What do you think of when talking about Leica? "Poisonous, German taste", "dream camera", "high-end, professional", "rangefinder, manual focus"? Leica has always been an iconic manufacturer in the European camera manufacturing industry, and the Coke logo is also a tall representative among photography enthusiasts. But today, Leica is already a comprehensive camera manufacturer. In addition to the M series that everyone is most familiar with, it also has a variety of autofocus cameras, as well as a variety of card cameras and mirrorless cameras with different positions. What we are going to test today is Leica’s new mirrorless camera CL, which was just released last month. This camera uses a 24-megapixel APS-C format. Like the previous TL mirrorless camera, it uses an L mount. It is a camera with A user-friendly camera with autofocus, wireless transmission, 4K video and other functions. Let’s take a sneak peek at what kind of camera the Leica CL is and how it is different from the mirrorless cameras we often come into contact with.
·What is German taste? An easy-to-use camera is the key
Leica is well-known to almost everyone in the photography circle, and Leica often means "German taste and professionalism". Leica cameras are representatives of the German camera industry. The core elements of Leica cameras are: precision machining, high-detail image quality performance, and Leica's unique color style. Starting from the Leica TL, Leica's APS-C format mirrorless cameras have gradually been finalized. The CL camera released this time is a new series of APS-C format mirrorless cameras. Next, let’s first take a look at this review
Leica CL mirrorless camera
Leica CL camera review video
1. Mainstream mirrorless single level but still has Leica’s workmanship and quality
From the perspective of the body, the design of CL has been affected a lot. There is little controversy, but I think the appearance of CL is still very attractive. The CL body design is derived from Leica's classic film camera design. Compared with the TL, an electronic viewfinder is added, and it turns out that the viewfinder has a very good viewing effect. In terms of model parameters, the Leica CL is equipped with a 24-megapixel APS-C frame sensor, which is the same one on this year’s TL2. It has built-in Wi-Fi and 4K video shooting, and the continuous shooting speed is up to 10fps, unlike some Japanese high-end APS- C mirrorless single has particularly powerful functions, but is in line with the current mainstream mirrorless single parameter level. It is worth mentioning that Leica's workmanship is absolutely worthy of the Leica logo, and in terms of playback speed and startup lag, Leica is top-notch among APS-C cameras.
Leica CL mirrorless camera
2. High-detail performance is the core competitiveness. The digital era cannot be said to be "German", but the black and white preset is very easy to use.
The core of Leica is high-quality performance. Leica CL and other Leica series Likewise, the image quality is excellent. Leica's high image quality is not reflected in noise control. Leica's noise control can be said to not be the best. However, the detail performance of the Leica CL is the first-class level among current APS-C cameras, and the exposure detection and color temperature detection are very accurate. In terms of body color, there is no "German taste" in the digital age, but the color of Leica is still worthy of praise. At least it looks very comfortable to see the color straight out, and the high-contrast black and white preset is very good. It can be said that it is the best among cameras nowadays. , some of the best cameras with in-camera black and white presets.
The Leica CL has good colors, especially the high-contrast black and white colors, which are very comfortable.
3. The autofocus Leica is enough for you, but if you want to hunt birds, don’t even think about it.
In fact, all current Leica cameras, except the M series, are already autofocus. Times, CL is also an autofocus design. It can be said that Leica's autofocus is not bad. There is no delay or bellows in daily use. It is almost the same as most Japanese mirrorless cameras. In terms of focusing, Leica itself is not a model suitable for strenuous sports. Therefore, although autofocus is sufficient for daily use, if you want to shoot birds, don't consider Leica.
It is possible to shoot birds with a Leica camera, but the success rate of shooting cannot be guaranteed.
