Just a short intermezzo... Leica T Type 701
18. March 2015

As soon as I saw that Leica was giving Leica T cameras to interested photographers to try out, I mailed the photohaus to get one.

I picked the camera up yesterday and tried it out. Sadly my device is broken and has some serious software flaws, so I returned it today.

From the time I had with the camera, I can tell you that it feels nice in the hand, even thought the grip is to small for my big hands. The camera is a lot wider and taller than my NX300M with the mount being any bigger. In my hands the NX300M feels more comfortable. Apart from the ergonomics, body and lens are made of metal and feel very sturdy. I had the 23mm f2 Summicron with it.
From a handling standpoint, I prefer my NX300M in terms of touch screen and Body size but one thing I really like about the T are the two control dials. They work really great and it is just a fast way to adjust settings like Aperture, Shutterspeed and ISO.
Apart from my camera being broken, there have been two things, I couldn't understand about the software. You cannot choose to shoot solely dng. You always have to take a jpg along. That's nonsense. You are also not able to turn image review off, just shorten the time. Why, Leica?
Another point of confusion is the big black back. If it would have been all touchscreen like the Galaxy NX, I would have understood but the screen actually only fills the middle of the black back with thick black corners all around that have no function at all. Looks kind of strange with the camera is powered on. The screen itself is ok but nothing special either.

The same goes for the image quality. I found the 16MP sensor handles overexposure nicely and has no problem recovering about 1-1.5 stops of overexposures. That's solid but nothing out of the ordinary. I haven't had a chance to try out the shadow recovery from my short time with the T. Tried it on one image with some shadows in an entrance and it seems to have about the same latitude as with the highlights.
What I really liked about the sensor was colour reproduction. It doesn't do screaming colourful images, that all the smartphone people adore so much. The camera delivers very nice true to life, maybe a little muted images, that grade really nicely.
I shot only ISO 100-200 but from what i've heard, the sensor is about in line with what was possible 2-3 years ago. So not extraordinary but very solid low light capability.

Talking about the lens, I feel that Leica could have done a lot better. It's a good 35mm equivalent f2 lens but that is not an engineering feet to accomplish if you charge 1600€ for it. It doesn't do 8x better than my 200€ Samsung 30mm f2 pancake and it hasn't got the 3d pop of a Sony Zeiss 35mm f2.8 which is still halve the price. So nice lens but not what I expected considering price point and brand name! Sadly I couldn't test the other three lenses.

To wraps up my short real world review of sorts, the Leica T felt good and it was a fun camera to shoot despite the problems I had. I really dig the sensor output colour wise and I like the two control dials. I wish Samsung would do those. For the money of the body alone, I would get a Sony NEX-7 with the Zeiss 24 f1.8 which has two dials as well and the lens seems to be the better choice as well. I could also get the NX300M, 16-50 Kit, 50-200 Tele, 20 f2.8, 30 f2 and 16 f2.4 brand new.