Hands-on review: Leica T

Compact system cameras have become commonplace over the past few years. Arguably, with its series of rangefinders, Leica has been in the CSC industry for longer than anybody else.

Now however, it has introduced what will compete more closely with the likes of the Fuji X series, Olympus PEN series and Sony E-mount systems.

Leica says that the T system is a return to back-to-basics shooting, which is borne out by the fact that there aren't many complicated controls on the body of the camera itself.

Inside the camera is a 16.5 million-pixel APS-C sized sensor, which puts it in direct competition with cameras from Sony, Samsung, Canon and Fuji. Leica has also developed a new image processing engine for the T series and this allows sensitivity to be set in teh range ISO 100-12500.

Leica is positioning this camera more towards the luxury end of the market, as opposed to the practical end, and so, the design element is the key selling point, rather than actually using the camera.

As is starting to become standard across the industry – and nice to see being adopted by a traditional manufacturer such as Leica – is integrated Wi-Fi. This allows for the quick transfer of images across to your smartphone, tablet or computer.

On the back of the camera is a large 3.7 inch touchscreen LCD – again, something which is nice to see adopted by a traditional manufacturer.

One feature that's important to note about the T is that it introduces a new mount for Leica, the T-mount. In addition, the new lenses can focus automatically.

Build and handling

The Leica T is much more compact than other Leica models, most notably the Leica M. It's reasonably similar in size and shape to the Panasonic GX7 (body only), which has a smaller sensor (Micro Four Thirds compared with the T's APS-C sized sensor).

It's quite a heavy camera and having been crafted from a single piece of aluminium, it's very sleek looking too. Even the lugs that you would hang a strap from have been integrated into the body itself to produce very clean lines. If you want to attach a strap you'll need to release the lugs from the body using a pin.

Probably the first thing you'll notice about the camera is the lack of buttons. The rear of the camera is taken up with the LCD touchscreen – although it doesn't take up the whole of the back of the camera, so Leica could have included a couple of buttons here if it had wanted to.

Instead, almost the entire operation of the camera is carried out via the touchscreen. There are two dials on the top of the camera that control different parameters and that can be customised to your preferred way of working. For instance, while working in aperture priority mode, one will control aperture, while the other may control sensitivity, or exposure compensation.

Also on the top of the camera you'll find an on/off switch, a dedicated video record button and the shutter release. If you switch the on/off switch past the "on" position, the inbuilt flash will pop up. Aside from that, you're completely reliant on the touchscreen.

Luckily, using the touchscreen is very intuitive, and has been designed from the group up to give a great user experience, and, crucially to be appealing to those coming from a smartphone or tablet environment.

Touching a camera icon in the middle right of the screen will bring up all the different options that you'll often want to alter, such as exposure compensation or white balance. Like with the dials, this menu can be completely customised to your preferred way of working, with a simple hold and swipe gesture replacing and re-ordering the functions as desired.

As there are no physical buttons, setting the AF point is also carried out via the touchscreen, but you'll need to set AF mode to touch in the main menu. From there you simply the tap the point.

Although full manual control is available along with aperture and shutter priority, Leica is aiming this camera at the type of audience that it's not really entered into before, and as such, there's a fully automatic option too. This, and the autiomatic scene modes, is designed to make the camera as easy to use as possible.

Performance

Obviously it is difficult to make any firm conclusions about the performance of a camera at this stage in the release cycle. However, Leica is a brand which is known for its high quality cameras and lenses, so it seems very likely that the Leica T will continue in that tradition.

In my time with the camera I've been able to assess that autofocusing speeds some reasonably quick, especially in good light. They're not as quick as current models on the market such as the Sony A6000 or Panasonic GX7, so it will be interesting to see how well the camera copes in lower light conditions when I get a full review sample.

Early verdict

It's great to see a traditional camera manufacturer like Leica embracing new technologies and new ways of working. The company is aiming the T at a completely new market, and while it's still not exactly cheap, it's a lot more affordable than the likes of the M, which opens up this premium luxury brand to a lot more people than ever before.

While there's not a huge range of lenses currently available, the promise of more to come, and compatibility with existing lenses (via an adapter), makes it quite an appealing system to buy into.

Look out for a full review of the Leica T in due course.

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