Relaunching Digilux 2?

[atournas]

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Digilux 2 was a sensation when it was launched and it has since remained one of Leica's great cameras, an absolute classic. If I recall correctly, the technology then did not allow a larger sensor AND its gorgeous zoom lens: a 2/3-inch CCD and a 28-90mm f/2-2.4 Vario-Summicrion (35mm equivalent).

But---what about today? I wonder if people would be interested in Digilux 2's relaunch. OK, CCDs are gone, but still... After all, with the new Leica M6, the company has shown a desire to bring its classic cameras back to life.

 

Edited June 7, 2023 by atournas

[dugby]

I still occasionally, and thoroughly enjoy using my Digilux 2 ( aka D2 ), and have often pondered the same question that you've asked.

 

However recently I realised that Leica has re-incarnated the D2 .... it's now called it a Q3.

The Q3's weight, dimensions and especially the 28mm to 90mm sensor options.

 

[stuny]

I too loved my D2, but the last time I used it it no longer met my needs of often working faster than that camera could accommodate.  With the exception of the fixed focal length lens on my 5 1/2 year old Q, I consider it to be the the much updated version of my old D2, and it is seldom not with me.

[dpitt]

The D2 was in 2004  the best Leica could do with a fixed lens + sensor combination. I think the Q series is exactly that today. You could argue that a Q does not have a zoom lens and the D2 did. But

1. With 5 MP the zoom made much more sense than with 60MP and ample room for cropping. On the Q3 you can crop the 28mm RAW shot to 90 mm and still have 20MP left over, which is plenty to make adequate prints.
2. A Vario Summicron zoom lens would be gigantic for full frame, even larger than the Elmarit 24-90 SL lenses. It would completely throw away the size and weight advantage of the Q series, so IMO it does not make much sense.

Maybe I am missing something here, but I do not see anything the D2 has that is not equal or improved in the Q3...

[jrethorst]

> Maybe I am missing something here, but I do not see anything the D2 has that is not equal or improved in the Q3...

Images from the D2 have inspired descriptions ranging from "a certain quality" to "magic". Other lenses similarly described include that of the X Vario and the 35 Summicron M version 4, the "king of bokeh". While the Q/2/3 is a nice package, its lens has not gotten this recognition. Some posts on the DP Review forum have called its images clinical.

Edited June 7, 2023 by jrethorst

[dugby]

D2 has that lovely two position flip up speedlight…🙂

[Graham (G4FUJ)]

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I'm sure in another post here a year or two ago, I saw a comment that the Digilux2 (DLux2) and D2 were two different cameras. 

I'm still using my Digilux2, mainly for car type photos as I don't need large (MB) computer files for most of them. 

[dugby]

The Digilux 2 was/is also known as the D2 to it’s owners, is similar in size to the Q range.

 

The DLux2 is a very small pocket sized point and shoot.

 

 

[adan]

On 6/7/2023 at 1:29 PM, dpitt said:

With 5 MP the zoom made much more sense than with 60MP and ample room for cropping. On the Q3 you can crop the 28mm RAW shot to 90 mm and still have 20MP left over, which is plenty to make adequate prints.

A crop from 28mm to 90mm is a 3.2x linear crop (90/28) - but that is a linear crop in both picture height and width.

The Q3's 9520 x 6336 pixels cropped 3.2x becomes 9520/3.2 x 6336/3.2 - or 2975 x 1980.

A 5.8-megapixel image out of 60 Mpixels. One is throwing away 54.2 MP.  

[dpitt]

10 hours ago, adan said:

A crop from 28mm to 90mm is a 3.2x linear crop (90/28) - but that is a linear crop in both picture height and width.

The Q3's 9520 x 6336 pixels cropped 3.2x becomes 9520/3.2 x 6336/3.2 - or 2975 x 1980.

A 5.8-megapixel image out of 60 Mpixels. One is throwing away 54.2 MP.  

Thanks for correcting me. I should have calculated with the square of 3,2.
But still, I have some nice pictures on my wall taken by the D2 which was only 5MP.
Cropping this far is not ideal, but for an occasional snap one could still make it work.
Of course you still get the improved noise and DR performance of the modern sensor compared to the D2, so I think you can still argue the Q3 is providing about the same 28-90 mm eq. zoom range as the Digilux2 in a digital way.

For quality work 10 good MP would be safer, so that would make for a 70mm crop (factor 2,44).

[atournas]

14 hours ago, adan said:

[...] A 5.8-megapixel image out of 60 Mpixels. One is throwing away 54.2 MP.  

I see your point and I don't object to the numerical results, so please see this comment as an opinion from a different perspective.

