I'm considering buying a Leica PS camera. The recent C1 seems attractive. With a longer zoom (38-105) and better shutter speed range than the Minilux Zoom, the C1 is also priced at half the Minilux Zoom. Aside from the titanium body, is the lens on the Minilux so much better than the C1? What are other differences in performance between these two PS cameras? Advantages and disadvantages?

Thanks for any tips and suggestions! -Niki

-- NikitaTuan Nguyen (cadenza_7o@yahoo.com), November 03, 2000

Answers

You are right, the C1 has a 1/500 shutter speed as opposed to the maximum 1/250 of the Minilux. How useful is this? These are not shutter priority cameras! You cannot set the shutter speed, the camera decides that. To get to 1/500 you will need to use 3200ASA film or be as close to the Sun as Mercury!

The 105mm focal length has a fast aperture of f10.5! So forget anything slower than 400ASA films, even in the brightest of light.

Anyway, both these two "advantages" are useless in my opinion. But the half price sure is not. I don't know how the C1 optics compare to the Minilux Zoom. I would like to know too.

If you want the ultimate optics in a small compact camera then nothing can compare to the Contax TVSIII in my humble opinion. Top notch lens in that unit.

-- Sol Campbell (solcam31@hotmail.com), November 03, 2000.

The Minilux has the edge in the speed of its lens both over the C1 and the TVSIII. For that reason alone I would go with the zoom Minilux. The C1's f10.5 lens at 105 is pretty useless if you ask me.

-- Robin Smith (rsmith@springer-ny.com), November 14, 2000.

If still available online, read paragraph 10 of the following review of the TVS III and see why the writer decided not to include the C1 in his comparison.

http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/galleries/essays/101300.htm

-- John McCormack (jpmccormac@aol.com), November 17, 2000.