Leica X-U Street Photography Score
Leica X-U has a score of
51 for Street Photography which makes it an
AVERAGE candidate for this type of photography. If Street Photography is important for you, we recommend you to check the Alternative cameras at the bottom of this page.
Read our detailed Leica X-U Review
Leica X-U Street Photography Detailed Analysis
Manual Focus Mode
You can use the manual focus mode of your camera to Zone Focus which is a popular technique used in street photography.
Live-view
Live view lets you take photos without using the viewfinder which makes you less obstrusive and this works very well during street photography where you don't want to get people's attention.
Fully Articulated LCD Screen
An articulated screen gives you the flexibility to shoot in non traditional positions such as waist level, which helps you to be more creative and unobtrusive in the streets.
Fast Lens at Wide: f1.70
Wideangle is used more common then the tele angle in street photography. A larger aperture will give you extra shutter speed without boosting the ISO in order to reduce blur in low light conditions which is a common scene in street photography.
RAW shooting capability
RAW files contains much more color information compared to JPEGs, and gives you more room for post processing without significant quality loss. They provide wider dynamic range and option to recover shadow and highlight clipping to some degree.
Small Body
Small body of Leica X-U will get less attention from the people in streets and give you an amateur look, which is indeed an advantage for street photography.
Large APS-C (23.6 x 15.7 mm) sensor
Large sensor in Leica X-U ensures a good low light image quality compared to smaller sensor, and it also provide shallow depth of field and a nice blurry background when needed.
No Built-in Viewfinder
In the lack of a a viewfinder, holding the camera away from the body while using live view is not very stable, especially with heavy camera bodies and lenses. Besides, LCD screens are very hard to read under bright sunlight.
No Image Stabilization
Lack of Image stabilization may result in blurry photos especially in long exposures and at long focal lengths
35 mm - Poor Wide Angle Coverage
Having a good wide angle coverage becomes very important in street photography.
You may also be interested in these reviews:
Leica X-U for Portrait Photography Leica X-U for Sports Photography Leica X-U for Carrying Everywhere Leica X-U for Landscape Photography