4. Are there any disadvantages? Anti-shake technology is still a luxury product for Leica cameras
If there is any obvious shortcoming of Leica cameras, it is definitely anti-shake.Although Leica's automatic cameras have become ubiquitous, anti-shake technology is still a luxury product for Leica. L-mount lenses currently don’t have lens anti-shake, let alone body anti-shake. Therefore, if Leica wants to develop its strength in the field of civilian cameras, it is essential to strengthen anti-shake.
anti-shake is the next technical point that needs to be strengthened for Leica
Overall, from the perspective of usage experience, the Leica CL is still very good. The CL camera is very easy to use. Users at any stage of photography can quickly start shooting. The buttons on the camera are not complicated, and the menu design is also very simple. It is just a camera for taking pictures. Let’s enter today’s evaluation session and take a look at the specific performance of the Leica CL.
2 Appearance and design Although there are few buttons, the control is excellent
·Appearance and design Although there are few buttons, the control is not bad
First, let’s take a look at the appearance design of the Leica CL. To be honest, the design of the Leica CL is really very simple, with only a few buttons, two dials and a viewfinder. Let’s take a look at the overall appearance design first.
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For Leica, the body design has always been very simple. The design of this camera is also the same. The Leica CL body is made in Germany. You can rest assured that the body weight is 403g. For a metal camera It's pretty light even for a single person. Although the Leica CL is very suitable for carrying prime lenses. However, the L mount also has standard kit lenses, such as the 18-56mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens. Do you think of the 18-55mm lens that is common on SLRs? It can be said that the CL design is a mirrorless camera for everyone’s daily use. Although it has a slightly higher positioning than the TL2, it still has full user-friendly attributes.
body, Leica CL is an L-mount, and currently there are many optional lenses for the L-mount
Leica's control has always been simple. According to Leica's official statement, Leica pursues a simple and pure photography experience. From this point of view, CL is a good interpretation of Leica’s official thinking. On the fuselage, it is worth noting the double pulsator on the top. The button in the middle of the dial can be pressed. The left dial is pressed to adjust the shooting mode, which is A/S/M/P, and the right dial is pressed. On the side, you can adjust the sensitivity. The sensitivity of the Leica CL can be from ISO 100 to ISO 50000. There is a shoulder screen on the top of the fuselage, and it is a reverse display. You can easily see the parameters clearly under strong light during the day, and it has a lavender backlight under low light.
Dual wave wheel + lavender backlight, Leica CL can easily shoot in various environments
CL dial wheel can be pinched with both hands to operate, even with gloves, it is easy to operate, even easier to operate than a large SLR
The viewfinder of the Leica is currently the highest specification viewfinder with a resolution of 2.36 million pixels. The viewfinder of the CL is very large. Although the refresh rate is not specified, it is higher than most existing electronic viewfinders. It is higher, but the Leica CL viewfinder has a small problem, that is, it is seriously sticky with dust. There is a lot of lint on clothes in winter, and it is easy for the small hair on the clothes to block the detection sensor, causing the display to not light up. Therefore, you need to blow it with more air when using it in winter.
The Leica viewfinder is very large, and the imaging effect is good
The Leica CL viewfinder works very well in actual shooting
The Leica CL does not have any interface on the body, it does not have a USB or HDMI interface, and it only has a battery compartment at the bottom of the body. , and the memory card is also placed here. The Leica battery is made by Panasonic, with a capacity of 7.2V and 1200mAh. The official battery life is 220 shots. In actual shooting, the author can take close to 300 shots under normal conditions.
The measured battery life of the Leica CL camera is about 200-300 shots
On the menu, the Leica CL menu is the same as other Leica models, very simple. The first page after entering is the adjustment page, which can be understood as the speed of our commonly used Japanese cameras. The parameter adjustment page is followed by the specific adjustment page, but there are only 5 pages.
Press MENU, you will first enter the quick adjustment menu, and the bottom is the main menu
The Leica main menu only has 5 pages, which is not much
But maybe because CL has just been released, the Chinese version of the CL I got is not good. , for example, the focus attribute has been translated into metering in the menu, and there are many similar minor problems. However, these do not affect use and are expected to be modified through firmware upgrades in the future.
The current version I got has some small problems with the localization of the Chinese menu.
