Leica Digilux 2 Review: Digital Photography Review

Timing & Performance

The Digilux 2 is a very recent five megapixel digital camera and that its priced at the very highest end of the prosumer market and so naturally we will have very high performance expectations. Compared to last years five megapixel digital cameras the Digilux 2 does perform quite well, most notably with short startup (although considering no extending lens it could have been even better) and good shot to shot times. Auto focus and off to shot take times were average, nothing spectacular. The biggest disappointment however must be the supplied 64 MB SD card which really does cause a bottleneck in performance because of its very slow read and write times.

Timing Notes

All times calculated as an average of three operations. Unless otherwise stated all timings were made on a (2560 x 1920) Fine quality JPEG image (approx. 2,000 KB).

Media used for these tests:

64 MB Leica SD card (as supplied)
512 MB SanDisk Ultra II SD card

Action	Details	Time, secs (Leica)	Time, secs (SanDisk Ultra)
Power: Off to Record	Live view appears	1.8	1.8
Power: Off to Play	Image displayed	3.2	2.5
Power: Record to Off		1.9	1.9
Power: Play to Off		1.9	1.9

Record Review	Image displayed	1.3	1.3
Mode: Record to Play	Depends on image file size	2.3	1.4
Mode: Record to Review	Depends on image file size	2.2	1.3
Mode: Play to Record		0.8	0.8

Play: Magnify	To initial magnification	<0.1	<0.1
Play: Thumbnail view	3 x 3 thumbnails	1.6	1.2

Action	Details	Time, seconds
Half-press Lag (0->S1)	Wide angle	0.8 - 1.4
Half-press Lag (0->S1)	Telephoto	0.8 - 2.0
Half to Full-press Lag (S1->S2)	Wide angle (LCD / EVF)	0.2
Full-press Lag (0->S2)	Wide angle	0.9
Off to Shot Taken	Wide angle	3.8
Shot to Shot	Wide angle, Record Review	1.6
Shot to Shot	Wide angle, No Review	1.6

Lag Timing Definitions

Half-press Lag (0->S1) Many digital camera users prime the AF and AE systems on their camera by half-pressing the shutter release. This is the amount of time between a half-press of the shutter release and the camera indicating an auto focus & auto exposure lock on the LCD monitor / viewfinder (ready to shoot).	(Prime AF/AE)
Half to Full-press Lag (S1->S2) The amount of time it takes from a full depression of the shutter release button (assuming you have already primed the camera with a half-press) to the image being taken.	(Take shot, AF/AE primed)
Full-press Lag (0->S2) The amount of time it takes from a full depression of the shutter release button (without performing a half-press of the shutter release beforehand) to the image being taken. This is more representative of the use of the camera in a spur of the moment 'point and shoot' situation.	(Take shot, AF/AE not primed)

Continuous mode

The tables below show the results of our continuous shooting test, indicating the actual frame rate along with maximum number of frames and how long you would have to wait after taking the maximum number of frames before you could take another shot. Note that continuous shooting is not available for RAW image format.

Media used for these tests:

64 MB Leica SD card (as supplied)
512 MB SanDisk Ultra II SD card

High speed continuous mode

Image Type	Avg. frames per sec	Frames in one burst	Next shot (Leica)	Next shot (SanDisk)
2560 x 1920 Super-Fine JPEG	2.7 fps	3	14.4 sec	2.6 sec
2560 x 1920 Fine JPEG	2.7 fps	5	11.6 sec	2.2 sec
2560 x 1920 Standard JPEG	2.7 fps	9	9.9 sec	2.2 sec
1600 x 1200 Super-Fine JPEG	2.7 fps	8	15.7 sec	2.3 sec
1600 x 1200 Fine JPEG	2.7 fps	15	17.4 sec	2.0 sec

Low speed continuous mode

Image Type	Avg. frames per sec	Frames in one burst	Next shot (Leica)	Next shot (SanDisk)
2560 x 1920 Super-Fine JPEG	1.0 fps	3	12.1 sec	2.5 sec
2560 x 1920 Fine JPEG	1.0 fps	5	10.3 sec	2.0 sec
2560 x 1920 Standard JPEG	1.0 fps	9	7.5 sec	2.0 sec
1600 x 1200 Super-Fine JPEG	1.0 fps	8	7.2 sec	2.2 sec
1600 x 1200 Fine JPEG	1.0 fps	15	3.9 sec	2.1 sec

The Digilux 2's continuous shooting frame rate was exactly as specified, 2.7 fps in High speed mode and 1.0 fps in Low speed mode. The number of frames in one burst was also consistent no matter what storage media was used, personally I consider the camera's buffer to be on the small size, this camera could really do with about twice the buffer space. The biggest difference in performance was noted in the time to next shot between the supplied Leica SD card and the SanDisk Ultra II card, a rather astounding speed improvement from the SanDisk.

