Introduction

Ease of Use

The Leica CL has a classic rangefinder style shape, with the added bonus of not being as complicated to use as something like the Leica M10. The main reason for this is that it has autofocus, coupled with an easy-to-use viewfinder. The advantage of the viewfinder being on the left in the same style as a rangefinder however means that you can keep your other eye on the scene unfolding in front of you, making it ideal for street photography, or indeed anything where the scene may change while you’re taking the photo (this only applies if you’re a right eye shooter, though).

Similar in size to the Leica X2 compact when used in partnership with the 18mm pancake lens, the Leica CL makes for a great walk around camera, being light and compact. Despite this, it feels well built and has the high-quality construction that you associate with Leica branded cameras - the CL is made in the German factory.

Front of the Leica CL

Looking at the CL from above, you’ll see the dials and buttons you’ll need to control the most fundamental aspects of the of the camera’s operation. There’s the shutter release button, but also two dials which feature buttons in their centre. Press these buttons to jog between different settings, including aperture, shutter speed, ISO and exposure compensation. The buttons will have default options, depending on the shooting mode you’re in - but you can also customise the dials and buttons to control different settings if you prefer. If you hold down the right hand button for a couple of seconds, other options which you can change will also appear.

Also on the top of the camera is a small LCD screen which shows you the key settings you have selected. It shows aperture and shutter speed, which is a great feature for discreet shooting situations - you can make sure the camera is set to however you want to shoot before moving it anywhere near your eye ready to shoot. A clever function of this screen is that automatically illuminates if the camera senses that it is dark - you can switch off this function if you want to though, if you need to remain discreet in darker conditions.

Front of the Leica CL

A hotshoe is found on the top of the Leica CL, via which you could add optional accessories, such as a flash - there isn’t one inbuilt into the CL. As already mentioned, the viewfinder of the CL is found on the left hand side of the camera body. This means there’s a bump on the top plate to accommodate it. There’s an eye sensor on the viewfinder, meaning it will automatically turn on when you lift the camera to your eye, and off again when you take it away. There’s a dioptre adjuster next to the viewfinder - a nice touch is that you need to pull it out away from the camera body before you can adjust it, then push it in to lock it into place. This prevents accidental unwanted changes, for example when the camera is in your bag.

Moving to the back of the CL - there are three buttons along the left hand side of the screen, with a navigation pad found to the right. This is a change from the all-screen back of the TL2, but is still few enough not to overwhelm.

Rear of the Leica CL

The three buttons are a Play button, for seeing your images in playback, a customisable Function button (Fn) which can be set to change whichever setting you feel is most necessary, and the Menu button. When you press the menu button, you’ll see that you’re presented with a “Favourites” menu - this is a bit like a quick menu, only featuring the most common settings. You can add or remove settings to these favourites, again ensuring that you use the CL however you feel is best.  At the bottom of the favourites menu, you’ll see that you can access the main menu - it’s here you’ll find more extensive settings, including the ability to customise your settings.

You can use the navigation pad for a number of different things, including scrolling through your images in playback, and setting the autofocus point. In playback, you can use the scrolling dials on the top of the camera to zoom in to check critical focus.

Top of the Leica CL

The Leica CL has both a mechanical and electronic shutter. By activating the electronic shutter, you can shoot completely silently which is useful for discreet situations. It also facilitates a fast shutter speed of 1/25000, as compared to the 1/8000 available with the mechanical shutter - this is very useful if you want to shoot at wide apertures in bright sunlight. It’s worth remembering that you’ll need to reactivate the mechanical shutter if you want to use long shutter speeds.

Although not primarily controlled by touch, the CL never-the-less has a touch-sensitive screen. You can use it to set the autofocus point, but there’s a slightly annoying problem here. In order to use it for this purpose, you need to set the AF mode in the menu to “Touch AF”, or “Touch AF + Release” - the latter means that the shutter will be fired once focus is achieved. Once you’ve done that, you won’t be able to use the buttons to set the autofocus point, meaning if you lift the camera to your eye, you won’t be able to change the AF point unless you take it away from your eye again. So, basically, you can either use the touchscreen, but sacrifice being able to change AF point with the viewfinder, or, you use the buttons and not be able to use the touchscreen to set AF at all. It would be nice if you could use either the screen or the buttons at all times - perhaps this small niggle could be fixed with a firmware upgrade though.

The Leica CL In-hand

There’s just one door on the bottom of the CL, which hides the battery and memory card slots. The CL accepts SD cards, and is compatible with the faster UHS-II cards.

The Leica CL has inbuilt Wi-Fi for remotely controlling the camera, and transferring shots across to a smartphone. At the time of writing however, the app was not available so we weren’t able to put this to the test. We’ve had success with using Leica’s apps before, with cameras such as the Q, so we have every confidence that it will work well.

