Search the Community

Hi, First, sorry for my English but it's not my mother tongue. I searched on the forum but I found no answer to my question. I study in archival science. I have to take pictures of old documents in dimly lit rooms. For my birthday, I want to buy a new leica (I have the D-Lux6). I have the opportunity to buy the d-lux 109 (new) or a leica X vario (second hand) or X2 (second hand). Unfortunately, I do not have the budget for a leica M or Q (maybe one day...). I read the reviews for these three cameras but I cannot decide. With your experience, which camera would be best suited for photo archives in low light spaces? I'm sorry if this conversation has already been addressed but I have not found it. Thanks, William

1. mindestens zwei Hochhäuser 2. kein Himmel 3. stürzende Linien und, wenn’s geht, auf effekthascherische Spiegelungen verzichten. Frankfurt am Main, Leica-D-Lux 109, 4x5 gecroppt (das ist eine Ideensammlung für eine größere Sache!) Sharif

Langen, Hessen, D-Lux 109 Sharif

Hi I am using my Leica D-lux 109 and i was just trying to use my ipad as screen to send the photose while shooting. I have managed to make it work however if i tak a photo I have to manually slide to see it. Is there a way new photo automatically comes up to full screen? Thank you

D-Lux 109 Sharif

Hey, So I have Leica 109 and I wanted to figure out the Focal Length. Since the lens is I guess 24-75mm I was expecting to see those in lightroom metadat but I am seeing 10.9mm 12.1mm etc. Am I understanding it wrongly? thank you for your answer

Im Cafe sagte die Bedienung beim Servieren von Kaffee und Kuchen: „Oh, könnten Sie ihre Kamera bitte zur Seite legen. Ich habe da schlechte Erfahrungen gemacht.“ „Keine Angst, das ist nichts dolles, das ist die günstigste Leica die es gibt.“ „Jaja, aber die ist ganz bestimmt immer noch viel zu teuer.“ Kein Witz, aber witzig. :-) Leica D-Lux 109 Sharif

Heute war ich zum ersten Mal in Wetzlar. Meine M2 braucht eine Überholung (Hemmwerk, Verschluss…). Das totfotografierte Leica-Gebäude hat mich gar nicht gereizt. Direkt am Parkplatz steht diese schlichte Halle von Weller Feinwerktechnik. Das passt. Leica D-Lux 109 Sharif

Trotzdem ein schöner Tag by Herr Sharif, auf Flickr Leica D-Lux 109, Ausschnitt und Silfer Efex … Sharif

Blaue Stunde in der Straße der Jugend by Herr Sharif, auf Flickr Sharif

Shot with D-Lux Ty109 1/800 sec. f/2.8 34 mm ISO 200 @Bold Street, Liverpool Please feel free to leave any comments! Thank you for your time! Kai

Shot with D-Lux Ty109 1/500 sec. f/2.8 34 mm ISO200 @Bold Street, Liverpool Please feel free to leave any comments! Thank you for your time! Kai

Hi everyone, it's my first post! Shot with D-Lux 109, 1/125, f/5, ISO 200 Comments and critiques are welcomed! Cheers!

Title quoted from Shakespeare's "A Mid Summer Night's Dream". Shot with Leica D-Lux 109 1/4 sec. f/13 15.9 mm Feel free to leave feedbacks

Shot with Leica D-Lux 109 1/3200 sec. f/2.7 22.7 mm ISO 200 Comments and critiques are welcomed!

September 2015. Ich werde so eins nach dem anderen zeigen. Taxi! by Herr Sharif, auf Flickr St. Ives Leica D-Lux 109 Sharif