Cropping, especially heavy cropping, is not that innocent. It was routinely used with, for example, Hasselblad studio shots, but it was applied to film images, not digital. Cropping digital requires well-designed algorithms; although PS and other same-rank photo editing software of today are very capable at that, they still sample and practically average parts of a mosaic image with borders. Already sensor's physical borders have reduced the quality of the original uncropped image pixels there. A rule of thumb in post-processing is the larger the part of the image one works on, the better quality-wise.

For the technical difficulties and the plethora of artifacts in image processing, one can compare the no-brainer tools in PS with the 800-page manual of the image processing toolbox in Matlab, not to mention the mathematical approximations done in filter design. So, perhaps a full image from a 5 MP camera is not that worse than a wildly cropped shot from a 60 MP one.

However, my reluctance to see cropping as a standard benefit found in Q3 and similar bodies stems not from the technicalities mentioned above, but from the photographic practice. We all agree that serious photographs cannot be a result of a "machine gun" approach to shooting. Well, cropping is also a "machine gun" approach; while the former is temporal, the latter is spatial---still a "machine gun"! 

[dpitt]

2 hours ago, atournas said:

I see your point and I don't object to the numerical results, so please see this comment as an opinion from a different perspective.

Cropping, especially heavy cropping, is not that innocent. It was routinely used with, for example, Hasselblad studio shots, but it was applied to film images, not digital. Cropping digital requires well-designed algorithms; although PS and other same-rank photo editing software of today are very capable at that, they still sample and practically average parts of a mosaic image with borders. Already sensor's physical borders have reduced the quality of the original uncropped image pixels there. A rule of thumb in post-processing is the larger the part of the image one works on, the better quality-wise.

For the technical difficulties and the plethora of artifacts in image processing, one can compare the no-brainer tools in PS with the 800-page manual of the image processing toolbox in Matlab, not to mention the mathematical approximations done in filter design. So, perhaps a full image from a 5 MP camera is not that worse than a wildly cropped shot from a 60 MP one.

However, my reluctance to see cropping as a standard benefit found in Q3 and similar bodies stems not from the technicalities mentioned above, but from the photographic practice. We all agree that serious photographs cannot be a result of a "machine gun" approach to shooting. Well, cropping is also a "machine gun" approach; while the former is temporal, the latter is spatial---still a "machine gun"! 

I can agree fully on the machine gun approach. For the temporal, my idea is that there is only one exact ideal moment for most shots. And even if you shoot 20 shots a second, you might miss it. You would for sure miss the artistic 'Choice' to instinctively click at an exact moment. One can argue that 1/10 of a sec is the limit for most humans reaction time, but I like to think it is of more artistic value to press the shutter at a given time than choosing one of the shots out of a burst of 20 in PP.

In a way cropping (and certainly heavy cropping) is often done after the fact, so it will give me less satisfaction to 'find' a small crop in a picture that I took with other frame in mind. But IMO deliberately aiming at using only the center part of the image is of equal value as using a camera with a different lens and using the picture as shot. A full picture of 5MP is certainly not worse than a heavy crop with a camera of the same pixel density. But amount of MP does not say much about the final IQ. And if you start cropping that heavily it has to be from a superior sensor, because pixel size and quality is also a very important factor.

Edited June 10, 2023 by dpitt

[atournas]

1 hour ago, dpitt said:

I can agree fully on the machine gun approach. For the temporal, my idea is that there is only one exact ideal moment for most shots. And even if you shoot 20 shots a second, you might miss it. You would for sure miss the artistic 'Choice' to instinctively click at an exact moment. One can argue that 1/10 of a sec is the limit for most humans reaction time, but I like to think it is of more artistic value to press the shutter at a given time than choosing one of the shots out of a burst of 20 in PP.

In a way cropping (and certainly heavy cropping) is often done after the fact, so it will give me less satisfaction to 'find' a small crop in a picture that I took with other frame in mind. But IMO deliberately aiming at using only the center part of the image is of equal value as using a camera with a different lens and using the picture as shot. A full picture of 5MP is certainly not worse than a heavy crop with a camera of the same pixel density. But amount of MP does not say much about the final IQ. And if you start cropping that heavily it has to be from a superior sensor, because pixel size and quality is also a very important factor.

Yes, exactly. And I might add that my OP pointed out the combination of the small sensor + Vario-Summicron. I see you own a D2, so you have experience with images coming out of D2 (I still miss their colors!) Anyway, what I tried to emphasize was that today's technology would allow for much better 2/3-inch sensors and the required in-camera software. Any much larger sensor would hinder the incorporation of a Vario-Summicron. So, all in all, my OP was about the D2 lens quality. People used to rave about that lens! Some went so far as to call the D2 color images "digital Kodachromes".