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this review were taken using the 24 megapixel Superfine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 12Mb.

As we’d pretty much expect from anything bearing the famous Leica brand, image quality from the CL is excellent.

Colours directly from the Leica CL camera are very pleasingly saturated, without being unrealistic. The Standard “Film Type” setting is a good choice to leave the CL shooting in for most situations - with the Vivid setting being good when subjects could use a little boost in saturation.

Automatic white balance does a decent job in the majority of situations, producing accurate colours under artificial lighting, with just a hint towards yellow or warmer tones. Under overcast skies, colours can also be a little warmer than is accurate - switching to a specific white balance setting is recommended if you’re looking for ultimate accuracy.

The overall impression of detail is fantastic when looking at images at A4 or below, and you can see if you zoom in at 100% that the CL is capable of resolving very fine detail. When it comes to low light images, the CL copes well all the way up to ISO 6400. Images taken at ISO 12800 are useable, if you’re only intending to use them small, but ISO 25000 and above is probably best avoided if you can help it.

All-purpose metering is a good option for most everyday scenes, with nicely balanced exposures in the majority of conditions. Switching to spot metering for high-contrast situations can be beneficial, as can dialling in some exposure compensation - this doesn’t seem to be too common a problem however.

Noise

There are 9 ISO settings available on the Leica CL. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting:

JPEG	RAW
ISO 100 (100% Crop)	ISO 100 (100% Crop)
ISO 200 (100% Crop)	ISO 200 (100% Crop)
ISO 400 (100% Crop)	ISO 400 (100% Crop)
ISO 800 (100% Crop)	ISO 800 (100% Crop)
ISO 1600 (100% Crop)	ISO 1600 (100% Crop)
ISO 3200 (100% Crop)	ISO 3200 (100% Crop)
ISO 6400 (100% Crop)	ISO 6400 (100% Crop)
ISO 12500 (100% Crop)	ISO 12500 (100% Crop)
ISO 25000 (100% Crop)	ISO 25000 (100% Crop)
ISO 50000 (100% Crop)

Night

The Leica CL's maximum shutter speed is 30 seconds in the Manual mode, which is great news if you're seriously interested in night photography. The following shot was taken at 30 seconds at ISO 100.

Night

Film Styles

The Leica CL offers 5 different film styles to choose from.

Standard

Vivid

Natural

B&W Natural

B&W High Contrast

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Leica CL camera, which were all taken using the 24 megapixel Superfine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample RAW Images

The Leica CL enables users to capture RAW and JPEG format files. We've provided some Leica RAW (DNG) samples for you to download (thumbnail images shown below are not 100% representative).

Sample Movies & Video

Product Images

Conclusion

The compact system camera market at the moment is particularly strong, with something to suit just about every type of customer. 

Traditionally, Leica users are those who crave high image quality in a body which is well-built and has traditional looks. Nothing changes with the CL, which builds upon the success of the TL2 to bring something arguably even better - especially if you like a viewfinder. 

Handling and usability is great, with the simple combination of dials and button presses for the most important camera settings being an intuitive system that you very quickly get used to. 

The classic rangefinder style of the Leica CL makes it a discreet choice for street photography, so photographers who are into that kind of shooting are going to love it. We’ve only had the opportunity to test it with the 18mm lens, which makes for an ideal walk around pairing, but the fact that there are now several different lenses to choose from in the system suggests that its one that’s here to stay. 

Similar in essence to the much more expensive, and much more complicated to use Leica M series, the CL is something which appeals to those who want an entry into Leica products without the faff of a manual focus rangefinder - and though not exactly cheap, the CL is still much more affordable than it’s full-frame brother. 

Image quality is excellent, with great detail and lovely colours. The fact that it can shoot 4K video is also a bonus for anybody who likes to create movies in an off-the-cuff style but would still like them to be high quality. 

When it comes to downsides for this camera, aside from the relatively high price, there aren’t too many. The main ones centre around the screen - a tilting screen would have been handy for awkward compositions (including from the hip), while the fact that you can either use the screen to set autofocus or use the buttons (but not at the same time) is a little annoyance that could be easily solved. 

Overall, the Leica CL is a fantastic APS-C compact system camera with only a couple of relatively minor niggles (some of which could be fixed with firmware upgrades). Anyone with a desire to own something with the classic red-dot could be easily drawn towards it - just make sure you have relatively deep pockets. 

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4.5
Features	4
Ease-of-use	4.5
Image quality	4.5
Value for money	3

Main Rivals

Listed below are some of the rivals of the Leica CL.

Specifications

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