Don Morley's Story About The Leica X Vario
26th July 2024
In: News, Members' Articles
Progress Or By Price? About The Leica X-Vario - By Don Morley
On our dining room sideboard is a rather stunning quality 20” X 16”colour print showing the inside of Lincoln Cathedral, and which has been sitting where it is ever since it was printed just after last year’s wonderful Leica Fellowship Lincoln visit.
Even months later I pick this print up most days simply to marvel and also reflect on its remarkable image quality, for instance terrific definition, wonderful tone range, and just the right amount of depth of field all collectively helping the overall image quality of this print to almost literally jump out at me, and what a tribute it is as well to the X-Vario’s Leica lens.
I just wish I could show it large enough here so as to show you, though obviously I cannot but I for one am still knocked out by that print and hence have to keep looking at it over again just to remind myself, however somewhat annoyingly I perhaps should also mention it is not one of my pictures. No it is one of the ones my wife Jo took with MY old Leica X-Vario.
Yes somewhere along the line I had passed it over to her and now not least due to that and numerous other Jo X-Vario pictures I rather wished I hadn’t. Not least because nothing I took during that same Lincoln visit noticeably surpassed the image quality of Jo’s shots yet I was using several of Leica’s far later and vastly more expensive cameras, full frame included.
Perhaps more significantly I also tend to take ten shots of everything as compared to Jo’s and so there might be a lesson to me about concentrating better. I must also be more ready to accept it is human eyes and people who take and ‘Make’ pictures not merely whatever camera is used. Again, in my case perhaps even more importantly, recognising my own all consuming quest for more mega pixels and faster frame rate is not in fact the cure all I sometimes wrongly used to think it was.
Looking back to 2013, when the 16.2 Million pixel APSC CMOS type sensor and 18mm f3.5 to 46mm f6.4 fixed zoom lens X-Vario was first announced is a case in point. As, although the pixel count was fine for those times, I thought the camera itself was just plain daft. Who on earth, I reasoned to myself, was going to purchase a camera of such considerable expense which not only did not have a viewfinder, but worse came with a lens which max aperture was so modest; it was only f6.8 at its longest zoom end.
Sure it focused in closer than most and you could add an external viewfinder (EVF), though only at considerable extra cost. Hence when reviewers such as Amateur Photographer magazine tested one at the time I found it hardly surprising they only gave it three stars out of a possible five; however they did say the X-Vario’s results were perfectly adequate for A3 prints and maybe even beyond.
Faint praise maybe, but actually rather important as it turned out in my view. More tellingly when comparing it to other such fixed lens cameras then on the market they also said ‘Other zooms can match the quality BUT ONLY WHEN STOPPED DOWN, and perhaps then not at their extremes of focal length’. Now I can attest to that as, although I never thought I would ever buy one, eventually I did and it was that last AP remark which proved so telling.
Why? Well because what I then very quickly discovered was that it just does not matter what aperture you shoot at with the X-Vario because its Leica lens is so amazingly sharp edge to edge and corner to corner to corner and remains so at whatever aperture setting in turn meaning there never is any reason in definition terms to stop its lens down. So, as the AP magazine hinted, it is in my view sharper than anything remotely similar made by any other such fixed lens camera manufacturer regardless of whatever chosen aperture is used.
Since 2013 however like others I have moved on, or at least thought I had via updating via adding such as a Leica CL, TL2, Q2, MP240M and a SL2. All are fantastic cameras and all with higher 24 M/Pixel sensors plus the availability of more and faster interchangeable lenses which on paper at least should have made my old 16.2MP X-Vario totally redundant and passable to Jo (who incidentally always complains she only gets my old cast offs).
Yet, and it’s a big yet, whenever I trawl back looking for my own favourite pictures, there is no escaping the fact that, more often than not, I find most of my best were not taken on any of my numerous later Leicas, but were taken instead with the X-Vario. If you happen to be reading this Jo might I suggest we in future consider as being ‘Our’ rather than ‘Your’ X-Vario’?
