Leica D-Lux 5 Titanium
The Leica D-Lux 5 Titanium offers a great design which is quite stylish in a retro-modern sort of way. While there are other lighter, smaller compact models available on the market, the Leica D-Lux 5 Titanium manages to stand out due to its distinctive features that are reminiscent of classic Leica models without overdoing it in an attempt to look more like an antique replica.
Solid, dark grey metal covers a fair amount of the Leica D-Lux 5 Titanium’s body; it manages to blend modern and classic fairly well, with the more “old school” lens mountings and mode dials side by side with the 3 inch LCD screen, USB output and HDMI sockets.
The Leica D-Lux 5 Titanium features a 24-90mm, 3.8x f/2-3.3 lens, 720p HD video and large 1/1/63” 10 megapixel CCD sensor.
The Leica D-Lux 5 Titanium places a certain amount of control over the camera functionality around the lens. With a maximum aperture of f/2.0, you’ll also be able to pull off some acceptable shallow depth of field results, and not just light photography as you might expect from a snapshot camera.
Performance
The Leica D-Lux 5 Titanium feels closer to a snapshot camera rather than a digital SLR. In terms of image quality, the level of detail the Leica D-Lux 5 Titanium captures is pretty good, with colors looking vibrant and natural, granted, though they look better on the camera’s display than when downloaded to your computer. If you’re not satisfied with the standard colors you can easily change the modes to more vibrant or “expressive” from the film simulation modes by just adjusting the shooting mode dial.
Regarding low light performance, you can shoot clean and somewhat noise free photos with an ISO setting of up to ISO 1600, but if you’re planning on going higher (say 12800, or even 3200) the resolution drops to 3 megapixels, and evidently photo quality is going to be lower. Shooting performance at ISO 1600 is similar to ISO 800 on lesser compact models such as Panasonic’s Lumix series.
Pros
The Leica D-Lux 5 Titanium offers users superior picture quality and a good amount of control over the results with plenty of manual options. The classic design is pleasing to the eye and the included Adobe Photoshop Lightroom software is a welcomed bonus.
Cons
Unfortunately, the Leica D-Lux 5 Titanium costs quite a bit and the user interface is a little disappointing.
Conclusion
The Leica D-Lux 5 Titanium isn’t just aimed at amateur photographers, but it’s a camera meant for dedicated Leica enthusiasts, even if its price may be a little steep. When compared to similar models such as the Panasonic LX5, the Leica D-Lux 5 Titanium feels like it’s more than just your average camera. It’s a well designed, fully featured snapshot camera, but even so, it surely can’t replace a DSLR, so you’ll probably be interested in buying the Leica D-Lux 5 Titanium if you already own a DSLR and you’re ready to dig deep into your pockets for a stylish snapshot camera.
Specs
- Brand Name: Leica
- Product Type: Compact Camera
- Camera Resolution: 10.1 Megapixel
- Optical Zoom: 3.8x
- Digital Zoom: 4x
- Maximum Video Resolution: 1280 x 720
- Maximum Image Resolution: 3648 x 2736
- Video Formats: Motion JPEG, AVCHD
- Image Formats: RAW, JPEG
- Height: 66.0 mm
- Width: 110.0 mm
- Depth: 43.0 mm
- Weight: 270.0 g
