Leica Summer Showcase

Luxury camera manufacture Leica invited Latest Gadgets to its swanky Mayfair store to play with their high-end objects of desire for this year’s summer showcase.

We got to play with the recently released M9-P, the world’s smallest full-frame digital system camera, for hardcore photography pros. The ridiculously sophisticated image processing was a perfect complement to the ridiculously robust construction – holding one in your hand you can feel the quality (and the realisation that you could never afford this).

However the legendary red-dot is missing – apparently pros out in the field often have to cover the logo with tape so as to not advertise to the world “Hello I’m carrying a £5000 camera”. Instead the top plate is engraved with the Leica name, adding to its minimalist feel.

I do a lot of theatre photography and often resort to digital cameras for unobtrusive shots. The M9-P has a near silent shutter system, making it perfect for getting close to the action without becoming part of the scene. And apparently the sapphire glass LCD screen is almost unbreakable, needing special diamond cutting tools to be produced.

In a classic case of seeing icon to icon, legendary British designer Paul Smith and Leica have teamed up to launch a range of leather cases for the Leica D-Lux 5 digital camera – set to hit shops for Christmas 2011 (which is retail speak for October 2011). The cases are hand-crafted in England and of course feature the vintage multi-stripe. Only 300 are being made -150 in brown and 150 in an odd crocodile style leather. Yours for £200.

Of course we also had a play with the V-Lux 30 (which we covered here) and the D-Lux 5, both of which are superb compact cameras and go some way to making photography a joyful spontaneous, albeit expensive, affair.

Take a look here