Anyway to conclude with a sobering thought. If I were wanting to update again whilst also retaining the X-Vario’s zoom lens lengths, and I was lusting after the latest 60 M/Pixel Leica M11 body it would cost me more than £7,000 for the body alone. So as to equal the X-Vario 28mm to 70mm equivalent lens range at a bare minimum I would then also need Leica’s cheapest 28mm Elmarit at £1800, a lowest price 50mm which now is the base Summicron at £1945, and finally a 70mm f2.4 Summarit which though discontinued now can still be bought for £1615.
Say it quick and it might not sound too bad BUT they all tot up to a staggering £12,465 just to equal and probably better the lens and max aperture range plus final output quality of the old but still wonderful X-Vario.
Cripes Jo on thinking about it can I please have my old X-Vario back? I will promise to buy you a Canon or something to replace it AND I will not apply even for outline planning permission to buy such as a M11, honest!
Don Morley
Post Script – Jo has let Don have his X Vario back
The webmaster has included some of Don’s photos taken with the X-Vario as well as the photograph taken by Jo. Obviously we cannot see the quality that Don and Jo saw in their print of Lincoln Cathedral.
Jo Morley - Lincoln Cathedral - Leica X-Vario
Don Morley - Station Master - Tanfield Railway - Leica X-Vario
Don Morley - Tanfield Railway - Leica X-Vario
Don Morley - Stepping Stones - Leica X-Vario
Don Morley - Southwold - Leica X-Vario
Don Morley - Creations By Nature and By Man - Leica X-Vario
On our dining room sideboard is a rather stunning quality 20” X 16”colour print showing the inside of Lincoln Cathedral, and which has been sitting where it is ever since it was printed just after last year’s wonderful Leica Fellowship Lincoln visit.
Even months later I pick this print up most days simply to marvel and also reflect on its remarkable image quality, for instance terrific definition, wonderful tone range, and just the right amount of depth of field all collectively helping the overall image quality of this print to almost literally jump out at me, and what a tribute it is as well to the X-Vario’s Leica lens.
I just wish I could show it large enough here so as to show you, though obviously I cannot but I for one am still knocked out by that print and hence have to keep looking at it over again just to remind myself, however somewhat annoyingly I perhaps should also mention it is not one of my pictures. No it is one of the ones my wife Jo took with MY old Leica X-Vario.
Yes somewhere along the line I had passed it over to her and now not least due to that and numerous other Jo X-Vario pictures I rather wished I hadn’t. Not least because nothing I took during that same Lincoln visit noticeably surpassed the image quality of Jo’s shots yet I was using several of Leica’s far later and vastly more expensive cameras, full frame included.
Perhaps more significantly I also tend to take ten shots of everything as compared to Jo’s and so there might be a lesson to me about concentrating better. I must also be more ready to accept it is human eyes and people who take and ‘Make’ pictures not merely whatever camera is used. Again, in my case perhaps even more importantly, recognising my own all consuming quest for more mega pixels and faster frame rate is not in fact the cure all I sometimes wrongly used to think it was.
Looking back to 2013, when the 16.2 Million pixel APSC CMOS type sensor and 18mm f3.5 to 46mm f6.4 fixed zoom lens X-Vario was first announced is a case in point. As, although the pixel count was fine for those times, I thought the camera itself was just plain daft. Who on earth, I reasoned to myself, was going to purchase a camera of such considerable expense which not only did not have a viewfinder, but worse came with a lens which max aperture was so modest; it was only f6.8 at its longest zoom end.
Sure it focused in closer than most and you could add an external viewfinder (EVF), though only at considerable extra cost. Hence when reviewers such as Amateur Photographer magazine tested one at the time I found it hardly surprising they only gave it three stars out of a possible five; however they did say the X-Vario’s results were perfectly adequate for A3 prints and maybe even beyond.
