The Analog Digicam
I’ve been pretty satisifed with my current digicam, the inexpensive but highly capable Canon A70. I’ve been so happy, in fact, that I eagerly recommend it every chance I get (see Eric Albert and Mark Pilgrim’s weblogs for example). To me, it’s the “little digicam that could”—it may not be as fancy, or tiny, or as high resolution as its more expensive counterparts, but it has one thing that I personally value above all those things: unlike some digital cameras I’ve owned, it’s very reliable and consistent.
That said, I’m afraid my eye has begun to wander a bit now that Leica has announced the Digilux 2. As the adoring owner of an M6 and two of Leica’s superb M lenses (a 35mm f/2 Summicron ASPH and an older 50mm f/2 Summicron), I’ve wanted to like Leica’s digital cameras for the longest time. Unfortunately, I’ve always been scared off by reviews mentioning a so-called “pointillist” effect on its images and excessive image noise at anything but the lowest ISO—annoyances that made it hard to for me to justify the cameras’ prices (and that’s just the current generation—Leica’s previous iteration of re-badged Fujifilm cameras were really lame).
I’m not sure if the Digilux 2 will fix these flaws, but it’s being marketed with one phrase that, if accurate, may well get me to forgive them: “the ‘analog’ digital camera.” The Digilux 2 appears to be Leica’s attempt to create a digital version of the classic M6—a digicam to please luddite photojournalists and curmudgeonly Leicaphiles everywhere. True to Leica form, the Digilux 2 looks backward and seeks to emulate traditional, all-manual cameras: to focus the lens, you turn a ring; to set the shutter speed, you move a dial; to check the focus distance, you look at markers on the lens. From a distance, you could even be forgiven for mistaking it for an actual M6 (something not everyone appreciates, it would seem…)!
What really seals the deal for me, though, is Magnum photographer David Alan Harvey’s psuedo-endorsement of the camera (as mentioned in Digital Photography Review’s coverage). Harvey is known for being a rather minimalist in his approach to equipment, and he’s definitely representative of the sort of people Leica is targeting, so his nod speaks well of their efforts.
(Update: An anonymous comment poster has pointed me to a Photo.net discussion about the Digilux 2, which illuminates another similarity between it and the Leica M: a very high price tag! I’m not quite ready to dismiss the D2 entirely, since I suspect a lot of its cost is tied up in an excellent lens and I still pine for the camera’s simple, “analog” operation, but I have to admit it would need really outstanding reviews to be competitive with the Canon 10D and the other mid-range digital SLRs it will be going head-to-head with.)