Digilux 2 is the most talked about and loved camera here - but is it justified?

[Digitom]

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Five mega-pixels is more than adequate for many users. How many regularly print larger than A4? Only when pressed into professional applications would the D2 be found wanting.

 

Really true! I made many prints from my Digilux 2 at A4 and I was really satisfied. No need for more Megapixel. The handling of Digilux 2 is fantastic and -maybe only the using if an X2 is comparable to that - but the things are changing - D-Lux 5 with aperture ring and F1.4 is also not bad...

[Digitom]

Above I wrote:

 

" love my D2, but knowing I had to send it in for service to have the rubber covering replaced I found a D-Lux-5 with spare battery, hadngrip and EVF in excellent shape on eBay. Using it while the D2 was away, and since, and switching back and forth I find the only two reasons I prefer the D2 is it looks like a real camera and its manual controls. Otherwise, the V-Lux beats it."

 

Yesterday I recalled another advantage my D2 has over the D-Lux-5: It is stealthier. The D-Lux uses a near infrared light for autofocus but the D2 does not.

 

Exactly these cameras are my actual "dream team": D-Lux 5 for everyday and everytime using on vacation, and a V-Lux 1 when higher zoom is needed (this camera is really good). And the Digilux 2 I use when I want "analog feeleing", and in very difficult light situations. I still love the Digilux 2.

[jjb]

"Does anyone use the Leica Elpro-D E69 close up lens with their D2/LC!? I know that they are rare as hens teeth now but I do know of one that may be available."

 

Love the Elpro lens. Very high quality, heavy glass, nice magnification and bokeh. Tough to find, took me about 2 years of searching. Expands the D2's usefulness.

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[jaapv]

The Canon 500 close-up diopter is just as good as the original Leica one, and much easier (and cheaper) available. It needs a step-up ring to 77.

[elgenper]

The Canon 500 close-up diopter is just as good as the original Leica one, and much easier (and cheaper) available. It needs a step-up ring to 77.

 

 

The Canon 250 is even better suited, since there´s less overlap of the focussing ranges (and so it gives more magnification). The stepup ring may be a problem, as always with this camera. Mine was bought from Lensmate (no longer listed on their site, but it might pay to ask them directly). There is vignetting at zoom settings below 50, but those settings are seldom used for closeups in any case...

 

The image above is my latest shot with this combo. Very slightly cropped (around 20%, to get rid of some dead leaves).

[jjb]

Thank you, Jaap and Per (hope I got your names right), for reminding me of prior discussion threads where one or possibly both of you pointed out the possible uses and trade-offs of the Canon filters / step-ups, the Panny close-up lens, and the Elpro d69 achromat.

 

Based on suggestions such as yours, I originally began to search for the Canon, but as luck would have it, I found the Elpro at nearly the same time and decided to grab it. In either case, a quality close-up lens is a nice expansion to this great and unique camera!

 

Jim

[dhsimmonds]

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"Does anyone use the Leica Elpro-D E69 close up lens with their D2/LC!? I know that they are rare as hens teeth now but I do know of one that may be available."

 

Love the Elpro lens. Very high quality, heavy glass, nice magnification and bokeh. Tough to find, took me about 2 years of searching. Expands the D2's usefulness.

 

Nice images jjb and the Elpro certainly retains that "je n'sais pas" look and clarity of the D2.

 

Given their rarity, replacement prices must be good now too!

[Ghostwalker]

Food for thoughts:

- with the Nikon D70, whenever the picture was not what I had expected, the immediate reaction was: "With the Nikon D200, it wouldn't have been a problem". Then I switched to the D200 and the reaction became: "With a D300, this picture would have been great" or "I wish I had this xxx lens".

With the D2, the thinking becomes "The photographer has to improve his skills".

- the D2 is such a camera that it mentally forces you to be up to what it can deliver. Or in other words, feeling ashamed to take a so-so picture with it.

Cheers

Michel

 

Im just getting back into photography or at least more serious as a hobbyist. Waiting for my D2 as i type. I learned to take pictures on my fathers Voigtlander Vito II 35mm camera. And the camera that travelled the world with me was a Pentax ME super and of course 50mm f 1.2 lens. I have other digital cameras, Pentax K10d, and K-01, Konica Minolta Z2. But i wanted film camera like operation and image glow. I think the D2 will bring me back to the basics, and ill have a lot of fun with it. Bigger, newer is not always better, Learn to use what you have and that is a skill you will never lose.