File Write / Display and Sizes

Timings shown below are the time taken for the camera to process and "flush" the image out to the storage card, the timer was started as soon as the shutter release was pressed and stopped when activity indicator on the LCD monitor disappeared. This means the timings also include the cameras processing time and as such are more representative of the actual time to "complete the task".

Media used for these tests:

64 MB Leica SD card (as supplied)
512 MB SanDisk Ultra II SD card

Write speed / Sizes

Image Type	Time, secs (Leica) *1	Time, secs (SanDisk) *1	File size *2 (approx.)	On a 512 MB card
2560 x 1920 RAW	17.6	6.3	9,672 KB	38
2560 x 1920 Super-Fine JPEG	7.0	2.5	4,000 KB	103
2560 x 1920 Fine JPEG	4.5	2.2	2,000 KB	206
2560 x 1920 Standard JPEG	3.2	1.9	1,000 KB	332
1600 x 1200 Super-Fine JPEG	3.3	1.6	1,200 KB	801

Display speed

Image Type	Time, secs (Leica)	Time, secs (SanDisk)
2560 x 1920 RAW	1.5	1.1
2560 x 1920 Super-Fine JPEG	3.5	1.6
2560 x 1920 Fine JPEG	2.2	1.3
2560 x 1920 Standard JPEG	1.6	1.0
1600 x 1200 Super-Fine JPEG	1.4	1.0

Subtract 1.2 seconds for the actual SD write time.

All file sizes are an average of three files. As is the case with JPEG it's difficult to predict the size of an image because it will vary a fair amount depending on the content of the image (especially the amount of detail captured). For example, take a photograph of a fairly empty wall and you'll get a small JPEG, take a photograph of a bush with a lot of detail and you'll get a larger image. File sizes here are closer to the later, the larger size of file you should expect.

Leica really need to talk to SanDisk about bundling a decent SD card with their camera. As you can see from the figures above there's a massive difference in performance between the bundled 64 MB SD card and a quality SanDisk Ultra II SD card. Waiting seven seconds for a Super-Fine JPEG to write or even worse almost eighteen seconds for a RAW file simply isn't acceptable on a modern camera. A buffer capable of buffering multiple RAW images would also help.

Approximate write throughput (RAW | Super-Fine JPEG)

64 MB Leica SD card (as supplied): 550 KB/sec | 570 KB/sec
512 MB SanDisk Ultra II SD card: 1,535 KB/sec | 1,600 KB/sec

Low Light Auto Focus

This test is designed to measure the minimum amount of light under which the camera can still focus. The focus target is our lens distortion test chart (shown here on the right), camera is positioned exactly 2 m (6.6 ft) away.

Light levels are gradually dropped until the camera can no longer focus. This is carried out at both wide angle and telephoto zoom positions (as more light reaches the focusing systems with a larger aperture).

This test target is the optimum type of subject for most "contrast detect" AF systems (as it has a vertical line at its center), you should consider the results below the best you could expect to achieve.

Focal length	Aperture at focal len.	Lowest light focus	Time to focus from min.
Wide (28 mm equiv.)	F2.0	0.3 EV	1.0 sec
Tele (90 mm equiv.)	F2.4	0.3 EV	1.5 sec

Light intensity (Lux) = 2.5 x 2^EV (@ ISO 100), 10.76391 Lux = 1 foot-candle (fc)

Despite not having an AF assist lamp the Digilux 2 still managed to focus even in fairly dim conditions and did so without too much delay. It would of course have been preferable for Leica to fit a small lamp to the camera to provide AF even in complete darkness.

Battery life

We ran the camera through our new battery life test. This test is designed to be fair and comparative to each camera and battery type:

Take 4 shots without flash
Wait 2 minutes (50% of the time powering the camera off)
Take 1 shot with flash
Wait 1 minute
Repeat

Batteries are fully discharged and recharged before the test and all cameras were reset to their factory default settings. Here are the results:

