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A question for you XV owners


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A friend wants to make his first Leica purchase. The M system is cost prohibitive, as is the T system, which leaves the X system. While the X2 is undoubtably a fantastic camera, there are others on the market that propose much better value proposition for him. This leaves the XV as the only Leica I can recommend to him.

 

My question for those of you who use the camera regularly pertains to low light photography. A fair amount of his photos are and will be taken indoors and with dim lighting. What sorts of shutter speeds are you guys capped at for low/dim light indoor situations? How's the high ISO noise? How's the noise when the images are down sampled to 4mp? Any other insights you might have regarding using the XV in low situations is welcome.

 

I don't want to steer a potential customer away from Leica, but I don't want my friend's experience with it to be endlessly frustrating either.

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Like many other owners I have been astonished at how good the X Vario is indoors. I use Auto ISO, automatic aperture and set my shutter speed as high as is feasible depending on the ambient light levels indoors. Typically this is 125th indoors (much higher outdoors), but I will go to 60th or longer if I can rest the camera body on a piece of furniture or building. Even sitting in a chair I find resting the camera on the chair arm or my knees will extend the usefulness of the camera in testing conditions. I have a preset which covers such photography.

 

In practical terms, since X Vario cameras are readily available, why not recommend to your friend that he visits a Leica dealer with his own memory card, and tries the camera in store? It should be possible to find a range of lighting levels which approximate to his anticipated environments. Better still, perhaps an owner living with local range would oblige him with some actual help. But a Leica store would be best if achievable.

Edited by wda
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It's ok for low light photos, but not brilliant, would be my personal summation. This is taken at IS0 3200, handheld at 1/30 sec with just a few tweaks in processing. That's about the limit, in my experience.

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Edited by harvey999999
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It's ok for low light photos, but not brilliant, would be my personal summation. This is taken at IS0 3200, handheld at 1/30 sec with just a few tweaks in processing. That's about the limit, in my experience.

Harvey, pictures posted sometimes suffer degradation. On my monitor your example is quite dark and conceals some of the potential of the camera. I have taken the liberty of processing a screen copy in LR5 to bring out a little more detail in the shadows. I reduced luminance noise slightly and used the adjustment brush to bring back a little more information in the man's face. I sampled several possible neutral tones and found the lady's sleeve best. I would use a grey card normally. The result is just a shade too warm; but only you know how the original scene looked.

 

The ambient lighting is very tricky and directional; this is often the challenge I face with my XV. If possible I also try to lean against something when forced to use 1/30th second or, alternatively, risk using 1/60th with higher ISO. All of this later processing is much easier when working with a Raw DNG file. I merely worked on your tiny jpeg.

 

If you wish, I will delete my contribution. But I think it contributes to users' understanding of the low-light potential of the X Vario.

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Hello, on low light photography, I photographed most of the Van Gogh paintings with the XV in the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, in low difficult light, here are some images, the last one is by Singer in the Singer Museum , Laren The netherlands

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Low light again, the famous organ in the Bavo Cathedral , Haarlem the Netherlands.

Mozart and Bach performed on this organ, during my visit, Ton Koopmans performed Bach: outstanding performance.

 

The Vario XV is the most satisfying Leica I have owned, I have owned many.

The Camera encompasses everything that one would want, 28,35,50,70mm very high quality lenses, incredible low noise images even at high iso settings, exceptional image quality, direct controls, outstanding feel and finish.

 

There are some quirks, that one learns to deal with, real photography is not a spoon fed item and requires some effort and knowledge ,reading the manual is generally a good start.

 

My advise for those who expressed displeasure with the XV; give it another try.

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O.K. one more

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My question for those of you who use the camera regularly pertains to low light photography. A fair amount of his photos are and will be taken indoors and with dim lighting. What sorts of shutter speeds are you guys capped at for low/dim light indoor situations? How's the high ISO noise? How's the noise when the images are down sampled to 4mp? Any other insights you might have regarding using the XV in low situations is welcome.