[wda]

The D2 experience will certainly bring you back to basics. Enjoy!

[rivi1969]

I sold my Fuji X100 to "upgrade" to the Digilux 2. The Digilux 2 love is completely justified 

This is a shot I took yesterday of my dear Nina, ISO100 RAW.

 

Cheers! 

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[rivi1969]

Food for thoughts:

- with the Nikon D70, whenever the picture was not what I had expected, the immediate reaction was: "With the Nikon D200, it wouldn't have been a problem". Then I switched to the D200 and the reaction became: "With a D300, this picture would have been great" or "I wish I had this xxx lens".

With the D2, the thinking becomes "The photographer has to improve his skills".

- the D2 is such a camera that it mentally forces you to be up to what it can deliver. Or in other words, feeling ashamed to take a so-so picture with it.

Cheers

Michel

So 100% true! 

[mikeleng]

Well said Ben (Roguewave) Quote

Such a strange way to approach this subject. This camera is so easy to use and always a delight to have around my neck or in my hand. A magnificent design. The Cron shot wide open is just amazing. Having the ability to auto focus is also a delight. This camera just looks the part and more importantly, it delivers. Of all the cameras I bring out into the street, this always get's me an intro without ever having to say a word. It is elegant and practical. Everyone wants to hold it. Hope mine stays in good form for a very long time

 

28mm 1/60th @F2 100 iso, is all you need for street shooting with this camera, I can't understand why we talk about the 5mp sensor, and it's only usable @100 iso in a negative way .

 

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[BBestone]

As always, the answer to the topic's question .......YES!

 

[ChrisRL]

Another one in the fold.

 

Here's the thing.

 

Leicas back in the day were simple tanks of machines. Solid. Reliable. Precision feel. Not the cheapest, not the fastest, not the sexiest. But the first.

 

Then came everybody else. As a working pro back in the heyday of stills film, I had ready access to every brand, every model. Eventually stuck with Nikon because Nikon was readily available everywhere on the planet, and the company was very good to me. Linhof, Arca, Sinar, Hasselblad, etc. not available so much in poorer countries (I'm talking mid 70s here).

 

Some of these, like the Rollei TLRs were harder to operate. Like the old plate cameras (how many remember full plate and half plate, etc?). Not so easy at all.

 

But I cut my teeth on these fine (and no-so-fine) old machines, and a Rollei 2.8 was my very first camera.

 

Sold that for an old M4 on the advice of one of my first mentors, a Magnum photographer who said "if you hold a camera and you feel good, the chances of shooting a fine photo will increase, if only because you're feeling good while you're holding that camera. Buy a camera that fits you and you won't have to fit yourself to that camera. Buy a camera that fits you like a glove, and you stop thinking about the camera and start thinking about the photo."

 

On that advice, I shot the M4 to death and then added an even older M2 (in better condition), Shot and kept both until I switched to Arriflex, the movie camera equivalent to Leica, many years later.

 

 

 

 

So that was the thing. Back in the day, solid, snicking machinery. Full metal and leather (yes, I recovered them all), precision feel, yet like a glove. Fully manual. You had to learn how to use them and then practice using them, every day, to get any good at it. Technique mastered to the point of transparency. And then concentrate on the photos. The images, not the pictures. There was, and is, a difference, for me at least.

 

But then, as now, the camera companies had to sell cameras. And that means using professionals to endorse their brands and products, now more than ever. So to the public eye, that leads to the belief that it's the camera, not the photographer, that makes the shot. Which you and I never believed, but then again we weren't the ones who were being sold to, were we?

 

Then came the automatic cameras, and the cheap plasticky snapshot cameras that anybody could use to take adequate photos of anything.

Well everybody is more people than photographers, so auto cameras eventually took over the lion's share of camera manufacturing, and have progressed and evolved to be today's iPhones, I feel.

 

Now don't get me wrong.  I feel that for what they are, iPhones and their kin are jolly useful. Apart from selfies and other happy snaps, they are a ready means of acquiring and sharing visual references with others. In my work that means location photos, costumes, textures. HDR snapshots.

 

But for me, the shutter lag and pinhole lens still bug me. A Brownie in a cell phone is great, but it's not a "real" camera. It takes high quality pictures but I wouldn't say it fitted me like a glove or it made me feel good just by holding it.

