Taking a walk with a co-workers Leica X1

there are a lot of things not to like about the Leica X1 (price, useless manual focus, price, poor autofocus, price, overly long closest focal distance, price, and ... did I mention price?)

but the lens is not one of them... man oh man that's an amazing lens! the (fixed) focal length o f35mm equiv is perfect, the bokeh is nice, very nice, and it may not be the fastest lens on the block but it surely must be one of the sharpest on a pocketable digital camera, this image is (at full size) is pretty close to being a 100% scale crop of the center of the frame and that is sharp, real sharp... in fact as it was shot in JPG the default sharpening I had in light room (about 18% at 1 pixel I think) was too much and has slightly over sharpened it.

also the dual shutter and aperture dials being close at hand are nice as is the truly pocket sized small body and its low low weight.... also handles low light very well... not as well as you'd think for a ASP sized sensor but still significantly better than small sensor compacts.

if it were 1/2 the price it would be a real deal winner even with its faults.... even at 2/3rds the price I'd short list it, but not at current street price and never at full RRP.