Another point is that the Leica CL actually has touch operation, but the touch function is very limited. Basically, it can only touch to select the focus point when framing, and it needs This can only be achieved by selecting Touch AF on the menu page. From the perspective of touch experience, there is still a big gap between the Leica CL and current mainstream cameras.
One last thing, many friends have some misunderstandings about Leica digital cameras. Everyone knows that Leica and Panasonic do have a very special cooperative relationship, but Leica cameras are still Leica cameras. Judging from the Leica TL or CL series, the body is still made in Germany, while the lens is made in Japan. In fact, in the digital age, cooperation between manufacturers is normal. Not only Leica, but also many manufacturers have a large number of cooperative relationships or technology sharing. This is nothing.
Product: CL Leica digital camera
3 Image quality and latitude High sharpness is the core of Leica
·Image quality and latitude High sharpness is the core of Leica
Let’s take a look at the step-by-step sensitivity test of the Leica CL. Although Leica has always been good at low-light photography, this is largely due to the excellent quality of Leica’s large-aperture lenses. After all, Leica is not a manufacturer of high-sensitivity cameras, so In terms of high sensitivity, we still need to test to see the actual performance.
Leica CL sensitivity test
From the actual test, Leica’s noise control is in the upper mid-range level in the APS-C format, not top-notch, but much better than the average level of 24-megapixel APS-C. . A very obvious point can be seen in the Leica high-sensitivity test. The Leica noise reduction smear is very small, so there are more noise points than similar models, but the sharpness performance is very good. Regardless of ISO 100 or ISO 6400, the details of the picture are very rich. This is an important feature of Leica imaging. In actual use, there is not much pressure on the Leica CL when shooting below ISO 3200.
Leica CL tolerance test at ISO 100
After all, the Leica CL is a user-friendly mirrorless camera with a wide range of uses. We still have to take a look at the tolerance performance. However, in the actual test, the CL's latitude performance was much better than expected, and at low sensitivity it was the first-class level of the current APS-C format.
The sensor of the Leica CL is actually much better than expected. The imaging style of the Leica is sharp. No matter the setting, whether it is DNG format or JPG format, the detail performance of the Leica has always been very good. This is true for many cameras at this stage, especially mirrorless cameras. Cameras are different. It can be said that although the Leica CL camera is not the best in terms of noise control, overall it is definitely not inferior to the Japanese mirrorless cameras.
products: CL Leica digital camera
4 Focus and continuous shooting are enough, but it is not enough for shooting birds
·Focus and continuous shooting are sufficient, but it is not enough for shooting birds
Leica CL camera is a camera with autofocus function. But looking at it now, Leica's focusing system is still in its infancy. Most high-end mirrorless cameras are now in the phase + contrast detection hybrid focusing era, while Leica still uses traditional contrast detection focusing.
Leica’s focus modes are still relatively rich
Although the focus system is still in its infancy, Leica’s focus modes are still very complete. Although there is a slight problem with the Chinese interface now, everyone should be able to understand what each mode represents. It is worth mentioning that the tracking mode of Leica cannot be turned on directly. It needs to be manually selected and determined to track the object, so it is not suitable for capturing. When taking snapshots, you still need to use AF-C mode, which is automatic servo focus and global focus point selection to focus.
10fps continuous shooting and focus tracking test (the frame rate in GIF is set to 5 frames/second)
It is not impossible to shoot birds with Leica CL, but it is very difficult
The Leica CL can achieve a continuous shooting speed of 10fps with both electronic shutter and mechanical shutter. The battery life is 33 shots in DNG+JPG format and 140 shots in JPG format, which is considered a mid-range level. However, the Leica's focus drive speed is not fast enough at 10fps, which will result in the inability to successfully complete focus tracking during continuous shooting.
