Leica Digilux 1

The Leica Digilux 1 is a digital camera developed in partnership with Panasonic, which was released in 2002, roughly the same time as the Canon PowerShot G2 and the Nikon 2000. It is the second of Leica's digital offerings. Where the original Digilux was developed in partnership with Fuji Camera, the Digilux 1 was developed jointly with Panasonic; Leica is responsible for optics, while Panasonic designs the camera electronics. According to Leica, this allows both companies to design cameras that creates a harmonious matching of lens to sensor to produce color and contrast to Leica standards.

Design

Billed as "the digital reportage camera", the Leica Digilux 1 shares much of its design with the Panasonic-badged equivalent DMC-LC5. At the time, the Digilux 1 boasted the lowest shutter lag in comparison to other cameras in its class, in combination with its fast lens, made the camera suitable for photo reportage / photojournalistic applications.

The Digilux 1 has a retro, boxy style that harkens back to the designs of Leica rangefinders; in appearance and in size, it is very similar to the Leica CM Zoom. The LC5 is housed in a more modern casing, but retains identical controls.

Some believe the Digilux 1 performs less post-processing on the image, resulting in colors and contrast that are more in line with the color and contrast expected from a Leica camera. The Panasonic DMC-LC5 performs post-processing that increases contrast and saturation to create photos that are acceptable to the consumer market.

Sensor

The Digilux 1 and Panasonic DMC-LC5 both use a CCD sensor fitted with a complementary CYGM color filter array, rather than the GRGB Bayer filter fitted to most other digital camera sensors. The CYGM filter had two benefits:
# It captures about 2/3 of the visible spectrum versus GRGB which captures only 1/3 of the visible spectrum, so that the colors, especially reds and blues are more saturated. This is a benefit for landscapes especially.
# The CYGM filter allows the passage of twice the photons, so that the camera is inherently twice as sensitive to light at the base ISO of 100, which means that exposure times are half that of a comparable camera with GRGB filter array.
However, the CYGM filter has less color accuracy.

Lens

Summicron