Great lens, luxurious feel, aperture priority.

Small viewfinder, awkward exposure compensation, high price.

A great high-end P&S. I just wish for a larger viewfinder and a wheel (or two buttons) for exposure compensation. A shutter faster than 1/400 would also be nice.

Customer Service

Haven't had reason to try it.

Similar Products Used:

Pentax Zoom 90

Excellent optics, very very sharp and most of all easy to carry everywhere.

Nothing so far, except I find the view finder quite small.

I had a SLR camera for over 8 years and I find it is very difficult to bring this camera specially if you had taken your vacation together with your kids. I tried to buy the Leica Minilux and Leica C1 and I found this two camera sufficient enough to take photos elsewhere. The quality of the photos is always excellent. The lense is superb, sharp etc.... I found out that without carrying those very heavy stuff (SLR with different lenses) does not mean you cannot get good photos. I went to Japan and had taken 11 rolls. And when it was developed my friends ask me what kind of camera I am using.

Similar Products Used:

Canon, Nikon, Yashica

Quality of photos and ease of getting great photos

Keeping some setings and not keeping others.

I obsessed over this camera a few years back when I didn't have the money for it, so I made a 3d model of it from the specs. I have always wanted to get into photography I have had seriously, but never could find the right camera for me. I have had 2 SLRs and I just couldn't seem to get a good feel for focussing them. So when I realized that my newest slr had been sitting with film in it for the last 2 years without being used, and my cheap P&S sat for nearly as long since I hated the photos that came out of it, I went on a quest for a camera. I first thought about the Z2X, the C1 and then I looked at every quality P&S out there. It always came into focus. Get the Minilux. So I did. By the time I rediscovered photography I realized that I got really excited when I got the photos back.

P.S. Get a quality photofinisher.

Similar Products Used:

Cheap P&S and a couple of different SLRa

Produces excellent results with existing light photography. Lens is sharp for a compact. Solidly constructed. Useful manual overrides.

Flash sometimes overexposes shots. Controls can be awkward.

Excellent choice for single camera to accomplish both artistic and point-and-shoot photography, although not necessarily the best at either. It's build suggests it will provide a lifetime of fine photography.

Similar Products Used:

Canon, Olympus, and Agfa compact cameras; Contax SLR.

I just bought the little devil and finished off one Kodac v160 roll. What clarity and sharpness. The colors look right too. I usually do landscapes and architecture when I travel, but this camera may help doing people on the sly. It is only 40mm but at 2.4 the blowups must be wonderful.

A an old Canon slr owner I have to get used to the metering and flash systems. The manual for a canera like this should be written as if for a moron or a geezer fixed in his SLR ways.
It would be nice to have a 38-60-90 or so lense at 2.4 like the M series multiple lense.

If this isn't the best of its kind, what is?

Customer Service

I hope I don't need any.

Similar Products Used:

only my Can eos and old Nikormat manual.

Fabulous on film performance. Contrast and sharpness are first rate.

None.

As good as it gets in optical quality. Tough titanium body. Worthy of the fine Leica label.

Similar Products Used:

None

no better all-round 35mm image taker on the planet. truly great lens, perfect size, high build quality, best built-in flash.

no

the best compact camera, period

Similar Products Used:

ricoh gr1, olympus stylus epic, yashica t4super.

Superior optics; handy size; optimum focal length; fairly lightweight; availability of creative controls: aperture priority, manual focus.

Finicky controls take some getting used to; Must look at LCD screen on top rather than viewfinder to get exposure info; Shutter almost too quiet! - have twice accidentally exposed two frames in noisy environments.

After spending two weeks vactioning in Florida and hauling around a bag full of heavy SLR equipment, I finally decided "enough!" Zoom lenses have never been sharp or fast enough to suit me (without spending outrageous amounts for even wider, heavier ones), so I always found myself switching to a 50mm to get a majority of available light shots. My dealer suggested trying the Minilux. I am not disappointed. It produces sharper, more colorful photos than any camera I've owned. I bought the non-zoom model in order to gain more creativity with the optional manual controls. Also, I can shoot 100 speed film literally anywhere with the f2.4 lens. Available light photos from this camera are superb. I often shoot in challenging lighting situations and the metering produces exposures which are dead on. Although it is a bit over-priced, it is so superior to Olympus, Canon and similar point-and-shoots that they aren't even in the same league. I recommend film no faster than 100 speed with this camera for sharp, grainless, deeply saturated prints. Choose a good photo finisher, too.

Customer Service

Not used.

Similar Products Used:

Canon Sureshot; Olympus Epic; Canon EOS.

Quality of the optics. Tough construction.

None

Premier lens quality.

Similar Products Used:

None

Fastest lens of any P&S (f/2.4). Sharp Lens. Aperture Priority. Manual Scale Focusing (in meters). Good Flash. Bulb Mode. Cable release socket. Nice focal length for most situations (40mm).

Won't fit in your shirt pocket, but who cares.

Wonderfully versatile camera that can hardly be classed as a Point and Shoot, though it can be used as such. With good techniques, the right film (I prefer professional ISO 100 and 160) and quality processing, images are equal to any SLR. Compares favorably with the Ricoh GR1/GR1s. A Minilux user group can be found at: http://cgi.linkclub.or.jp/~aciel/minilux/index.cgi

Customer Service

Called Leica for a manual and had it in hand in three days at no cost.

Similar Products Used:

Konica Hexar. Ricoh GR1. Olympus Stylus Epic. Yashica T4 Super. Nikon Lite Touch, etc.