[Leica] Minilux review

[Nathan Wajsman <nathan.wajsman@euronet.be>]

Dear LUGgers,

This is an informal review of the Minilux that I acquired recently. As
you might recall, I am a big fan of the Ricoh GR1, but when I recently
had an opportunity to buy a Minilux at a very reasonable price, I jumped
on it--out of curiousity more than anything else. Today I looked at my
first roll of Fuji Sensia 100 slides shot with the Minilux, and the
results are certainly outstanding for a P&S--nice sharpness and exposure
spot on, including when flash is used. The Minilux lives up to its red
dot.

However, I must say that it has several annoying shortcomings in the
ergonomics department. First and foremost, all settings except aperture
and focus are set with pushbuttons, sometimes requiring many pushes. For
example, when you turn the camera on, the flash mode is AUTO; if I want
to change to OFF, I have to push the mode button 5 times. To set
exposure compensation, you first press the EV button for 3 seconds, then
release it, and then press it repeatedly to cycle through the
possibilities from -2 to +2 in 1/2 stop increments. To make matters
worse, the Minilux does not retain the flash setting when the camera is
turned off (it does retain the EV setting). In contrast to all this, the
GR1 uses an old-fashioned dial for exposure compensation and a simple
slider for setting the flash mode; both settings are obviously retained
when camera is off. Secondly, the camera is turned off by moving the
aperture dial to the OFF position--not that convenient if the aperture
was set at, say, f11. Here a pushbutton a la the GR1 would have been
more appropriate. Thirdly, the shape of the camera is quite boxy, not
many concessions to the human hand. For me it is not a problem, as I
have big hands, but I would image it might be a problem for some people.

The one area where the Minilux works better is for setting manual focus,
which is done using a dial with marked distances. I find this more
convenient than the "fixed focus" mode of the GR1.

Of course, the Minilux is also considerably bigger and heavier than the
GR1. This also applies to its price.

In summary: the Minilux is a beautiful camera (several people have
commented on its good looks) with a superb lens; if picture quality is
the only criterion, I think it beats the GR1, but not by a big margin.
Unfortunately, the designers did not pay much attention to ergonomics.
Am I keeping mine? Yes! But I have a feeling that the GR1 will get more
use.

Nathan

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Nathan Wajsman
Overijse, Belgium

Photography page:  http://members.tripod.com/~belgiangator/index.html
Motorcycle page:
http://www.geocities.com/motorcity/downs/1704/index.html