Leica X Vario: Retrospective rhapsody in Budapest

Leica’s X Vario was a sensation before its launch on 11 June 2013. It was heralded by Leica as a “mini M” and its fair to say that expectations were great. It is also fair to say that on launch day, these expectations were dashed and the X Vario was seen as a huge disappointment. With its “slow” f/3.5-6.4 28-70mm (equivalent) zoom lens, the camera was seen as anything but “a mini M”.

Amateur Photographer, in its review of the camera, had this to say:

The launch of the Leica X Vario was a much-anticipated event. Prior to 2 June when the camera was announced, the rumour mills, message boards and tech websites were in overdrive with news and speculation of a ‘mini M’ – a compact system camera with a cropped-frame sensor that would accept Leica M-mount lenses and cost less than an M-series rangefinder camera.

What actually arrived was not a smaller M, but a larger X-series camera. The X Vario is the third in the company’s line-up of large-sensor compact cameras, and features a fixed 18-46mm f/3.5-6.4 zoom lens (covering the equivalent of 28-70mm on a full-frame camera) instead of the fixed 24mm of the X2 and 28mm of the X1. To those people expecting a mini M camera, this was a disappointment – but perhaps they should not put so much faith in rumours!

The X Vario never really recovered from the sense of disappointment. It sold in modest numbers and was eventually discontinued. Just another blip in the ten-year saga of Leica’s APS-C compact cameras. Yet this is a huge pity, for the X Vario is an exceedingly competent camera that has now become something of a cult among discerning Leicaphiles.

Welcome gift

I received my Leica X Vario as a gift from my brother some five years ago. It was the first time I held a Leica. I knew what they were of course. It was like walking outside on the street past a “Members Only” club. One can only imagine what goes on inside. I knew nothing of the controversy and disappointment surrounding this camera’s launch. I took it for what it was. And I loved it.

In a way, it was a well-timed gift. All the unkind knocks the X Vario had received on its launch in 2013 had given way three years later to belated pats on the back. It was also the first time I came across two well-respected individuals when searching the net for reviews on the X Vario.

If some early opinions about the camera had doused my initial enthusiasm, Erwin Puts had to write but one sentence to put my mind at rest, “If Barnack would have lived now, he would probably have designed a camera like the X Vario.” Whoever Barnack was, if Erwin Puts thought that of him and the camera it was good enough for me.

Then I came across Macfilos and Mike Evans’s review of the X Vario in an article from January 2014 titled, “Leica X Vario, a misunderstood gem.” It was an in-depth review of the camera and it had a ton of photos accompanying it as well. Oh, it was a long while before I summoned up the courage to submit an article to Macfilos.

The first picture I took with the X Vario was on 31 January 2016. But it would be four months before I could take it on a proper trip with the family. With its credentials thus restored, the X Vario was the only camera I carried with me.

I got the EVF2 for the camera and not much else. Even though the focusing ring has a wonderful twist to move it from manual to auto, it mostly stayed in manual focusing mode.

A grand old building on Ferenciek tere 2

It was half-past eight of an evening on a June day. Bus 5 had just dropped off its passengers on Kossuth Lajos utca (street). I was across the street from Királyi Bérpalota where the shop lights had come on along Ferenciek tere. The Art Nouveau-style wrought iron doors opened onto the street, flanked either side by a kebab joint and an equally ordinary money exchange. This grand old building, used to seeing far better days, displayed a modern-day pragmatism by letting out its rooms to shops and offices, private residences, and even a hostel. Over the years, this magnificent building from the past has witnessed two world wars, a revolution, oppression, and a slow slide to despair. Until recently.

Renovation work to the building over the recent past has restored it to some of its original glory. The collapsed glass roof over the inner courtyard that had to have protective scaffolding has been rebuilt. The sewage and water lines that clogged daily have been fixed. The electrical wiring that couldn’t take the load of the profusion of sublets has been replaced. The politically expedient dull grey interiors following the Soviet occupation have been repainted back to the original Habsburg yellow. This was Budapest.

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The architects had spared no expense in decorating the interiors of Királyi Bérpalota, the mansion built in the 1900s by Franz Joseph I of the Austro-Hungarian Empire for the senior noblemen and their families in his government. Shortly after, though, portions of the building were extensively damaged in the two world wars. The recent restoration project of the areas around Ferenciek tere has given this grand old building a new lease of life. The Art Nouveau wrought iron gates, inner court doors, staircase railings designed by Jungfer Gyula, a master craftsman of his era, were restored, as were the intricate stained glass panels on the inner entrance doors designed by Miksa Roth, a genius in stained glass work at the turn of the last century.

