For me, this is the exciting camera of those just announced by Leica. The M9 and S2 were pretty much known commodities before the official announcement. The X1 seems to be a true successor of the M legacy - a small, unobtrusive camera with high specifications. And it's being built by Leica - it's not a Panasonic copycat. If they can keep the price below two grand it should sell like hotcakes.

Michael
I take it from the pictures that an OVF is an optional add on. Is it physically (or fiscally) impossible to have an OVF built into a large sensor mirrorless digital camera?

There are now five "nearly pocketable" cameras with DSLR size sensors, the Sigma DP1 and DP2, Olympus EP1, Panasonic GF1 and Leica X1, and they all have something else in common: no viewfinder built-in, only an LCD and optional accessory OVF or EVF.

It seems that building in any kind of adequate VF into these sleek, small bodies is very difficult, despite smaller compacts having them, but I am not sure why.

- Is it the fact that the lens, sensor and the optical cavity between them overall takes up a lot more volume inside the camera body that in smaller sensor compacts, so these bodies actually have less room left over than some compacts for a worthwhile built-in VF?

- Is it the goal of "sleekness": that a VF of adequate performance would be require a lump on top, as in the G1?

- Is it a judgement that a large proportion of potential customers will be comfortable with the "two-eyed" (rear screen) composition tool, and prefer the reduced bulk achieved by omitting a "one-eyed" VF?

- Or something else?


Olympus has hinted at its next m4/3 body having an EVF without being much bigger than the EP1 ... but maybe that will be an accessory as on the GF1.

230K screen. Fixed slow lens. $2K.

No thanks.

I have not seen an X1 price yet, but I agree that the Panasonic GF1 with 20/1.7 should easily win on low light performance (and shallow DOF options) while giving about the same FOV and pixel count, so the Leica lens magic will have to be powerful. (And ironically the Panasonic but not the Leica can use the "Leica" 45/2.8 macro lens for m4/3.)

Sean Reid writes it is designed by Leica and built in Japan.



Update : I just wanted to add that I went back today, 1 octobre '09, to Sean's review, part one, and he has changed it to read '...designed by Leica and made in germany'...

not sure when he changed it...

$2,000 (USD?) for a fixed-lens, 12 MP, APC sensor point-and-shoot with only an Elmarit Lens, not even a Vario-Summicron as on the D-Lux 4? This must be someone's idea of a joke.

That's not what the Leica man said in the televised announcement.

Looks like leica's poor history with p&s cameras is set to continue.

Hmm... fixed lens, 12MP, no built-in OVF, APS-C sensor, and the same price as a full-frame, 24.5MP Sony A850 DSLR (with no lens of course)? I'll take the Sony. Each has different purposes of course, but there are cheaper options than the Leica out there.

I agree completely. The time honored tradition of over pricing continues at Leica but the market has changed and may not support it.

I've owned and shot Leicas. I loved them, but moved on and never regretted the features and diversity I gained for the same money with another brand.

For the me the fixed lens is the downfall of the X1.

I've worked with a lot of Panasonic professional gear over the last 20 years and it's always been top quality and extremely dependable. If they can build it to Leica's specs I see no reason to believe it's inferior.

I do completely agree : the few fixed-focal film compacts I owned last millenium had all a big (but not so bulky) and clear Galileo finder.
I understand such a finder may not be realistic with a zoom, but with a fixed focal?

Oh, but after all it's not that much of a problem...

DPreview says the entire body is made of metal, but what about the fixed lens? plastic or metallic?

BR

Anyone remember the Leica Minilux Zoom, it came out some years ago and some time after the fix-focal 40/2.4 Minilux
… black Titanium body, Bogner edition, 35mm-FF-film-sensor .

One of my all-time most used cameras, even though it was already manufactured by Panasonic.

Well yes, this Red-dot-thing. Expensive but inspiring.

Peter

--

Good point. The m4/3 designers have a pass but for the Sigma DP1 and DP2 and the Leica X1, the point might be that those film cameras *needed* an OVF, but for the digital compacts, the LCD makes a peep-hole VF at least somewhat less essential, and so it gets sacrificed to further size reduction.

First of all it's not that slow. A 2.8 Leica lens is generally the equivalent of a 1.4 by anyone else because you have to stop them down 2 stops before they get usable. Leica lenses are usable wide open.

It seems likely that it has the Nikon 12Mp sensor. The same one as the D90. So that means completely usable up to ISO3200.

For this type of camera that should be just fine. 1/30s, ISO3200, F2.8. Heck that's good enough for me, and about 2.5 stops better than I can get with my usual film setup.

If the lens is right then this camera will produce wonderful A4 and pretty decent A3 prints. That's really all I need. I have found that the move from a 5D to 5D2 has gained me very little. I simply don't need those extra pixels. (The upgrade has been worth it in other ways though.)

If I can make the adjustment from 50mm-e to 36mm-e then I may not need the M9 after all. $2000 is pretty cheap compared to the cost of an M9 with even one Leica lens. I am definitely in the market for an X1 or an M9, the X1 might be good enough.

A better way to say that is that other f/1.4 lenses (even primes?) are in your opinion effectively limited to f/2.8 as performance is so bad at larger apertures, and other f/2.8 lenses are effectively useful only at f/5.6 or slower. Maybe, but it seems a gross generalization to claim that every other lens maker trails a full two stops behind Leica in performance at and near maximum aperture.


