Leica today announced the Digilux 2, a five megapixel compact digital camera with a 3.2x optical zoom lens. Leica are promoting this camera as the “analog” digital camera, in essence this is driven by the camera’s design and control layout which is almost identical to a standard manual film camera (such as aperture ring, shutter speed dial etc.) The lens is also pretty special, a 28 – 90 mm equiv. with a maximum aperture of F2.0 at wide angle and F2.4 at telephoto. The Digilux 2 has a magnesium body, a trans-reflective 2.5″ LCD monitor, Electronic viewfinder, stores images on SD card and is powered by a 1400 mAh Lithium-Ion battery.
Check out the article at DPReview for more info and pics of this ugly beast. Of course it’s ugly in that retro-non-ergonomic-but-I-want-one-anyway sense. The basic design is similar to the Digilux 1 with the exception of a monster 28-90mm lens. The previous lens was nice. This lens is a monster! It’s a shame that the lens does not zoom more, but you’ve got that quality not quantity thing going on here.
Just like its older brother, the Digilux 2 has one of the bigger LCD screens out there, and it also retains the ability to manually control shutter speed, aperture, and focus if you like. Couple that with a 5 megapixel sensor on a platform most likely done by Panasonic, and you’ve got a great albeit ugly camera.