A splash of pink, a bit of blue

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Across the street from Királyi Bérpalota is Váci utca. This pedestrian street starts at Vörösmarty Square at the northern end and stretches parallel to the Danube all the way to Great Market Hall at the Pest end of Liberty Bridge. Its length is punctuated by squares and side passages. Everything here, big-name brand shops, souvenir shops, wine shops, cafés, and bars are geared towards tourists. It’s a great place for people watching.

On one day this window-shopper’s pink and blue outfit set against the warm yellows of the shop lights was the inspiration behind a picture I took of an advertising pillar on Bethlen Gábor utca opposite Keleti Pályaudvar station.

I’ll take green any day

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On the first evening, while the family settled in, I picked up the X Vario and headed out. To reach Gellért Hill I crossed Szabadság híd, popularly called Liberty Bridge, less than a kilometer from Ferenciek tere. It is the tram link between Buda and Pest. Inaugurated in 1896 by the Habsburg emperor Franz Josef, it features crisscross metalwork and symbolic Hungarian designs such as mythical turul birds.

Retreating German troops during WW2 bombed the bridge in 1945. But the strong foundations held up remarkably well and reconstruction work was quickly completed the following year. However, there was a shortage of grey paint around that time, obliging the authorities to paint the bridge green instead.

Another recent reconstruction project in 2016 closed the bridge to traffic, allowing it to be taken over by people for picnics, yoga classes, theatre performances, and sporting events on four weekends each summer. Even a Catholic Mass was held one year, drawing a capacity crowd of two thousand to the bridge. Walking across, I spotted a “Pig in Japan” sticker from the standup comedy act someone had stuck on one of its iron spans. The emperor would have disapproved of such irreverence.

Designs on Budapest

Missing my stop one day on the way to the railway station at Kerepesi út, I ended up walking back the few blocks to the station. There, on the wall along Thököly út, and watching me from across the street, were Péter Pozsár, András Huszár, Dávid Ráday and Maxim Bakos—Budapest designers, architects and artists. Together they had conceived an art project to build an eleven-meter-tall tree composed entirely of sleighs, 365 of them in fact, to celebrate Christmas. The sleighs were donated to the SOS Children’s Village once they had finished being displayed at Müpa Budapest.

Budapest’s city designers must have had a thing for arches. Here at Keleti Pályaudvar station the entrance arch, designed by Gyula Rochlitz and completed in 1884, has two statues on the front façade, one of George Stephenson, the inventor of the steam locomotive, and another of James Watt. Less than 5 km away, another arched entranceway to the Great Market Hall, at Vámház Boulevard, designed by Samu Petz, replaced the open-air markets of Budapest in 1897.

Sons and daughters

In 2016, Hungary marked the 60th anniversary of the struggle against Soviet-imposed rule. Near Ferenciek tere, a huge banner covered much of the scaffolding on a building. Julianna Sponga was a freedom fighter during the short-lived uprising in 1956. Here she was, with bandaged cheek and determined gaze, alongside a quote by the Hungarian writer, Sándor Márai.

There is a modern-day story attached to the photograph. The reproduced image of the plucky young girl on the billboard is a very different one from the original the French photographer Russell Melcher had made. The background and people have been replaced and the black and white photograph has been colourised, all without his knowledge, by the 1956 Remembrance Committee.

Climbing Gellért Hill up to Liberty statue (taking the long way up as is my habit), I passed a somewhat squat monument. Tibor Szervátiusz did a rather grumpy rendition of another Hungarian personality, the writer Dezsö Szabó whose vandalised bust was planted firmly in the grounds of Gellérthegy Jubileumi park. Below the Citadel, I continued past sculptor Ödön Metky’s three amphorae, slender and white, perched precariously on the grass as residents relaxed on the lawns with their pets.

I am disappointed though when one day I ask a resident about another famous son, a certain gentleman called André Kertész, and get a blank look. Maybe I would have had better luck if I had asked about its other famous son, a certain Endre Friedmann, known to the world as Robert Capa.

Gellért Hill

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Szabadság-szobor, the bronze Liberty with palm leaf, designed by Hungarian sculptor and artist Zsigmond Kisfaludi Stróbl, rises above the city on her pedestal on Gellért Hill. Inaugurated in 1947 in memory of the Soviet liberation during World War II from occupation by Nazi Germany, an inscription on the memorial then ran as, “To the memory of the liberating Soviet heroes erected by the grateful Hungarian people in 1945.”

With public sentiment towards the Soviets waning, followed by an end to communist rule and the shift to democracy in 1989, the inscription was modified, “To the memory of those all (sic) who sacrificed their lives for the independence, freedom, and prosperity of Hungary.”

