Overview
Comprising a 17 megapixel, multi-aspect Micro Four Thirds sensor, the Leica D-Lux 8 is a luxury compact camera. Releasing six years ago in 2018, it is the replacement for the D-Lux 7 model.
Built-in Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, a 2.36m-dot OLED electronic viewfiPhotography Tips for Leica D-Lux 8 Usersnder, a 3.0" 1.84m-dot touchscreen LCD monitor, 11fps burst shooting, ISO range of 100-25600, built-in Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, hot shoe-mount for an external flash, USB-C in-camera battery charging.
Available now in black, the D Lux 8 costs £1450 / €1590 / $1595 in the UK, Europe, and USA correspondingly. The package includes a small, attachable flash unit.
Ease of Use
Inspired by the Q3 mirrorless camera system, a better OLED viewfinder, higher-resolution LCD screen, USB-C charging, UHS-II SD card capability, and DNG Raw output, Leica completely rebuilt the D-Lux 7 model with a new control structure and menu system.
Otherwise, using the same sensor, processor, lens, and auto-focus mechanism, the new DLux 8 is practically the same as its predecessor - which is not always a negative thing. This implies that although the user experience is quite different, the resultant photographs from both cameras are rather comparable if not exact.
Furthermore somewhat different is the asking price. In the realm of digital cameras, six years is a long time; but, the leap from roughly £$€1000 to £1450 / €1590 is somewhat significant. If you can locate a second-hand D-Lux 7 or Panasonic Lumix LX100 II in good shape, it looks rather attractive.
Now in its sixth version, it also positions the D-Lux 8 straight in the firing line of the all-conquering Fujifilm X100 series. Though it is not really much larger than the D-Lux 8, the X100VI offers a larger APS-C sensor with 40 megapixels, 4K/60p video, 20fps shooting and in-body image stabilization. Its fixed 35mm prime lens causes you to lose the zoom's flexibility.
Though the Sony Cyber-shot RX100 VII has a smaller 1-inch sensor with 20 megapixels and a 24-200mm lens, Leica's new product is still among the very few premium compacts that have a zoom lens.
Though it is five years old now, you may also take into account the Ricoh GR III, which features a 24.23 megapixel APS-C sensor coupled with a 28mm F2.8 lens.
Now that we know its primary competitors, let's closely examine the new D-Lux 8 and the modifications Leica made.
From the front, initially you would find it difficult to distinguish them. Not found in silver anymore, the black variant includes a leatherette finish to help with the lack of a suitable handgrip.
The lens is the same, providing in 35mm film terms equivalent reach of a wide-angle 24-75mm. With a lens ring that provides incremental adjustments up to f/16, one can manually change the maximum lens aperture—an astonishingly fast/bright f/1.7. Of course, you could also let the camera choose the selection and run on automatic, which has a separate setting too.
The D-Lux 7 uses the same 21.77 megapixel multi-aspect Micro Four Thirds variation for the sensor. The camera then crops the picture to enable the multi-aspect shooting (3:2, 16:9, 1:1 and 4:3), set by a switch on the lens barrel, therefore producing a top resolution of 17 megapixels in the 4:3 mode.
A tiny manual focus ring sandwiched between the aperture ring and aspect ratio selector shows a simple sliding scale on the LCD screen to indicate the focusing distance and peaking on-board to aid ascertain critical focus. You may rapidly change between these three focus settings by using the MF / AF/Macro / AF lever on the underside of the lens barrel.
Turning now to the top of the camera helps one to see some of the modifications Leica has done to the user interface.
The On/Off switch has been replaced by an On/Off button; the exposure compensation dial is now an unmarked command dial with a custom button at its centre; the "4K" and "A" buttons have vanished. The flash hotshoe and shutter speed dial are still present and accurate.
While the custom button can be configured to one of 38 different settings just by holding it down for a couple of seconds, the two unmarked buttons positioned under the shutter speed dial and the button in the middle of the four-way controller on the rear of the camera control either the Exposure Compensation, ISO, Off or Auto, depending on which shooting mode you're using.
This is where Leica most definitely drew inspiration from the Q3 mirrorless camera for the new D-Lux 8, which only features six exterior controls instead of ten on its predecessor. Apart from the Play and Menu buttons, most of them are blank, meaning they can be changed to fit your own style of working.
You are therefore free to adjust the middle button in the navigation wheel toggles between the info levels, or the top two buttons toggle between the EVF/LCD and between the photo and video modes accordingly, if you dislike the fact that these buttons alternate. You may also read this: Which of Canon EOS R1 and R3 is better?
Image Quality
This review's sample photographs all came from the 17 megapixel Fine JPEG preset, which produces an average image size of about 6Mb.
Over the review time, the Leica D-Lux 8 created photographs of outstanding quality. At ISO 100 to 3200 it generates noise-free photographs; minor noise starts to show at ISO 6400. The fastest level of ISO 25000 is much noisier, but still useful for small prints and web use; ISO 12500 shows rather obvious noise and loss of fine detail.
With modest purple fringing effects only in high contrast conditions, the Leica D-Lux 8 performed rather well with chromatic aberrations. When hand-holding the camera in low-light or when using the telephoto end of the zoom range, the built-in anti-shake technology performs really nicely.
Although it's tough to get the illumination right at such a short distance, macro performance is rather strong, allowing you to focus as near as 3cm away from the subject. The Film Styles let you easily and fast personalize the JPEG photographs of the camera.
Noise
The Leica D-Lux 8 has nine ISO values accessible. These are some 100% crops with noise levels for both JPEG and RAW file formats at each ISO level.
