Key Take-Aways:

Leica’s first mirrorless system camera, built as a pared-down aluminium body with a touchscreen-led interface and an optional add-on viewfinder. Both reviews praise the image quality and the touchscreen and both fault the autofocus as slow or limited; one review also reports unstable Wi-Fi, the other short battery life.

From Leica:

Leica Camera AG presents a new camera system that unites the fine art of engineering and hand-crafted excellence with design and handling in an entirely new and innovative concept. From the initial idea through to the development process and in its final assembly, the focus of all disciplines involved was on one single thing – perfection. The outcome was the creation of the Leica T Camera System, a camera with an exquisite finish ‘made in Germany’ that, together with a portfolio of precise, high-performance lenses, offers exceptional versatility and particularly intuitive handling. Unique in design and pared down to the essential functions, the new Leica T Camera System offers everything anyone could ever need for pure, creative photography and the best image quality.

Official Website

The maker page is Leica’s May 2014 press release for the T camera system, the quote above is its opening paragraph, and Leica no longer has a product page for this body. The specs come from Leica’s Leica T (Typ 701) technical data sheet (as at July 2016) and the instruction manual. The weight of 384 g is with battery, from the data sheet (“Approx. 384/339 g (with/without battery)”) and confirmed by DPReview’s specifications page, which lists 384 g including battery; neither gives a figure with a memory card fitted. The data sheet gives 16.3 million effective pixels, while the press release says 16.2 MP effective, so the data sheet figure is used. The launch price of $1,850 (body only) is taken from DPReview’s specifications page, and Digital Trends’ review also gives $1,850 body only; Leica’s German press release gave 1,500 EUR and no USD price is published. The body is discontinued but the year is not reliably sourced: Leica published no discontinuation notice, and the only report found is a pair of linked databases, RCE Foto and JuzaPhoto, which list production as 2014 to 2016 and appear to share one upstream source. The data sheet gives ISO 100 to 12500 (so base ISO 100), about 5 fps continuous shooting, an APS-C CMOS sensor with contrast-based autofocus only, 1080p at 30 fps as the highest video mode (so no open-gate or slow-motion mode), 16 GB of internal memory, one SD/SDHC/SDXC slot with no UHS class stated by Leica, so card_slot_1 is plain SD (no second slot), an ISO flash shoe, and the BP-DC 13 battery rated at about 400 pictures by the CIPA standard. The shutter is a focal plane shutter according to Red Dot Forum’s hands-on report, and Mirrorlessons lists an electronic shutter as missing, so only the mechanical burst rate is given. Leica’s press release names the viewfinder as an accessory, so there is no built-in viewfinder. The data sheet does not state the SD card speed class, a pre-capture burst or USB webcam use, and makes no weather-sealing claim, so the first three are left out and weather sealing is false. DPReview has only a first impressions article on the T and no full review, so it is not listed.

Reviews:

• Digital Trends: Leica T (Typ 701) review, Felix Esser, Oct 2014
• Mirrorlessons: Two weeks with the Leica T system – A Leica T Review, Mathieu, Mar 2015

YouTube:

• Oh Aces: The Leica T In 2022 - Why I Still Use and LOVE This Old Camera - It Still Snaps, Jan 2022
• FoxTailWhipz: Leica’s Cheapest Camera Is Amazing! (Leica T), Apr 2024
• PlasticMilk: Leica T MANUAL FOCUS Review, Nov 2017
• bigheadtaco: Review of the Leica T in Hong Kong, Dec 2014