By Rick Bronks
The much anticipated arrival of a
compact interchangeable autofocus lens camera from Leica has finally happened,
and I got my hands on one for a few weeks. Did I like it? Was it any good? Read
on to find out. Gallery of images at the bottom of this post.
Make no mistake - this is a beautiful
looking piece of kit. It's solid. Really solid and it feels amazing to hold.
It's the camera I want to dearly love, and it seems like an ideal partner for
someone who has a larger DSLR kit and wants a smaller kit as a backup, or
indeed as a second camera if you are already a Leica M shooter (like me). I
thought I'd give my opinions on using it in a 'real life' situation, on a
recent trip I took.
There's a LOT of choice out there at
the moment if you're in the market for a compact system camera- there are some
outstanding models and lenses to be had. So is there space in this crowded
marketplace for the sexy Leica T?
Leica has always been about high
quality- and exacting standards. I am a massive fan of their M rangefinder and
their lenses are some of the best in the world. With this experience it should
only be good news for the new Leica T.
I travelled with the Leica T and the
18 to 56 f3.5-5.6 ASPH Vario-Elmar lens. I wasn't able to check out the faster
23mm f2 ASPH but I quite liked the idea of carrying one camera with a nice zoom
range on the lens and seeing how I got on. I also had the Viewfinder attachment
and an adapter to use my existing M series lenses.
The camera is carved from a single
piece of aluminium - very much like the unibody Apple laptops. Leica caused a
viral stir with their 'most boring ad ever' which features a person hand
polishing the case for 45 minutes. That's Leica. Handmade excellence. Audi have also
had a hand in the design of the camera - and if you were to pick one up you'd
feel how amazing it is.
It has a 16.3 megapixel APS-C sensor
(same as in most consumer DSLR cameras) and the ability to shoot up to 1/4000
of a second.
It also has 16Gb of internal memory-
which is a great idea if you are prone to leave your memory card at home - or
as an emergency 'reserve' if you fill your own card on a shoot. The ISO is from
100 to 12,500 but it was totally unusable at this setting.. I rarely used it at
6400.
I love the fact the camera comes with
a battery charger - but can also be charged via micro USB. I did find it takes
longer via USB but it means that you can keep a cable handy and top up the
battery from pretty much anywhere there is a computer or even a phone charger.
I left it charging overnight and it was fine.
The camera is operated via a very
large rear touch-screen and also a couple of dials that can be assigned to
various functions. There's the usual shutter button and a cute but averagely
powerful pop-up flash. Leica have developed a clever way of attaching a
shoulder strap - there's no traditional lugs but these little posts that clip
into the body, and can be removed using a little tool - the result is that it
keeps the clean lines of the camera when you don't want a strap attached. They
also do a few different and very vibrant colours and snap on cases to match
too. Like this one. In yellow.
There is also Wi-Fi and an associated
app which lets you control the camera from an iPhone or iPad. Nice idea but the
problem I had was that the camera AND your iDevice need to be on the same
physical wireless network to talk to each other - so while I was travelling I
couldn't get the images onto my iPhone because there was no wifi network, which
seemed to defeat the point in having wifi. Other devices use each other to
create the network so it doesn't matter where you are. I think this needs
looking into - because its a nice idea to be able to pull images off the camera
and send them via the phone, but you're more likely to need this feature when
you're travelling. A solution is to use the Apple SD card adapter and just
import the card and images into your
device, but thats not as cool.
The battery pops in underneath and is
quite cool in the way that it forms the base of the camera so there's no flaps
to fiddle with, but the battery slots right into the bottom of the camera much
like pro-DSLR bodies or indeed Leica's own medium format S-system.
I found the screen pretty good in
most light apart from really bright sunlight - but this is common to all
cameras with an LCD. I also had the clip on viewfinder which I used when the
sun was too bright. The electronic viewfinder which also has a built in GPS
(that does drain the battery quite a lot)
The resolution of the viewfinder is
excellent and the refresh rate is good too - so you can frame and shoot with
decent accuracy.