Leica CL has a variety of shooting modes, and also comes with time-lapse shooting (time lapse in the picture)
Vertical focus tracking test and horizontal focus tracking test
In the test, the Leica CL's vertical focus tracking success rate at 10fps is very low, less than 30%. After reducing to medium-speed continuous shooting, the Leica CL's vertical focus tracking success rate can reach more than 60%, while the horizontal focus tracking success rate The rate can also reach more than 70%. Therefore, the Leica's focusing accuracy is still good, but it is not suitable for high-speed sports. Under high-speed continuous shooting, the focusing success rate will drop significantly, but the success rate of medium and low-speed continuous shooting is acceptable.
Autofocus is a very important thing for daily camera use. As a comprehensive camera manufacturer, Leica naturally understands this truth. In daily shooting, the Leica CL has a good low-light focusing success rate, and the focusing accuracy and speed can be guaranteed in low light. From this point of view, the CL has passed the standard in terms of focusing technology.
It is worth noting that although the focus of the Leica is average, the photo playback is very fast
Finally, it is worth mentioning that the Leica CL has a very fast playback speed, fast writing, and almost no delay in playback, and even if DNG is selected when shooting +JPG, photo playback is still very fast, which is something that many professional cameras cannot do.
product: CL Leica digital camera
5 Functions and features The details reflect the Leica taste
· Functions and features The details can reflect the Leica taste
Finally, let’s take a look at Leica’s functional test. The Leica CL’s noteworthy features include four: shutter design, Leica’s color presets, 4K video and Wi-Fi transmission.
First we want to talk about Leica’s shutter. The Leica shutter is unique and has a very light sound, so people use Leica cameras in many situations. A big reason is the shutter sound. (Of course there is an electronic shutter now.) However, many people still admire Leica’s lightweight shutter sound. Here we will show it to you.
Leica shutter sound display
Let’s take a look at Leica’s color presets. Among Leica's five presets, the ones that need to be highlighted are vivid mode and black and white high pair, which is high contrast black and white mode. In the standard mode, the colors of the Leica CL are more realistic and do not reflect too strong colors. In the film era and the Leica M series, Leica was very sensitive to red, blue, etc. In vivid mode, the Leica CL can reflect such strong colors.
There are five Leica color presets: standard, vivid, natural, black and white natural, black and white high contrast
The black and white preset is Leica’s most classic preset, and it is also the most useful preset for Leica in the digital age. Leica's high-contrast black and white mode gives people a very comfortable intuitive feeling. It is not like some models that have too strong high contrast, nor are they plain black and white films. It can be said that Leica's high-contrast black and white presets give people an intuitive feeling that can compete with the black and white photos that are carefully processed through post-processing software on the computer.
High contrast black and white, the most comfortable of all Leica presets
The Leica CL body itself has the function of 4K video, but the video function is not the main focus of CL. The reason is very simple. Leica is not proficient in anti-shake technology. Today's video technology generally requires dual anti-shake of the body + lens as technical support. For Leica, anti-shake is still a luxury product. Therefore, when shooting videos, we must rely on stabilizing equipment such as tripods, which is inconsistent with the video shooting method of entry-level mirrorless cameras.
Leica CL has 4K video
Leica handheld video shooting is unrealistic no matter what format
Leica 4K video sample
Finally, let’s talk about the Wi-Fi function of CL. The CL body is equipped with Wi-Fi, and in terms of software, not all Leica cameras are integrated into one APP, but separate models. We need to download an APP called Leica CL. The current Chinese font is Traditional Chinese. Maybe the product is too new in China. Not quite done.
It is not complicated to connect Leica to Wi-Fi. You can scan the code to connect
In terms of controllability, there is currently a problem with the software's photo playback function, but almost all parameters can be adjusted when shooting remotely
It is not complicated to connect the Leica CL to Wi-Fi. You can install a description file directly on the body, and you can log in directly without entering a password. Sony, Casio, etc. all use this method. On the APP, the camera control functions can be said to be very detailed, and all settings can be adjusted on the mobile phone. However, uploading pictures over the Internet is not possible. Perhaps because the product is too new, the CL I got cannot preview the camera album or transfer pictures on the Apple phone, and it fails every time. It is estimated that this problem will be solved after updating the firmware and upgrading the APP in the future.
product: CL Leica digital camera
6 sample and summary Leica’s purest pursuit of photography
·Sample and summary Leica’s purest pursuit of photography
Before we summarize the Leica CL camera, we still take a look at the Leica CL as usual sample performance. All photos are straight out of JPG without post-processing.
