Macfilos Weekender

This is one of my favourite shots taken with the Leica X Vario, a camera that has attracted a lot of comment here on Macfilos over the past month. What is remarkable about this shot is that it was taken inside a theatre, handheld and with no flash.

The much-maligned X Vario was straining at the leash — at full zoom of 70mm and at full-chat on the widest possible aperture of f/6.9. It was sure it was hardly a recipe for success as I settled into my seat at the opera four years ago in November 2013. Frankly, I didn’t hold out much hope of getting any reasonable results, especially since I had to keep the speed down to 1/60s in order to stick to ISO 3200 which, I decided, was as high as I wanted to go (the X Vario tops out at 6400).

As was always the case, though, the X Vario adapted to the circumstances and produced a shot to be proud of. I have an A3 version in a frame on my office wall and I still marvel at the image quality considering the poor conditions.

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