I did get used to the touch screen
after a while - the problem is that we're all used to using iPads and other
touch screens so there's the inevitable comparisons. This screen and the
usability of the interface will never compete with those of Apple - purely
because Leica don't have the massive resources of Apple or Microsoft. They're a
small company who have to pretty much develop from the ground up and not with
huge teams.
You can customise the 'home' screen
with the features you commonly use and re-order them.
The lens is also solidly built. No
plasticy feeling here. It felt good and
the zoom was smooth. The lens hood proved quite effective too.
So what's it like to actually use?
It is great in the hands - I didn't
feel the need to use any grips or cases with zoom attached. The lens wasn't too
heavy and the whole unit felt nicely balanced. In the future with perhaps a
longer lens it may be tricky but right now it's perfectly fine.
Autofocus seemed pretty good in all
but the dimmest of light. I did find the white balance a little slow to change
when I moved from outdoors to indoors. Sometimes I felt it wasn't too sure or
was a little too indecisive. It's not lighting-fast but it's consistent and
fine.
For me the biggest disappointment was
that the camera's useable ISO is no more than 3200 and even then there's a fair
bit of noise in the shadows. I was hoping that because the lens was quite a lot
slower than the usual lenses I shoot with (f14, f2.8), I'd be able to push another couple of stops
out of the camera by upping the ISO to compensate for the f5.6 maximum aperture
at the zoom end on the lens. Alas, I wasn't able to and this was a little
annoying. Even at it's brightest f3.5 I felt myself needing to shunt up the ISO
in an averagely lit room.
I started trying to use the camera as
a more manual camera - and wasn't getting on with it at all. I'm not convinced
this is what Leica had in mind with this unit. I popped the ISO into auto mode
and never allowed it to max out more than 3200 ISO.
Once I did this I found it a lot more
pleasurable to use. I tended to use P mode most of the time and let the camera
figure out the settings -it was quicker and less fiddling on the screen, so I
missed less shots.
I did use Aperture Priority by
setting one dial to be my F-stop controller and the other as exposure
compensation. I left the camera on auto focus and auto ISO.
At the moment Apple haven't updated
their OS to be able to read the RAW files so I knew I was going to have a bit
of a round-trip to get the images into my image editor (Aperture). I shot RAW
and JPEG fine and the picture settings I had set to all neutral.
I found the neutral settings ok - did
find the skin tones a little pale but nice enough and smooth. The colours were
good but not overly rich and fake.
I was using Aperture to edit the
JPEGS and actually found them amazingly robust. For the shots in this review I
actually exported the RAW files using Photoshop's Raw editor then saving as
TIFF files then re-imported into Aperture.
This let me pull some more details
from the RAW files than using the JPEGS but I don't think the difference is
massive - but it's certainly better using the RAW/TIFF converted files. I am
sure that editing the images natively once they are able to be read by OSX that
this process will be a lot better.
I have to admit I was impressed with
the images once I was using the TIFF
files. The colour is good and there's a heck of a lot of detail.
In good light the lens performed like
a champ. Once you're in a low light environment you're going to be in bother.
This what what infuriated me about this - that this wasn't the all-rounder I
really wanted it to be.. once indoors it was a bit of a struggle to get a
decent shot. I'm not talking pitch black here.. just what I would call normal
early evening light indoors. Perhaps a little window light and some artificial
light. I was shooting wide most of the time to keep the aperture at 3.5 but at
anything more than 3200ISO it was pretty poor in terms of grain and noise. Spot
metering helped me get a decent shot of the singer you can see above.
With the 23mm lens at f2 this may not
be so much an issue- but it was disappointing I couldn't really push up the ISO
past 3200.
When I travel I like to shoot video
too - Video shooting on my M240 is quite tricky handheld, so I usually throw my
RX100M2 into the bag to use as a point and shoot and also for video clips. I
was excited to use the T for both stills and video. If it performed then I'd be
even more excited about it's possibilities.