 

It depends rather on what subjects your friend wants to photograph in low light. In my experience the X Vario is absolutely fine for static scenes in dim light but wouldn’t be my first choice for photographing movement in near darkness, though the handy little flash can be used at any speed.

 

I routinely use ISO 3200 with good results and try not to go much lower than 1/30 sec but in some conditions lower is feasible. Like any good Leica lens you can use the X Vario lens wide open without penalty, which can be a help.

 

This photo of the library at Chatsworth House shows a fairly dimly lit scene which presented the X Vario with no problems at all. It also shows how much detail exists in the shadows. I was interested in revealing the ceiling paintings which were quite dark in the DNG out of the camera. As you can see, they survived the process of lifting the shadow more than adequately. I probably could have upped the shutter speed and widened the aperture a little but I wanted to be sure of getting as much depth of focus as possible in what is a rather long room.

 

X Vario at 28mm (FFE)

1/13 at f/7.1, ISO 3200, -⅓ EV

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It helps, I think, to know a bit about the basic principles of photography to get the best out the X Vario. Think of it is as a manual camera with automatic options rather than the other way round. It can take a while to appreciate its qualities. For me, it’s a first rate travel camera and feels every bit a Leica. I wouldn’t be without mine for all the tea in China.

 

 

.

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Very nice photograph. Thank you for sharing it, and your thoughts.

 

The camera will be used for product photography/still life (for personal not commercial use) and the usual travel photos, and in equal measure people pics at parties. My friend is a musician and enjoys an active social lifestyle. I think the he'll be fine using the flash for indoor photos.

 

He's been using an EOS-M with a prime and a zoom for the last year or so to learn (understand) the basics. The EOS-M is a surprisingly good and well made camera, and it's excellent for videos (which it'll do full time once my friend adds a second camera).

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Low light again, the famous organ in the Bavo Cathedral , Haarlem the Netherlands.

Mozart and Bach performed on this organ, during my visit, Ton Koopmans performed Bach: outstanding performance.

 

The Vario XV is the most satisfying Leica I have owned, I have owned many.

The Camera encompasses everything that one would want, 28,35,50,70mm very high quality lenses, incredible low noise images even at high iso settings, exceptional image quality, direct controls, outstanding feel and finish.

 

There are some quirks, that one learns to deal with, real photography is not a spoon fed item and requires some effort and knowledge ,reading the manual is generally a good start.

 

My advise for those who expressed displeasure with the XV; give it another try.

 

"Real photography is not a spoon fed item..," this is the quote every photographer should memorize by heart.

XV's color rendering in all light conditions proved to be outstanding and outperformed all my other pro DSLRs. The XV is the ultimate "ThinkAndShoot camera" A little bit of getting used to through patience and the reward could be uncountable.

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Squad Attention,

Overall the XV is a photographers camera

read;- a Rally Car is a car but not for the average family.

The XV is not an expensive P&S.. it needs understanding and a degree

of photographic experience to perform at it's best..

In my experience lots of people just unbox, charge the battery and do not even Format their SD card. Once the battery has power they rush out, inevitably the results are iffy to say the least. Then it's gotta be the camera because I'm a master photographer..

Yes, some cameras as with all electronic things can be Bad" out of the box, at least with Leica I have always found that if there's an issue it's dealt with.

There are issues with the XV and other Leica's, if a replacement camera does not help, it's down to either work around the issue or move On. My Bro's Maser' has been more unreliable

than a Yugo' - he moved On. In my opinion, the XV & X1 are both excellent cameras, albeit remarkable in the right photographic hands..

Squad Dismissed...

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In the context of the X-Vario's performance in low-light conditions, I have to say I am very impressed. Earlier this week I put it to the test in Purton's Church of St Mary. ISO 6400, 1/40sec hand-held, 48mm, f5.6. Very little was needed in LR5.5 to give the result shown below (from a .dng).

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A lovely result, Keith. I share your delight at being able to use high ISOs in the X Vario, offsetting the specification's disadvantages of an apparently slow and limited zoom lens. It makes for a highly competent travel and general purpose camera. I now have full confidence in it and have to deliberately schedule time with my M's.

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