Edited June 10, 2023 by atournas

[Me Leica!]

I used to use the Digilux 2 (and I've also used a copy of the Panasonic version, the DMC-LC1). Great camera in so many ways. I found the limitations (and there were no shortage of those!) to be a great way of forcing you to get everything from the camera. I never shot it past ISO 100, but the shutter was so soft that I could handhold it at ridiculously long shutter speeds. The fact that it had the most awful EVF in probably the history of EVFs and still made you want to shoot with it is a testament to its charm.

I use an X Vario now, and it reminds me of the Digilux 2 in many ways. In fact, I think you could look at the X Vario as a modern Digilux 2. Similar zoom range (gives up 20mm on the long end), similar implementation of manual focus, similar quiet shutter. The X Vario lens has really nice output, nice colour, good contrast, and so on, and is surprisingly good at higher ISOs in my estimation. Not the ridiculous five and six figure ISOs that modern cameras have, but within the range that you'd use on a regular basis.

 

[jaapv]

Better relaunch the Digilux2 

[Einst_Stein]

D2 was my favorite camera for a longtime, it finally finished its mission when hit by the corrosion problem. 
Since then I have used many digital P&S cameras much better in almost every way. 

The first to recommend is Dlux 7 or Panasonic LX100 ii. Their predecessors Dlux 109 and Lx100 are almost equally good, almost. 
going down a little on sensor, Canon GX5 Ii is fantastic. Canon GX 7 and Panasonic LX10 are close but I would not recommend, given Canon GX 5 Ii. 

I would skip smaller sensor than 1”, though there are excellent choices, at least no worse than D2. 

Practically, Leica XV works even better than the Dlux 7 for me, but it’s specs may not be D2 like for lot of people.
 

[Giuseppe14]

Hello. I had the Panasonic Black version of this camera when it came out. Loved it and traveled with it extensively. Sold it when newer gear came out. BUT, I always remembered I loved the photos. As luck would have it, I found a a practically new Digilux 2 in June of 2023. It was a later serial number that did not have a sensor issue. I believe the owner used it for a minute and put it in the close for the last 20 years. Went out and took some photos of my 125lb. Bernese Mountain dog named Giuseppe. This is straight out of the camera with no processing. Shot as jpeg. As I remembered, the images come out great, and impressive, for a 20 year old camera, a tiny sensor and only 5MB. But it's the lens, in my opinion, that held the magic.

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[Paul Reading]

Is it the CCD sensor that makes the difference?

[pippy]

On 6/8/2023 at 8:10 AM, Graham (G4FUJ) said:

I'm sure in another post here a year or two ago, I saw a comment that the Digilux2 (DLux2) and D2 were two different cameras...

You are on the right tack, Graham, but in fact there is no such camera as a 'Leica D2' and it is the Digilux 2 and the D-Lux 2 which are very different cameras so people should not abbreviate these names as confusion will result from incorrect usage.

The Digilux 2;

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/leicadigilux2

The D-Lux 2;

http://wiki.l-camera-forum.com/leica-wiki.en/index.php/D-Lux_2

FWIW I have a D-Lux 4(*)for happy-snappy pics and it is a great little performer. Visually it reminds me somewhat of the UR-Leica....

Philip.

*Edit : Effectively identical to the 2 but with an 11.3mp sensor instead of the 8.6mp of the earlier camera.

Edited July 5, 2023 by pippy

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica Lux

[jrethorst]

> Anyway, what I tried to emphasize was that today's technology would allow for much better 2/3-inch sensors and the required in-camera software

And even a better EVF, and no delay writing raw images to the card. It would all work; it's feasible; Leica should do it.

> my OP was about the D2 lens quality. People used to rave about that lens!

A whole lot of people still do.

> I use an X Vario now, and it reminds me of the Digilux 2 in many ways. In fact, I think you could look at the X Vario as a modern Digilux 2. Similar zoom range (gives up 20mm on the long end), similar implementation of manual focus, similar quiet shutter. The X Vario lens has really nice output, nice colour, good contrast, and so on

Could the D2 and XV be, only in terms of simple IQ, as good as Leica has ever done?

> But it's the lens, in my opinion, that held the magic.

Magic is a good word for it.

If Leica doesn't see the light, as it were, and relaunch the D2, I wonder if a cottage industry could refurbish existing D2s and Panasonic LC1s. New sensor of the same size, new EVF, firmware that speeds up writing raw files to card. The sensor and EVF are off the shelf, and there are people who write firmware. How nice that would be.