Camera Prosumer / SLR-Like	Battery	Power	Battery life	Number of shots
Minolta DiMAGE 7	4 x AA NiMH 1600 mAh (GP)	7.7 Wh	1 hr 14 mins	125
Minolta DiMAGE 5	4 x AA NiMH 1600 mAh (GP)	7.7 Wh	1 hr 56 mins	195
Nikon Coolpix 5700	EN-EL1	4.8 Wh	2 hr 08 mins	215
Canon PowerShot S40	NB-2L	3.9 Wh	2 hr 13 mins	225
Minolta DiMAGE S304	4 x AA NiMH 1600 mAh (GP)	7.7 Wh	2 hr 18 mins	235
Canon PowerShot S45	NB-2L	3.9 Wh	2 hr 28 mins	240
Nikon Coolpix 4500	EN-EL1	4.8 Wh	2 hr 27 mins	250
Fujifilm FinePix 6900Z	NP-80	4.1 Wh	2 hr 29 mins	250
Nikon Coolpix 990	4 x AA NiMH 1600 mAh (GP)	7.7 Wh	2 hr 30 mins	255
Nikon Coolpix 995	EN-EL1	4.8 Wh	2 hr 30 mins	255
Nikon Coolpix 5000	EN-EL1	4.8 Wh	2 hr 32 mins	260
Minolta DiMAGE 7Hi	4 x AA NiMH 1600 mAh (GP)	7.7 Wh	2 hr 33 mins	260
Canon PowerShot Pro1	BP-511A	10.2 Wh	2 hr 36 mins	265
Canon PowerShot S50	NB-2L	3.9 Wh	2 hr 39 mins	270
Minolta DiMAGE S404	4 x AA NiMH 1600 mAh (GP)	7.7 Wh	2 hr 39 mins	270
Sony DSC-V1	NP-FC11	2.8 Wh	2 hr 39 mins	270
Olympus C-7000 Zoom	LI-12B	4.5 Wh	2 hr 44 mins	280
Nikon Coolpix 8700	EN-EL1	5.0 Wh	2 hr 45 mins	280
Minolta DiMAGE 7i	4 x AA NiMH 1600 mAh (GP)	7.7 Wh	2 hr 46 mins	270
Olympus E-20	4 x AA NiMH 1600 mAh (GP)	7.7 Wh	2 hr 48 mins	285
Canon PowerShot G1	BP-511	8.1 Wh	3 hr 00 mins	300
Nikon Coolpix 5400	EN-EL1	4.8 Wh	3 hr 06 mins	315
HP Photosmart 850	4 x AA NiMH 1600 mAh (GP)	7.7 Wh	3 hr 12 mins	325
Sony DSC-S75	NP-FM50	8.6 Wh	3 hr 15 mins	330
Nikon Coolpix 8800	EN-EL7	8.1 Wh	3 hr 27 mins	350
Fujifilm FinePix S602Z	4 x AA NiMH 1600 mAh (GP)	7.7 Wh	3 hr 29 mins	350
Canon PowerShot G2	BP-511	8.1 Wh	3 hr 32 mins	355
Casio QV-4000	4 x AA NiMH 1600 mAh (GP)	7.7 Wh	3 hr 38 mins	365
Olympus C-5050 Zoom	4 x AA NiMH 1600 mAh (GP)	7.7 Wh	3 hr 48 mins	380
Casio EXILIM EX-P700	NP-40	4.5 Wh	3 hr 48 mins	385
Sony DSC-S85	NP-FM50	8.6 Wh	3 hr 50 mins	400
Sony DSC-F717	NP-FM50	8.6 Wh	4 hr 02 mins	405
Pentax Optio 750Z	D-LI7	6.6 Wh	4 hr 03 mins	415
Sony DSC-V3	NP-FR1	4.4 Wh	4 hr 05 mins	415
Nikon Coolpix 8400	EN-EL7	8.1 Wh	4 hr 09 mins	420
Sony DSC-F707	NP-FM50	8.6 Wh	4 hr 20 mins	440
Fujifilm S7000 Zoom	4 x AA NiMH 1600 mAh (GP)	7.7 Wh	4 hr 23 mins	445
Konica Minolta DiMAGE A2	NP-400	11.1 Wh	4 hr 26 mins	450
Canon PowerShot G3	BP-511	8.1 Wh	4 hr 32 mins	455
Canon PowerShot G5	BP-511	8.1 Wh	4 hr 33 mins	460
Pentax Optio 550	D-LI7	6.6 Wh	4 hr 36 mins	465
Minolta DiMAGE A1	NP-400	11.1 Wh	5 hr 02 mins	515
Leica Digilux 2	BP-DC1-E	10.1 Wh	5 hr 05 mins	515
Sony DSC-F828	NP-FM50	8.6 Wh	5 hr 28 mins	540
Fujifilm FinePix S5000	4 x AA NiMH 1600 mAh (GP)	7.7 Wh	5 hr 31 mins	555
Canon PowerShot G6	BP-511A	10.3 Wh	5 hr 38 mins	570
Olympus C-8080 WZ	BLM-1	10.8 Wh	5 hr 52 mins	595
Other test notes:
• LCD monitor is left on during the battery test • The camera is powered off half of the time and left on half of the time (switch every 10 iterations) • There are now higher capacity AA NiMH batteries available, however in the interests of fair comparison we will continue to use our 1600 mAh test set

the Digilux 2 lasted an impressive five hours, this wasn't that surprising considering that the camera doesn't have a motorized zoom lens and the relatively high capacity of its Lithium-Ion battery. Overall however we can't help but be impressed, five hours of non-stop use is very good.