 

So I upgraded. Did a little research, got me a Canon S95. Great little camera, fit on my belt, felt like an exposure meter. Quick on the draw, no shutter lag, good quality lens with a reasonable spec. Not an M, but I used it well and all the time, until my teenage son borrowed it to cover a school event and never gave it back.

 

What to replace the S95 with?

 

Thus began my full circle.

 

Over the next few months, I investigated and then tried out the entire range of modern Leicas to see if any one of them would match the trusty M's I was using back in the day. 

 

I felt the M8-9s and onward are too darned expensive (for my) casual use. I wasn't, and still am not doing enough stills work (by which I mean shooting for money) to justify that kind of investment. 

 

The 109 caught my eye. Tried it out. Returned it practically unused. Love the IQ and the 4k video, and if/when a 4k doc style shooting job comes along I might well buy one again for that use. However (and I learned this lesson on DSLRs and digital video cameras), digital sensor technology changes at least once a year. So again, unless I could see my way to working a camera within the year, I'd be buying something that would be a brick by the time my son leaves high school. The price on the 109 meant no go for now.

 

So. Something small, quick, relatively inexpensive and this lose-able and renewable, and an upgrade on my S95.

My answer: a used D-Lux 5. Love it for what it is and what it does. And yes, the red dot makes a difference! : )

 

Happy-ish, I continued on for a few weeks, thinking the story was over.

 

 

However, it wasn't. Something else happened, that I wasn't expecting.

 

The DL5 re-started my Leica M itch, which only got worse since using the DL5 every day just reminded me that I had a Leica in my hands, but.. it wasn't an M.

 

So what? Buy an M2? Go back to film?

 

That dilemma remains unresolved, but in the meantime, I started wondering if I could just find a older digital Leica that was affordable, simple, solid, precision, and that stood aside from the sensor wars, that people trusted and loved to hold and learned well and got passionate about...

 

Thus I discovered the D2, from these and other sites.

 

Looked at one. Solid, simple, it fit me like a glove. No focus ears, but that fast vario 'Cron...

 

 

Now I still carry my iPhone and DL5 on my belt. But I have my D2 in hand whenever possible. 

 

Just like my old M2. 

 

Life is good.

[ChrisRL]

               Two women power their way though a very hot Sunday in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. D2, a little Lightroom (mainly for the frame), no effects.

[Cirrus1]

_{Hello all, I also have and adore a D2. The only thing I find wanting is the auto focus. I miss many shots I take because of that. Would anyone care to chime in with advice on the best setup? Do most manual focus or ........} 

_Thanks

[ChrisRL]

Cirrus, hello!
Sure, I'll chime in.

Two things to remember. The regular autofocus starts at infinity and comes closer. The macro autofocus starts at the nearest focus and goes out towards infinity.

So if your subjects are far away, use regular. If close, use macro. That will cut the D2's search time down quite a bit.

 

Second, this is a slower camera these days. But it's still faster than a fully manual camera. Such as HC-B and the others were using before.

So how did they get those shots?

 

They got ahead of the camera. Pre-focused. Used depth of field, hyperfocal distances. Pre-framed.

That's how.

 

If you rehearse your shot before you take it, pre-frame, pre-focus, get the AE set up and in the close neighborhood before the shot opportunity comes up, then you'll be ready when it does.

 

Remember, the D2, like the M2, is not a snapshot camera unless and until you prepare it as such.

 

Hope this helps!

 

Best

Chris

[pop]

_{Hello all, I also have and adore a D2. The only thing I find wanting is the auto focus. I miss many shots I take because of that. Would anyone care to chime in with advice on the best setup? Do most manual focus or ........} 

_Thanks

When I use the AF - which is most of the time - I invariably use the spot mode. I aim at some part of the scene which contains a vertical edge (when shooting in landscape mode), press the shutter release halfway down until the camera acknowledges that it has got the focus and only then I press the release all the way down. 

[ChrisRL]

+1 to what pop said. That's how I do it too. It's okay to find something with a vertical edge that's as far away from the camera as your subject is, then pre-focus on that (hold the shutter release halfway down until the green dot stops blinking and becomes solid green, then pan and tilt over to recompose for the final shot and full press to take the image). Sorry I wasn't as explicit in my suggestions.

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica Lux

[Cirrus1]

Thanks for the responses everyone. I was interested to read about the differences in focasing regarding Macro and non Marco. My camera is stuck in Macro mode. When it happened years ago I was told it would'nt make a difference. Now I'm thinking maybe it does?