The camera

The little Leica X-E (Typ 102) comes with nice specs even today in 2017 while I am writing this article. Of course when compared to the competitors ‘equivalent’ cameras some things lag behind quite a bit, but mostly these are things that (for me at least) are not a deal breaker.

The camera features a 16.5 megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor with an ISO range of 100 to 12500. The sensor has a nice dynamic range of close to 13 stops, this a little less than the Leica M (Typ 240) but more than a full stop more compared to the Leica M9.

The sensor we get in the Leica X-E is also used in the Leica T, Leica TL, Leica X (Typ 113), Leica X-U, Leica X2, Leica X-Vario, and quite a bit of other cameras by other camera manufacturers.

It features a Leica Elmarit 1:2,8/24mm ASPH. lens made up of 8 elements in 6 groups, with 1 aspheric lens element.

Autofocus is slow but precise, don’t expect to be able to get accurate focus on running kids etc. For me this is no problem but keep this in mind! A nice thing: The camera focuses as close as 30cm which makes it nice to get some close-ups of subjects. Something which is not possible with a Leica M (without macro spacer ring) since the close focussing range there is usually limited at 70cm. You can set the focus modes at 1 point, spot (even smaller 1 point), 11 points or face detection.

The camera has a leaf shutter integrated in the lens which can do exposures as long as 30 seconds, or as short as 1/2000th of a second. The outer values on both ends are not that extreme and can be limiting, 30 seconds is not really long, and 1/2000th is not really fast either. One upside about the leaf shutter is that you can sync your flash for fill in flash at all shutter speeds.

The camera has a pop-up style flash which is actually great for fill in flash.

The screen on the Leica X-E is nothing special, it’s a 2,7 inch LCD panel with 230 000 pixels which is really lacking and you can easily see the pixels at normal viewing distances. It works fine for what it is meant for though, which is framing and changing settings.