Leica 12.1 Megapixels V-LUX 20 12x Zoom Review by Pocket-lint With Rating 7/10

On April 20 2010, Leica announced the Leica V-LUX 20, a 12.1 Megapixel digital compact camera with a 12x zoom. It is a fairly straightforward rebadging of the Panasonic Lumix ZS7 (aka TZ10) camera model. The two cameras share a nearly identical body, with the sole differences being the removal of a silver trim piece from the ZS7's handgrip, the addition of a slight protrusion at the top of the V-LUX 20's handgrip on which to place the Leica badge, and a switch from a silver ring around the base of the lens barrel in the DMC-ZS7 to a black ring in the VLUX 20. 

Featuring a Leica DC Vario-Elmar 4.1-49.2mm f/3.3-4.9 ASPH. zoom lens with a 35mm equivalent focal range of 25-300mm, the V-LUX 20 allows the user to take both high-resolution still photos and HD 1280x720 videos via the 3-inch LCD display with 460,000 dots. For the first time by Leica, the camera comes with built-in geotagging function which lets photographers to record the exact geographical co-ordinates of their location automatically, and makes archiving and organising photos quick and easy. Its intelligent automatic features, such as face recognition, automatic scene modes and smart exposure, are all available in movie mode, together with the camera's zoom functions. Styled in a matt black finish, the V-Lux 20 provides a complete range of manual shutter speed and aperture settings. Pricing for the Leica V-LUX 20 is set at $699, and the leather case will be priced at $175. By comparison, Panasonic's ZS7 has an MSRP price of $399.95. Here is the summary of a review by Pocket-lint, giving the camera a rating of 7 out of 10:

"And speaking of ISO, the camera's sensitivity settings run from ISO 80 to 1600, which is a little limiting but for a reason, noise at higher ISO's is an issue though Leica's noise processing has kilted towards noise reduction than detail retention. Shots taken at ISO 1600 seem a little blurred as a result, as if smoothed over by the software. However, the smoothing effect is not as bad as can be seen on many similar cameras it's just a little disappointing on this Leica. Another disappointment was the fact although images shot at lower ISOs are very clean and crisp, use ISO 200 or above and at 100% in a photo editor, in our case Photoshop, it's easy to see that shadows have very slight blotchiness that remains subtle until you get to the highest sensitivity settings. The overall effect is to make the images appear softer in shadow areas.

We cannot help but feel the Leica V-Lux 20 is very overpriced no matter how you look at it. It's certainly less brash in terms of styling and while the all-metal build and features are good, they are no better than the Lumix and certainly so in terms of the HD movie shooting, though arguably the AVCHD Lite format of the Lumix is less broadly compatible than the Leica's QuickTime format. Image quality is however superb and while we've been picky here (for £495 we think that's fair enough) with issues around the shadow blotches and the way detail is lost at higher ISOs, colour, sharpness, metering and focusing all performed very well. The lens is superb, but again it's the same as the glass on the Lumix, plus there's the slight problem of pixel fringing at full zoom, which the Lumix suffers similarly. Overall then, the Leica V-Lux 20 provides a comprehensive and feature rich snapper for those on a bigger budget but omissions such as RAW capture might ultimately put even those more enthusiast users off, even if it does ship with Adobe's excellent Photoshop Elements 8 software."