Faint praise maybe, but actually rather important as it turned out in my view. More tellingly when comparing it to other such fixed lens cameras then on the market they also said ‘Other zooms can match the quality BUT ONLY WHEN STOPPED DOWN, and perhaps then not at their extremes of focal length’. Now I can attest to that as, although I never thought I would ever buy one, eventually I did and it was that last AP remark which proved so telling.
Why? Well because what I then very quickly discovered was that it just does not matter what aperture you shoot at with the X-Vario because its Leica lens is so amazingly sharp edge to edge and corner to corner to corner and remains so at whatever aperture setting in turn meaning there never is any reason in definition terms to stop its lens down. So, as the AP magazine hinted, it is in my view sharper than anything remotely similar made by any other such fixed lens camera manufacturer regardless of whatever chosen aperture is used.
Since 2013 however like others I have moved on, or at least thought I had via updating via adding such as a Leica CL, TL2, Q2, MP240M and a SL2. All are fantastic cameras and all with higher 24 M/Pixel sensors plus the availability of more and faster interchangeable lenses which on paper at least should have made my old 16.2MP X-Vario totally redundant and passable to Jo (who incidentally always complains she only gets my old cast offs).
Yet, and it’s a big yet, whenever I trawl back looking for my own favourite pictures, there is no escaping the fact that, more often than not, I find most of my best were not taken on any of my numerous later Leicas, but were taken instead with the X-Vario. If you happen to be reading this Jo might I suggest we in future consider as being ‘Our’ rather than ‘Your’ X-Vario’?
Anyway to conclude with a sobering thought. If I were wanting to update again whilst also retaining the X-Vario’s zoom lens lengths, and I was lusting after the latest 60 M/Pixel Leica M11 body it would cost me more than £7,000 for the body alone. So as to equal the X-Vario 28mm to 70mm equivalent lens range at a bare minimum I would then also need Leica’s cheapest 28mm Elmarit at £1800, a lowest price 50mm which now is the base Summicron at £1945, and finally a 70mm f2.4 Summarit which though discontinued now can still be bought for £1615.
Say it quick and it might not sound too bad BUT they all tot up to a staggering £12,465 just to equal and probably better the lens and max aperture range plus final output quality of the old but still wonderful X-Vario.
Cripes Jo on thinking about it can I please have my old X-Vario back? I will promise to buy you a Canon or something to replace it AND I will not apply even for outline planning permission to buy such as a M11, honest!
Don Morley
Post Script – Jo has let Don have his X Vario back
The webmaster has included some of Don’s photos taken with the X-Vario as well as the photograph taken by Jo. Obviously we cannot see the quality that Don and Jo saw in their print of Lincoln Cathedral.
Jo Morley - Lincoln Cathedral - Leica X-Vario
Don Morley - Station Master - Tanfield Railway - Leica X-Vario
Don Morley - Tanfield Railway - Leica X-Vario
Don Morley - Stepping Stones - Leica X-Vario
Don Morley - Southwold - Leica X-Vario
Don Morley - Creations By Nature and By Man - Leica X-Vario
Comments
By David Askham: Well done, Don and Jo Morley. What a lovely confession and joint effort by you both. And how very generous of Jo to allow you to be reunited with your beloved Leica X-Vario.
Way back in time I remember acting as a kind of catalyst in reuniting two friends of mine who spent their early working lives together at Iliffe Press. They met one Saturday, swapped cameras for an hour, yarned for a lot longer, and remain in touch. The outcome was that Don bought his beloved X-Vario. From the start it failed to match his imagined needs in speed and response times. (Don was retired by now).
I am proud of him eventually seeing the light, and appreciating the virtues of the much-maligned X-Vario camera. I will never sell mine. By Ken Davis: This not only made me smile but also reminded me of times in the past when I sold cameras 'so I could upgrade' and then later realised I should never have let an old favourite go. Darn good pictures and I think that's got more to do with the photographer although the photographer needs to be at one with the camera.