Lomopedia: Leica C1

Leica is a brand name that we often link to good build quality and design when it comes to rangefinder cameras but how about point-and-shoots? Do their smaller cameras do justice to the Leica name? Today we’ll take a look at the Leica C1, one of Leica’s first compact cameras.

The Leica C1 is every bit the point-and-shoot film camera that you would expect from the German camera maker. It’s clean, sleek, and minimalist in design. The black version looks super stealthy while the silver one offers a bit of class and elegance to the user. Both models look modest at first look but Leica also managed to take a more modern design path with the C1.

Being a point-and-shoot camera, the C1 is easy-to-use, especially on casual photo walks. The C1 is compact and lightweight, making it an ideal choice for everyday carry and quick snapshots. It has a wide zoom focus range — from 38 mm to 105 mm thanks to its more-than-capable Leica Vario-Elmar zoom lens. The lens is also praised by a lot of users for delivering clean and sharp images although sometimes the colors can come as somewhat weak for other people’s tastes.

The date tagging system adds to the camera’s old school flavor — it makes sure that each photograph is stamped with the date and time when it was taken. Operation is also quiet, that means users can go in and out of photo situations while staying discreet. The flash on the C1 is also notable. It’s strong enough for dimly-lit subjects but users are suggested to use it when shooting three meters from the subject to deal with red-eye issues.

Overall, the Leica C1 isn’t a bad choice for anyone who’s looking to get a point-and-shoot camera. It’s not the sharpest, the best in class, or the most popular point-and-shoot (not even close to being the most famous Leica shooter) but it will definitely perform as designed. The price point is also fairly attractive as there are units going for less than a hundred dollars in the market right now. Given, if you really know where to look.

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Technical Specifications

Lens: Leica Vario-Elmar 1:4-1:10,5/38-105 mm zoom (7 separate lenses with 2 aspherical lens surfaces)
Autofocus: Active infrared system
Films: DX-coded 35 mm films with film speeds of 50 ASA up to 3200 ASA
Exposure: center-weighted metering
Shutter speed: 1,7 - 1/500 sec.
Viewfinder: real image type, showing AF measuring area, enlargement 0.375x to 1.05x
Flash: reaching as far as 3.2 meters for a 100 ASA film with the lens in wide-angle position
Weight: 260 g without the CR-123A battery
Dimensions: 129.5 × 67 × 46 mm

All information used in this article was sourced from Shoot Tokyo, Camerapedia, and Photography Review.

written by cheeo on 2018-08-21 #gear #lomopedia #camera #gear #point-and-shoot #lomopedia #leica-c1