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Heading back via Sánc utca, I pass a young couple on the way down. Noticing the X Vario in my hand, he stopped to give me a thumbs up. That’s what members of an exclusive club do….

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Opened in 1918, the Gellért Thermal Bath is located in an impressive Art Nouveau building at the foot of Liberty Bridge and Gellért Hill on the Buda side.

It was close to closing time when we stepped in through its imposing entrance on Kelenhegyi út. Inside, the Zsolnay tiled halls were quiet. Solemn statues of Venus glowed gently in their niches. We marvelled at Miksa Róth’s creations again. Too late to slip into a pool, we soaked in the stained-glass master’s handiwork. The X Vario struggled in the dim light.

Art Nouveau rules OK

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The Gresham Palace, now the Four Seasons Hotel, was designed by Hungarian architects Zsigmond Quittner and Joseph and Laszlo Vago in 1907 for the London Gresham Life Assurance Company which had bought the site for its international headquarters in 1880.

Some of the most famous artists and craftsmen of the time worked to make the Gresham Palace one of the most glamorous buildings in Pest, and one of the finest examples of Art Nouveau architecture in the world. The artist Géza Maróti created many original sculptures for the building. The wrought iron gates are decorated with peacock motifs by the same Hungarian artist, Gyula Jungfer, of Királyi Bérpalota fame. A girl in pink riding her pink scooter photobombed me in the cutest way.

Just across the road in the park opposite the Four Seasons is a statue of Ferenc Deák de Kehida, a Hungarian statesman and Minister of Justice known as “the wise man of the nation”. He sits on a chair overlooking Chain Bridge at Széchenyi István tér. Four allegorical statues around the base represent Ferenc Déak’s work and achievements. “Justice”, depicted by a woman with a book and scales; “Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867”, in which the Danube is represented by a bearded man flanked by two boys depicting Austria and Hungary; “Hungary”, portrayed as a young woman with an infant holding a shield, and “Education and Progress”, illustrated by a seated woman with an open book on her lap. It’s difficult to say which is greener, the leaves or the figures.

A fine balance between Church and State

One can get to the top of St Stephen’s Basilica either by climbing its spiral staircase or taking the lift. A narrow parapeted gallery runs around the dome, providing a 360° view of the city. Looking west, towards the Danube, Buda Castle is just visible to the left with the National Gallery and Library buildings, and to the right is the unmistakable bell tower of Matthias Church on Castle Hill. The avenue running straight to the river is Zrinyi út.

I do not have a head for heights so don’t expect a shot of the street below. I did, however, want to give you a sense of the scale of the view. It was time to switch from aperture priority to manual and make those four shots.

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The height of the cupola of the Szent István Bazilika is 96 meters, exactly the height of the Parliament Building, an intentional act preserving the balance between church and state. The building itself has seen three architects from the beginning of construction in 1851 and one dome collapse till its consecration in 1905.

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Europe’s second-largest Parliament building is a big draw on the Budapest circuit with its neo-Gothic architecture designed by the Hungarian architect Imre Steindl. It also holds the Hungarian Holy Crown.

In the Parliament’s vicinity is the recently renovated Kossuth Square surrounding the building with lawns and a statue complex of Lajos Kossuth—the Magyars’ brilliant leader and patriot during Hungary’s 1848 Revolution against an oppressive Habsburg monarchy that led to the establishment of the independent Hungarian Parliament that now governs the country.

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Kossuth Square’s recent makeover has converted a parking lot into a pedestrian zone with wide landscaped spaces. It also has a reflecting pool at one end where if one is lucky you’ll catch a tousled-headed lad at the water’s edge.

Old world style

The Hungarian State Opera exudes old-world charm. The Café is as good a place as any to dine in on the last day. Is there any point in travelling the world if one eats just burgers and fries?

A short note on the photographs

In low light, for example, the evening shot of Királyi Bérpalota taken from the street, or the indoor shots of Szent István Bazilika and others, the ISO probably would have shot past 1600, the maximum I had set it at. This gave me a shutter speed in the range of 1/80 to 1/125th of a second on most occasions. I found my preferred focal lengths to be 28 and 70mm for the majority of the shots, with 35mm close behind. I knew that already from the LX100. The biggest crop I made to a photo is the one of the freedom fighter, Julianna Sponga, originally taken at 28mm from across the street.

Review Leica X Vario: A misunderstood gem

Leica X Vario: The dance of the seven veils

Unloved but superb camera makes sense on the second-hand market

Last Act: Curtain falls on the X Vario

Macfilos articles featuring pictures from the X Vario

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