Hi to all of you, I have a D-lux 109 from 29th of May 2015 so here is my experience with it so far. After a couple of experiments in street photography I have discovered that I need fixed vario-lens camera. I wanted Leica badly. I've had Panasonic LX7 and it was time to spend the money for the red dot. The silent shutter, fixed vario-lens, fast manual controls, good integrated viewfinder and the red dot at a fairly acceptable price for first Leica made me spend the bucks. Since I'm still developing my style I try to shoot at 35mm, but sometimes I use 50 and even 75mm for the street shooting. The great thing is that I don't have to change lenses. I don't like the shape of the camera with the extended lens but I just have to accept it. The silent shutter (it makes virtually no sound) helps me fool the people that I'm not shooting yet while I can take 2-3 shots before they're out of the frame. The 3 options for autofocus speed is a brilliant idea, I use the slowest since I feel it should be the most accurate one. The camera uses contrast to autofocus and some times it is hard to trick it to focus where I want it to, but for that kind of situations there is a manual focus whit peaking option – works great for me but not on the street. I've discovered lately that the camera have troubles autofocusing moving water with light reflections but maybe this is the case with other cameras too, I have no experience. I'm a neck strap user so I have no concerns of dropping the camera. However I've made myself a metal case covered with jeans fabric and I've put a hand grip bump plus a thumb bump. The fabric gives me extra traction so I feel the camera very stable i my hand. The case is “no chimping” that means I've covered the display so that I can't check my pictures immediately. For that reason I have no observations on the display behavior. To save battery life the display is always off, and speaking of it I have two batteries and one of them is good for between 400 and 600 shots the second one is not a Leica battery. I don't use stabilization of the lens since it decreases the picture quality. I shoot mostly in daylight and I put the setting as follows speed 1/2000, f 4 and auto ISO. I try to keep the ISO at the native 200, so in the shadows I'm switching to f 2,8 and between 1/500 and 1/1000 depending on the amount of the light. The camera handles higher ISO very well, but this is in a fairly well lit situations. I don't do night shots with the Leica. I'm using the camera for my instagram but today I've picked 10 prints of my work in size of 40x60 cm. (about 16x20”) and I'm more than pleased from the results. I shoot RAW+JPEG so I keep the good RAWs and I throw away the bad ones, but I keep all the JPEGs to track my progress as a street photographer. I can't realy speak about the IQ (image quality) of the camera since I always use ACR (Adobe raw converter) to alter the images in the way I want. I process them a lot in the ACR and then I publish them on instagram. For the prints I did an extra sharpening in the Photoshop, because of the interpolation I've done to blow them up to the sizes they were printed. And having in mind that I crop them if needed sometimes they drop to 7-8 megapixels. Still very pleased with the print results. One thing many people are complaining is the lens fairing and I can't say it is so bad that you cant shoot with a low sun in the lens. It makes small light spots (usually one) that can be easily removed in Photoshop. So my general conclusion is that I'm very happy with the camera and I'm going to use it for many years I hope. The only serious problem for me is that after about the second month it started to suck dust on the sensor. From Leica offered a cleaning and assured me that the D-Lux 109 is not very susceptible to dust but from what I've learned about the extendable fixed lens cameras it is probably going to be permanent issue with different intensity. However I'm not planing to give up on the 109 and I'm slowly working my way around the issues since every camera has some. If some of you are interested of the work I've done with the Leica 109 you can check my Instagram profile @monokul. Since the 7th frame of my “50 strangers project” and all of the “Vertical August project” are shot with the Leica. Some of the frames are made from the chest, so the camera have done a great job focusing fast enough to make the shot since I was not stopping to shoot my subjects. In Vertical August the case is different since I can't make descent vertical composition without looking trough the viewfinder, plus the idea was to grow guts and start pick up my camera in the peoples faces. O, there is a small lag in the switching between the display and the viewfinder is what I've discovered and this was one of the reasons I turned off the monitor. Now whenever I introduce the camera in front of my eye it is already showing the image in the viewfinder. I don't care about menu systems since I shoot professionally with Canon, I have Panasonic GX1 plus I shoot film on purely manual cameras so I just learn the menus and once I set the camera it's shooting time. I've programed a custom style and I see BW trough the viewfinder so it is easy for me to judge the contrast and the lines in the composition. If one wishes there is a filter effects that are applicable for the JPEGs only so if you shoot RAW+JPEG you have the freedom to change your mind later. I use no higher speed than 1/2000 because that's the last mechanical speed of the shutter and after that it's electronic which may distort moving objects in the shots. So this is all for now, If you have some questions feel free to ask. Happy shooting and good luck to all of you