{"id":4105,"date":"2014-09-19T12:39:54","date_gmt":"2014-09-19T17:39:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/?p=4105"},"modified":"2014-09-19T12:46:14","modified_gmt":"2014-09-19T17:46:14","slug":"hands-leica-t","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/hands-leica-t\/","title":{"rendered":"Hands On: Leica T"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was a\u00a0sort of\u00a0catch-all day for me at Photokina. \u00a0I’d hit the major focus for my readers on the first two days of the show, and spent yesterday going from booth to booth, trying out some interesting things here and there. \u00a0Tomorrow, I’ll have a catch-all article detailing those things. \u00a0Among them are the Sigma DP1, some third-party lenses for Micro 4\/3, a run with the new Canon 400mm DO, and some additional fun with Leica and Zeiss. \u00a0 However, in the mirrorless world, the one major stop I did was at Leica’s large center, to lay my hands on the Leica T.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Leica T – with 23mm f\/2 Summicron<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Leica T has been out for a few months now, and some of you may have tried it, or even own it, but it is still a relatively new product, and a relative rarity for Leica: a new lens mount and lens lineup. \u00a0Leica did announce two new lense for the Leica T: \u00a0An 11-23mm ultra-wide and a 55-135mm telephoto, both with variable aperture ranges of f\/3.5-4.5. \u00a0I had a chance to try both lenses and the 23mm f\/2 Summicron.<\/p>\n

First off, the body: The single milled block of aluminum that makes up the Leica T body does feel extremely high-end and solid. \u00a0There’s no doubt about that. \u00a0And despite the hardness, the camera is generally nice to hold, though I still prefer many other cameras to it in that department. \u00a0The edges are sculpted well and fit my hand fine, but they are a bit sharp, and so long-term ergonomics are a question mark.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The minimal controls of the Leica T – Two dials, a power switch and a move record button<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The interface, as you may know, is configured with two dials on top and a touch screen. \u00a0That’s pretty much it. \u00a0No buttons (aside from the shutter button and a movie record button), no switches (aside from power), nothing. \u00a0When I first heard about this interface, I was very much put off by it, but having used it in practice, it’s actually very well engineered and quite smooth to operate. \u00a0If you need to change a parameter that isn’t on the dial, press the icon on the side of the screen, and select the parameter to adjust. \u00a0Mode is handled this way as well. \u00a0It does amount to multiple screen presses, but they’re quick and fluid and simple. \u00a0While I’d still prefer dedicated buttons for most things, this interface does work quite well. \u00a0It’s simply something quite different from what I’m used to.<\/p>\n

One thing about the Leica T that isn’t so great, however, is speed.\u00a0It takes a little while to start up, and the autofocus, especially with the new 55-135mm, is rather slow. \u00a0I also noticed a slight tendency for the focus to be slightly behind where I put it, but that’s something that is hard to pin down as part of the camera, or user error with such a small window of usage.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The rear touch screen of the Leica T<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Overall, the camera is fairly nice. \u00a0It’s beautifully built and works fairly well. \u00a0The rear screen is clear and sharp, and image quality, at least looking on the back, appeared to be quite nice. \u00a0The two new zoom lenses are quite small and well-built, with the 55-135mm being particularly compact for the focal and aperture range. \u00a0It’s quite a nice tiny kit. \u00a0However, these lenses don’t feel quite as solid as Leica’s M or S mount offerings. \u00a0Then again, they also don’t cost what those M and S mount lenses cost. \u00a0One thing sorely missing from these lenses, especially on the telephoto zoom, is image stabilization. \u00a0Leica has moved into the modern camera world with the Leica T, and in this market, a telephoto zoom lens without stabilization of any kind is a big letdown.<\/p>\n

Is the Leica T worth the huge premium? \u00a0I’d have to work with it quite a bit more to be sure, though on paper it looks to be quite expensive for what you get. \u00a0However, the build quality is excellent, especially on the body, and it does provide a nice small autofocus capable kit. \u00a0I’m going to try to get a review sample of the Leica T at some point in the next few months to give it a more thorough run-through.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was a\u00a0sort of\u00a0catch-all day for me at Photokina. \u00a0I’d hit the major focus for my readers on the first two days of the show, and spent yesterday going from booth to booth, trying out some interesting things here and there. \u00a0Tomorrow, I’ll have a catch-all article detailing those things. \u00a0Among them are the Sigma […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/leicat.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p28RGq-14d","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4105"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4113,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4105\/revisions\/4113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}