Not only is the Leica C-Lux 2 digital camera glamorous, it takes good pictures too, as Rupert White found


It being that time of year when lawyers' minds turn to some much-needed time off, the Gazette took a look at the new Leica C-Lux 2 digital camera, in case readers were thinking of buying something on which to capture their 2007 summer memories. Sadly, we did not have the foresight to get a waterproof unit, but the new Leica impressed hugely and is lovely to look at.



When the Gazette asked Leica's representatives why you would not just buy a Panasonic Lumix for around £200 less, but which has the same lens and is almost the same size, shape and colour, Leica's people said its brand and design were as much differentiators as any technical differences.



The Gazette physically compared a Lumix and a C-Lux 2 together and the Leica is thinner and does, as Leica says, seem more upmarket. Leica says the C-Lux 2 also comes with Adobe Photoshop Elements and more memory, but 64MB for a seven-megapixel camera is less than a soupçon.



The technical difference is in different settings in the system that runs the light-receiving chip inside, with which Leica claims to produce higher-quality pictures.



The Gazette is not a camera magazine, but response time between wanting to shoot and getting the shot felt almost instantaneous, which is vital. Colour representation seemed excellent.



There is no eyepiece, which was a bit odd, but use was easy and intuitive, and there is a host of simple settings. The lower zoom limit is 28mm-equivalent, which is unusually wide. The image stabilisation feature seemed to work well.



Most people who saw it swooned over the tan leather case and the obvious Leica 'look' to the unit, which is no bad thing. Is it worth £200 more than a Lumix? That might be down to the user's need and pocket, but the Gazette felt a little more like the famous French photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson, just holding it.



l Price: suggested retail price is £420, but we found online prices from £420 with a fat memory card down to £328.