I think you mean the Sony Exmor 12MP sensor: Sony claims it as its own with no reference to Nikon input as far as I can see, and I have not seen any Nikon claim to this sensor's design:
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/technology/te...me/cmos_01.html

The main problem is for me manual focus operation. It is not practical on the X1.

Two suggestions easily doable by firmware programming:

1. Ricoh's manual focus system:

You can pre-select three distances (1m, 3m, 5m) and pressing a button or turning the wheel you will jump from one of these pre-selected distances to the next. A variant is a button which would leads to the hyperfocal distance, for your selected aperture.

2. Clasical DoF markings simulation:

On the LCD you get a line with the distance scale (from 0 to infinity). Then, a mark points to the selected focus distance, AND two additional marks (at the left and to the right) point to the limits of the DoF for the selected aperture and distance. In this way you can select a hyperfocal distance, or a particular DoF range (for instance, from 1m to 5m). Then, turn the LCD off and make pictures.

Leica should adopt one or the two solutions for a fast manual focus operation without LCD or viewfinder assistance, just like you can do with lenses with DoF markins.

Yes that's what I meant. If I can't commit gross generalisations on internet forums where can I?



Yes, that's what I meant. If I can't commit gross errors of fact on internet forums where can I?

In any event you understood me perfectly. An f2.8 lens with a sensor capable of good results at high ISO is not necessarily a deal killer for the X1. It could still be a pretty sweet camera.

Agreed. I expect there are many like me for whom an aperture faster than f/2.8 is mostly a last resort, accepting less DOF than desired too get enough speed. With the good high ISO speed performance of that sensor (whoever designed it!), I would rarely want to go beyond f/4. Though with IS, this would be even more true!

I had only two hopes for the X1. None came trough, though.

1: Optical Wiewfinder. How hard can this be??? The Canon G-series has it. Small, inadequate, but its there.
With a zoom lens. Now, how hard is it to put an optical wievfinder on an fixed focal length camera, with a
lamp for autofocus??? Its been done for years and years in P&S cameras with zoom.
Why not on a fixed focal camera???

2. Fixed lens. This might seem odd, but the "switch on and extend lens"-process is not unobtrusive.
And discreet should be the X1's primary area of excellence. And it doesent even look good.

Why can nobody give us:
Fixed focal lenght at ca 35 mm.
Just a fixed, ultra sturdy lens barrel/lens.
Speedy "quieter than wet wool" switch on-action.
Crisp, crisp and crisp shutter action.
OVF, for extremely quick framing.
Fast autofocus.
Decent ISO performance.
Pocket size.
AND finally: prices this side of NASA budgets.

Anyone give me this and I'll fork out a couple of thousand, easily.
But not the X1.

Hi,

I can answer the AF-question in part.

SLR-s have special devices for autofocus illumiate by a beam splitter under the mirror. So the mirror projects the image on a special device, similar to a split image device. On mirrorless design there is no natural way to use an AF-device, because it essentially needs a mirror so they need to use contrast detection, which is very accurate, flexible and... slow.

Panasonic seems to get it working decently, so it is clearly not impossible.

Best regards
Erik

I quote myself to issue a possible correction:

I have since read that the X1 might in fact have IS; several people claim to have seen it in the menus. But if so, it is strange how little Leica has said about that. As low profile as the recently announced Olympus E-600.


P. S. To autgard: an OVF is available as an accessory for the X1, as in this photo:
http://a.img-dpreview.com/news/0909/Leica/...inhand1-001.jpg

But not built-in: Leica has joined Sigma [DP1,DP2], Olympus [E-P1], Panasonic [GF-1] in judging that most customers for "large sensor digital compacts" prefer the size reduction of having only a single built-in "composing tool", as all four companies offer only a LCD built-in, with an EVF or OVF as an optional accessory.

Thing is that if you aren't going to offer a decent OVF then you need at least to provide a modern screen which the X1 does not have. One reviewer has already stated that you will need the optional viewfinder for shooting outdoors in bright light. Why anyone would pay $2000 for that level of build in 2009 is beyond me.

Thanks for the pointer. However, I believe it doesn't have a focus confirmation light.
(possibly a beep). The speed of framing and composing will be good with the OFV in the pictures.

The Olympus EP-1 reason for having detatchable OVF is that the camera has interchangable lenses.

Why the Sigma and Panasonic GF-1 has detatchable EVF's?? I agree with PJL, is probably space issues??
Maybe price issues? Rumors of a GF-2 with an integrated EVF has popped up around the net, so we will see.

/news/0909/Leica/...inhand1-001.jpg[/url]

... and...

The menus are a little complex. Not as simple and clean than those of the M8/M9. It is some odd mix of the menus of a Panasonic and the M8. Too many "direct access" buttons (at the left of the screen, on the 4 buttons into the wheel...). A simpler and cleaner design would have been better.

The letters and numbers on the wheels and buttons are painted, not engraved. I don't like that on the buttons' surface either. It is a better solution to have it engraved on the camera's surface, in the space between buttons, avoiding erosion due to use.

I think its more like the original Barnack "Ur" cameras. Fixed lens, small form factor and meant to be taken on a hike.