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View Full Version : Leica Digilux 2 Review


Suhit Gupta
05-12-2004, 06:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/leicadigilux2/' target='_blank'>http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/leicadigilux2/</a><br /><br /></div>"The Digilux 2 has that distinctive 'box like' appearance of traditional Leica film cameras of old. Looking back through the Leica catalog to me at least the Digilux 2 looks most like the 1984 Leica M6. The entire case is magnesium with a wraparound mottled soft rubber coating. This two-tone look is another Leica visual trademark, as is the red Leica logo and the thick typeset LEICA text directly above the lens. <br /><br />Leica has pulled a very interesting visual trick with the design of the camera's lens which has the appearance of a removable 35 mm lens but is actually a fixed 3.2x wide angle zoom lens. It is a beautiful piece of engineering with a very smooth mechanically linked zoom ring (moving internal elements) and two other semi-locked smooth running rings for control manual focus and aperture."<br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/leicavspanasonic.jpg" /><br /><br />If you are into the whole retro-look for cameras, this one may be for you. "The Leica Digilux 2 was developed in conjunction with Panasonic who have their own version of the camera which has a black body with a molded hand grip, some plastic controls, carries the Panasonic name but is otherwise identical. The most amazing difference is the price, the Panasonic being some $300 cheaper."<br /><br />The Leica Digilux 2 is a 5MP camera capable of taking 30fps 320x240 video clips as well. It has 3x zoom, support for USB 2 and SD cards. It has good manual controls that allow for quick switching into aperture priority, shutter priority or manual focus. However, it is priced at a whopping $1799. 8O You can go for the Panasonic DMC-LC1 (also pictured above) instead if that price is too much, but it doesn't seem like the Panasonic is that much cheaper.