Let me wrap up the saga of my first acquaintance with my Leica X-U - Lili - before turning to other subjects.
In this post I want to cover areas of possible concern. Can Lili face the music and dance? Does she hold her head up, or does she crumple?
First, the consequences of having only one focal length, 23mm. Which, as Lili has an APS-C sensor with a 1.5 crop factor, means that her lens is effectively the equivalent of a 35mm full-frame lens. And there is no zoom. I have to work with just that 35mm focal length, and no other. Is it possible?
Well, yes. I took a lot of pictures from 1973 to 1989, using only a 38mm lens, and found it could handle most subjects, although it couldn't focus on anything close, so had nil macro ability. Lili's '35mm' lens is also not a macro lens. But look. I can get in near enough to secure close-ups that are 'macro' if magnified. Such as these.
Good enough for many purposes, I'd say.
What about telephoto capability? Well, bridging distance by 'digital zooming' is certainly a possibility, just as a newer camera by Leica, the Q2, is intended to do 'digital zooming' with its 28mm lens. In other words, by cropping the 35mm image, and making a smaller one, which brings the remaining picture 'closer'. (It also enlarges the remaining pixels, so that sharpness is less, although up to a point you don't notice)
So take any scene shot at 35mm. Such as this one I took at Birling Gap three days ago:
The item of interest is the chappie on the paddle board in the middle of the picture. I can crop away the outer parts of the shot, to leave only him, which produces a closer view. And in doing so I simulate a longer focal length. Thus:
The software used here (Nikon View NX2) is showing the first image at 26.2% and the second one at 100% - so a magnification of x 3.81. Which means that this magnified 35mm image is simulating what a 135mm lens would give me.
This is about as much magnification as any of Lili's 16 megapixel pictures can stand - it's on the threshhold of not being sharp any more. Lower magnifications would look rather better. But you can see the scope I have for 'digital zooming'. I can simulate a 'zoom range' from 35mm to 135mm.
Unfortunately, I can't somehow widen the field of view to simulate a 28mm or 24mm lens. My new camera won't do the more extreme wide angles. But I can live with it. 35mm, if used well, can do dramatic things and provide a very deep perspective. This shot of Beachy Head on the same afternoon, for instance, taken from Belle Tout, which takes in the space from close to my feet to the distant horizon, in one go:
I really was standing very close to the cliff edge! The things I do to get a shot...
35mm excels for middle distance shots, and is the perfect lens for places where people gather. Birling Gap again.
But could Lili take soaring pictures of those high chalk cliffs? No problemo.
I found that Lili could handle sparkling sea water, big chalk pebbles, and shots of daredevil women, eyes narrowed by the dazzle of the white light bouncing around:
The reader must have noticed that Lili has a substantial rubber lens cap, tethered to to the camera body so that it can't be lost, even if if comes off accidentally.
I wondered whether I'd get on with this. My previous experience with tethered lens caps had been somewhat negative. They had all been plastic affairs, lightweight anyway, and tended to flutter about in any kind of breeze while you took a picture. Sometimes they fluttered into the picture, spoiling it. That certainly happened with the Canon G6 I bought in 2005, seen below in 2007, just before its replacement with a Ricoh GX100:
Gosh, what a bulky camera it was! And only 7 megapixels. But it took great shots with that zoom lens. I blitzed New Zealand (and Hong Kong) with it in 2007 - some 6,000 photos - and it secured many pictures I'm still proud of. Its widest focal length was - like Lili's only focal length - 35mm. If I ever need to see what 35mm can do, how versatile it can be, I simply look up my New Zealand pictures and marvel. If the reader clicks on the link to my Flickr albums, and scrolls down to the 'New Zealand' album, he or she can see why I considered the G6 a friend, not a foe, and still do.
But it had that silver lens cap, which was not easily replaceable and had to be tied to the camera so that it wouldn't drop off and be lost. And it did come off, frequently. Just switching the camera on would project that zoom lens forward, pushing the lens cap away. Handy of course for a quick shot from the hip, but thank goodness it was tethered! However, it was lightweight, and fluttered about in the wind, so that I often had to hold it in my left hand while I took the shot. A nuisance.
So would Lili's larger, rubber lens cap be any different? Well, I can report that it has enough weight, slight though it is, to behave itself in mildly turbulent air. I still have to hold it in my left hand if I point the camera downwards, of course. But on the whole, not a nuisance.
Next, the absence of image stabilisation. Leica has been rather old-school about that. It's onboard in its more recent cameras, such as the Q2, but I imagine that for a long time newcomers onto the controlling board of Leica Directors were shouted down with a 'Gott in Himmel! Nein, nein, nein!' when they tentatively suggested that the company redesign its cameras to incorporate image stabilisation in one form or another. It can be in the camera, or (if the camera takes interchangeable lenses) in each lens. If you don't know, it's a technique to counteract the natural movement of arms and hands, to steady the camera for a shot at low light levels when a longer exposure is needed. It involves some kind of mechanism, and of course this has to be fitted into the camera or lens, creating some extra bulk, or crowding out some other feature. Leica has been reluctant to mess about with its flagship M series rangefinder cameras, which have an iconic look, but is now bending for other designs.
But that fresh outlook has come in too late for my X-U. Poor Lili has no image stabilisation!
Does it matter? Well, for a couple of decades Leica thought not. And in practice, I tend to agree. I've discovered that Lili can take sharp pictures, hand-held, at speeds down to 1/40th second - typically the shooting speed in a church interior - which is getting a bit slow. With image stabilisation, I would be able to take a sharp shot down to 1/8th second, but how often will I need to? I rather think that Lili's own heft, her own weight, is itself a steadying factor that dampens down any jitter, and is sufficient for most circumstances. Image stabilisation would be nice, but it's not by any means vital, and I'm not dismayed.
And so finally, the vexed question of battery life.
Modern digital cameras tend to suffer from poor battery life. They now have powerful processors, lens stabilisers, internal motors, touchscreens, and electronic viewfinders, all of which hammer the battery. The only answer is to use big batteries that add to the overall weight, or ask the customer to put up with changing the battery after only 300 shots, often less. But as Lili was a Leica, with a 'less is more' philosophy in her DNA, I reckoned that I'd do quite well in the battery department.
And I was right. I've recharged Lili's BP-DC8 battery only twice since bringing her home on 20th August. Those two charges let me take 1,218 shots. Therefore the running average shots-per-charge figure is 609 so far. And I've had the power-sapping rear screen on more than I would normally - delving into the menu while I played around with settings. Once I've worked out the best setting (or settings, as you can save up to four different custom configurations, for different kinds of photo) I expect my shots-per-charge spreadsheet to regularly record figures exceeding 700.
That's as good as the little Leica D-Lux 4. Meaning that I am assured of shooting for days on end without needing to tote along a spare battery. I'm relieved. It would have been a nuisance to run out of battery power (and have to recharge) every day or two. Quite apart from having to swap in another battery at an inconvenient time and place, missing shots while the deed is done. It would have been a niggling annoyance. So a light appetite for power is a big plus point.