Unfortunately the video quality was
just about ok. I was shooting in 1080p the whole time and whilst it was good,
it wasn't anywhere near as good as my small RX100M2. The colours are a little
washed out and the images looked over-sharpened. Don't get me wrong - its not
'bad' but it's just not up to my standards and I was a little disappointed. For
most people though I am almost certain it would be fine- and looks good (not
excellent) on a 48inch LED TV.
Conclusion
The Leica T is a fine looking camera
that is capable of taking very good images. Leica have firmly placed their feet
into the CSC (compact system camera) market with a potentially exciting
product. The touchscreen is very nice too - and although the interface and
operation may not be as finessed as other devices it's very useable.
The additional viewfinder has a good
screen and is helpful for framing in sunlight or using as a 'brace' when
shooting video. It also adds GPS if you want to log your travels- but be
prepared to carry a spare battery.
The camera produced a good JPEG out of
camera and they're quite robust in editing if (like me) the system can't read
the DNG files it produces as it's RAW output.
Video quality is 'ok' if not a little
disappointing, and the 18-56mm lens is a little on the slow side.
The ability to use M lenses means
that you can perhaps start your foray into the world of Leica at a much more
friendly price point and then perhaps graduate to their Rangefinders once
you've saved enough!
What's for certain is that this is a
very interesting camera. Albeit with disappointing performance at high ISO's.
I want to love it.. but not quite
yet.
Rick Bronks writes about himself:
I am all about great images and
stories.
My work has a strong narrative, with
elements of lifestyle.
I am firmly established as one of the
leading photographers in the live events world.
I am a qualified member of the BIPP
(British Institute of Professional Photography) and a certified European
Photographer.
My professional career began with
eight years working in TV, producing national TV shows as well as documentaries
and award shows for SKY TV.
I learnt how to shoot with broadcast
cameras and edit video. I am an Apple Certified Professional in their industry
standard editing and motion graphics applications.
My background in TV enables me to
offer my clients a video production service alongside stills photography. I am
able to shoot both stills and video at an event and turn the content around
very quickly.
Member of the British Institute of
Professional Photography & Federation of European Photographers
Good report. It seems the only issues Mr. Bronks has are the relatively low maximum ISO and the video performance. The Leica T appears to be a very good, very solid camera.
ReplyDeleteI don't care about the video performance, I doubt that I would ever use it, and if so, I am sure the results would far exceed my needs. I can't argue with the ISO shortcoming. Although, if I think back to my film days, ISO above 3000 was extremely fast then and I got along without that high a speed virtually all of the time. I wonder if these high ISO values are not overestimated in their importance.
DeleteI am inclined to agree with you on the high ISO issue. In the film days, my favorite film was Agfapan APX 25 and Ilford XP-2 Super. I only shot the Ilford when I couldn't get along with the ISO 25 of the Agfapan. I used a similar approach with color films. However, I must say that in some situations it makes life a lot easier to be able to shoot at rather high ISO settings. But I do question super high ISO settings as they are offered by some companies. I just cannot fathom ever needing settings of 150 or 250 thousand. The again, I haven't needed to shoot black cats in a coal mine yet.
DeleteShouldn't Leica have made the zoom for the Leica T a bit faster to prevent these criticisms?
ReplyDeleteI don't think so. Let's not forget that the Leica T is a very compact camera with a compact line of lenses. Making a lens, any lens, faster will automatically mean an increase in size. Had Leica done that, they would now be criticized for making too large a lens for a compact system camera. This is a case of damned if you do and damned if you don't.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it very wasteful to mill the camera body out of a solid chunk of aluminum? What do they do with all the milled out leftovers?
ReplyDeleteNot at all. The shavings are being recycled.
DeleteGermany has some very strict recycling and garbage disposal laws.
DeleteDidn't Hasselblad mill the 500 C series cameras out of a solid block of aluminum also?
ReplyDeleteAs far as I know, that is correct. They didn't hand polish the camera bodies though, they used to tumble the bodies in a drum with crushed walnut shells for several hours.
ReplyDelete