Viewfinder and screen
Leica X (Typ 113) Review – viewfinder and screen
The Leica X’s LCD is a fixed 3″ 920,000 dot unit
The Leica X has a 3in, 920,000-dot LCD screen with a 4:3 aspect ratio, which is basically the standard we’d expect from a £1,500 camera. In use, it’s sharp, bright and detailed, and quite visible in bright sunlight. It’s neither touch-sensitive nor articulated in any way, but like it or not, that’s normal for a fixed-lens compact.
The camera offers a number of display modes while taking pictures, but to be honest, none of them are totally satisfactory. The most basic one shows the preview image with exposure data shown on a black bar above it: shutter speed and aperture are included, but not ISO (although oddly, metering mode is). It is possible to show more detailed shooting data, including such things as focus mode, ISO and shots remaining, but this is placed on translucent grey overlays across large swathes of the image, which really distracts from composition. A third mode offers a live histogram and rule-of-thirds gridlines, which I generally preferred, but the large histogram display has a solid grey background and therefore completely blocks part of the image.
It’s also possible to use the add-on Visoflex EVF, which essentially duplicates the camera’s display modes in an eye-level finder that can also tilt 90° upwards for shooting at awkward angles. It’s a very good finder – large, sharp and detailed – but at £400 it’s very expensive, and when mounted it adds considerable bulk.
