its fastest-in-class Summilux 23mm f/1.7 lens. Yes, it does open up to f/1.7, but in the interest of sharpness, the camera decides for you whether f/1.7 is appropriate, without any option to override. At closest focus the lens is limited to f/2.8, and gradually opens up until f/1.7 is hit at roughly five feet (1.5m). What we have here is the world’s first 23mm f/1.7-2.8 lens.

Yuck. Seriously?

While shooting our test scene we tried everything we could to trick the camera in to letting us shoot at 12,800. We turned the lights down all the way and closed the aperture to f/16, but the camera would override that decision and shoot at f/9 at ISO 6400, to ensure we could not use its lowest-quality ISO setting. Leica was the king of analog, so having a camera that makes decisions instead of the photographer is the antithesis of what I expect shooting a Leica should feel like.

So don’t buy this camera if you want to actually take control of your exposures like you can on most every other non-PaS camera out there.