The Leica X1 has featured heavily in this blog over the past few years. If you do a search you will find a couple of dozen articles by me and by our arch X1 fan, John Shingleton. I said I would never sell my X1 because it was so convenient as a carry around camera. And the results still impress after nearly eight years.
But the arrival of the Leica CL has given me pause for reflection and resulted in some reorganisation. The CL is so much like the X1 in size and convenience (and it doesn’t have that extending lens) that I concluded I probably wouldn’t use the X1 in future. My T, which I bought as a stopgap last year in anticipation of the CL, is also now also surplus to requirements. It is time, I felt, for a bit of consolidation.
Sentimental
Rather reluctantly, then, I took these two old friends to Red Dot Cameras for resale. I try not to get sentimental about digital cameras and move them on when it makes sense. Lenses and film cameras are a different matter, of course, and I tend to stick with them through thick and thin.
The CL, then, has cause more than a ripple here at Macfilos. I believe the advent of the CL heralds a new approach to the APS-C camera system by Leica — not before time, it has to be said. I would not be surprised to find that the CL is just the first in a line of competitive products.
We need look no further than the Fuji X range for clues to future development. If the small CL is the X-E3 or even the X-Pro 2, the next in the CL range could be an X-T2 Style camera modelled on the SL. In effect it would be a mini SL with a larger body than the CL, a substantial grip and a bigger viewfinder. It could also benefit from in-body stabilisation since none of the lenses are stabilised.
So it’s all change on the compact front. I feel rather sorry to say goodbye to the X1 but both this and the later X2 seem to be in demand at the moment and it’s a good time to sell.
If you are interested in either of my two cameras you can check them here and, of course, you can buy from Red Dot with confidence.
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My X2 has gone but I kept my X1 for both sentimental and practical reasons; it was my first Leica digital camera way back in 2010 and it still produces excellent photos throughout its aperture range. I’ve successfully used the camera in total darkness with a Leica SF24D flash when the camera focused quickly and perfectly on any bright part of the subject using its ‘AF assist’. I particularly like the X1’s straight O.O.C. B&W images. Also consider that Leica Mayfair offer free X1 sensor cleans – unlikely any other manufacturer would offer same for their older fixed lens compact cameras.
I fear you are right and perhaps my spur-of-the-moment decision to sell the X1 was misguided. I did once say I would never sell it and, frankly, there was no pressing need to so. If it doesn’t sell I will regard this as fate and bring it back into the fold.
Finally an understanding of “Parting is such sweet sorrow”!
I know. Several times I was prompted to go and take the X1 back again. I’m not sentimental about the T which I initially thought would make a second body to the CL. But after trying the CL I don’t want to go back to the T.
Sorry Mike, I don’t wish to buy. For similar reasons, I find myself waking up with one sock too many… er… no, a redundant T body (mine is too rough to sell), but the T and the X1 are both excellent so they won’t hang around.
I already had the Leica Vario Elmar-TL 18-56mm f/3.5-5.6 ASPH, and a week before buying the CL, I bought a minty Leica Super-Vario Elmar-TL 11-23mm f3.5, but on the day that I bought the CL, I also acquired the Leica M-Adaptor-T and this allowed me to connect my manual Summicron lenses, this has been a really nice exercise, I now have a 50mm equivalent from my 35mm M and a lovely 75mm(50). As others have said repeatedly, using M lenses on the T, TL (with EVF), SL and CL is a pleasure.
Anyway, my point is that we possibly need not look at what Fuji (or Sony) are doing. Instead Leica could do what they are good at, which is making great lenses.
How about bringing to market a couple of native L mount lenses, that are aimed at APS-C users?
A 16mm, 18mm, and 23mm with L mounts and depth of field scales, manual apertures would be an excellent start, take away the motorised focusing and we are talking tiny?
Oh and possibly an M10E, an M body without an OVF, but rather an EVF akin to that used by the SL?
StephenJ
All interesting stuff, Stephen. The 11-23 is a really great lens — my favourite of the three TL zooms — and I have an article prepared for tomorrow which features it doing what it does best. I have also found that using M lenses on the CL is almost as rewarding as on the SL (more so, if you take into account the weight of the SL). The new viewfinder makes even the Noctilux a pleasure to focus.
I agree with you on the idea of manual L lenses but I don’t think that’s on the roadmap. I’d be interested in a more versatile mid-range zoom, though — ideally something like the Leica DG 12-60 for micro four thirds. That would be a 16-80 on APS-C and I think it would be popular, especially if they could squeeze in f/2.8-4 without making it too bulky. These days photographers are expecting their standard zoom to be wider, at 24mm equivalent, and a tad longer. Fuji and others have done it. The old 18-56mm, good as it is, lacks that wider starting point.
Mike