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"The detailed performance of is the first real-shot sample of Leica CL camera "
This time, the trial experience of Leica CL is not long, but the author still has a very deep feeling about Leica CL. . First of all, the first impression when using the camera is that it is simple. Both the body design and the control design of the Leica CL are very simple, which makes us users who are accustomed to the large number of complex buttons of Japanese cameras feel a little uncomfortable. But after a brief understanding, you will find that the control of Leica is actually very simple, because the main function of the camera is to take pictures. The purpose of the existence of the camera is very simple, to take a good picture, so the control is also completely for the most basic photography service. It is really good to take pictures outside. Instead, you will feel very relaxed.
Leica’s insistence on pure photography is also strongly reflected in the CL.
Regarding the Leica camera, when I first got it and took the first photo, my feeling was “That’s it, there is no sense of morality, it’s obviously full of electronics” Component flavor". But when you actually take it out for filming, you will find that the colors of the Leica are real and natural. It does not give people exaggerated colors or strong contrast, but a comfortable tonal transition. Whether it is the professional M series or the CL series, Leica still has its own persistence in controlling the tone. Another point is that the photos taken by the Leica CL do not have a strong impression on the camera screen, but the details are very good on the computer. From this point of view, Leica's pursuit of image quality is still worthy of appreciation by photographers.
From performance to design, the Leica CL is a mirrorless camera suitable for different photography stages. Of course, the price is not included.
It can be said that the Leica CL is a simple and pure mirrorless camera that adds features such as autofocus technology and Wi- Fi transmission technology and 4K technology are all developed to adapt to the needs of the times and consumer needs. For Leica, the value of CL is to take pictures and provide ordinary photography enthusiasts with a more convenient and cheaper photography equipment. Provide professional users with a more compact body design that is convenient for professional photographers to carry every day. From this concept point of view, the author believes that the Leica CL is quite successful.
Although there are many areas that need to be improved on the Leica CL, such as dynamic focus tracking capabilities, problems with the localization of the body, and problems with Wi-Fi, many things can be improved and upgraded through firmware.What Leica really needs to solve is to improve focusing performance, add hybrid focusing, and overcome the anti-shake problem as soon as possible. It can be said that the Leica CL has many shortcomings, but this does not prevent the Leica CL from becoming an excellent portable mirrorless camera.
Leica cameras are well known to be expensive, but there are reasons why they are expensive.
As for the price issue, as the saying goes, you get what you pay for. It is well known that Leica is expensive, but why is Leica expensive? Is it just because of the Coke logo? Not really. Leica is expensive, the brand is one thing, and the shooting experience is another. After shooting with a Leica camera, you will feel some different shooting pleasures, and the photo quality of Leica is also quite outstanding. It can be said that Leica is expensive, but Expensive for a reason. The same is true for the Leica CL. Compared with other APS-C format mirrorless cameras, the CL is certainly not cheap, but the Leica CL allows us to experience many things that other cameras cannot bring. From this point of view, the Leica CL is definitely worth it. of. Finally, let’s summarize the advantages and disadvantages of the Leica CL as the end of this test.
camera advantages:
Compact and small, easy to carry around
Excellent workmanship, sturdy and durable, suitable for shooting in various environments
Accurate color control, extremely usable black and white mode
Excellent detail performance, high sensitivity and noise control to preserve details. The first place
has excellent tolerance
The focus is accurate and the accuracy is guaranteed in low light.
10fps continuous shooting speed can ensure the dynamic capture effect.
Camera Disadvantages:
is expensive. Of course, if it’s not expensive, is it still a Leica?
Poor focus tracking ability
No anti-shake system
Software localization and APP need to be improved
Battery life is weak
