Leica D-Lux 8: The Perfect Menu Setup Explained Step by Step
You can set up your Leica D-Lux 8 by following the screen shots in this article, and you will be fine. As we say, "Set it and forget it." My ideal for any camera is simplicity, speed of operation, and high image quality.
Have your Leica D-Lux 8 ready next to you to do thisstep by step.
When the Leica D-Lux 8 is started up for the very first time, it will play a graphic sequence, and then the first screen is where you select your language.
The next screen is for date and time. I suggest setting it to the local time where you live and leaving it at that, even if you travel, so your files always have your 'home zone'.
The black Function button (Fn button) on the back of the Leica D-Lux 8 allows you to change from EVF (electronic viewfinder) to LCD screen, or to AUTO (uses LCD screen, and when you look through the EVF, the EVF turns on and the LCD screen turns off.
Using the camera, you might find it useful to use only the EVF, but when previewing photos, or as in this case, we are going to set the menu, press that button to LCD so that the menu is visible.
Press the black button on the back of the Leica D-Lux 8, and for each time, the screen mode changes from LCD to EVF to AUTO. The botton to the right of it switches between still mode and video.
When you press , the overview screen shows Program mode, AUTO ISO, and iAF. This has to change to Aperture mode and AFs. In the following, I will go over why that is and what it does for you. The idea is that once you have set up the camera, you don't have to do much in the menu in the future.
The outside of the camera has the possibilities to adjust the main controls (aperture and shutter speed ) as well as manual focus, should you wish to use manual focus. To get to the "Quick Menu", press at the button and you see a great overview on the touch screen where you can check that everything is right, and with a touch change white balance and speed of frames per second as the two most prominent settings worth changing to fit the occasion.
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How to use the Leica D-Lux 8 in the everyday
You will set the aperture to f/1.7 and only change it to f/5.6 or similar if you want more things in focus. At f/1.7 you have a narrow depth of field, which means that backgrounds will be blurred. The higher the number of the f-stop you choose, the more will be in focus.
As the D-Lux 8 is equipped with a 24mm to 75mm zoom, the widest aperture changes gradually from f/1.7 at 24mm to f/2.8 at 75mm as you use the zoom dial. This is because the aperture "hole through" inside the lens does not change size as you zoom.
Aperture setting is how small or large the "hole through" is on the lens. Wide open at f/1.7 is where the camera requires the least light, and where the background if out of focus. Set it to f/1.7 rather than Autumatic, and then stop down to f/2.8 or f/5.6 or f/11 for more sharpness and detail in the background when required.
An aperture is metal blades inside the lens that adjust to make the "hole through" the lens larger or smaller so as to control how much light comes through to the sensor. The larger the hole, the more narrow depth of focus you have, and backgrounds will be blurry. The more narrow a hole, the sharper everything is. As such, the aperture control is for depth of focus, and shutter speed and ISO are the better controls to use for actual light control as neither of these change the artistic look of the image.
1/1000 at f/1.7
1/60 at f/8
Watch my video "What is Aperture?" for a full illustrated understanding of aperture in photography.
The frame format is selcted also on the lens, and by default it is set to 4:3 which is a traditional "television format", but I would change it to 3:2 format which is the traditional photography format for dSLR and Leica rangefinder cameras that use the format 24 x 36mm.
You will set the Leica D-Lux to AUTO ISO as this allows you to work in sunshine, shade, indoors, and in the evening without having to change anything, really. One important setting, as I will cover below, is that you must go to Screen 2 > Auto ISO Settings > Maximum ISO 6400 and Shutter Speed Limit 1/250. This setting of the minimum shutter speed to 1/250 is so that there will be no motion blur. Believe it or not, but even with the high ISO capabilities, a camera set to AUTO ISO might otherwise choose to photograph at 1/60th of a second in daylight, and that would cause people walking to be (motion-) blurry. That is why 1/250 as the Shutter Speed Limit is important; because at 1/250th of a second, even driving cars are frozen in the moment. (If you take pictures in really dark places, the camera will eventually override both your maximum ISO and slowest shutter speed if and when it is needed).
When you press the button on top of the thumb dial, the menu on the LCD screen shows a selection of ISO-settings from AUTO to 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400, 12800, 25000. Safe ISO is from 100 to 6400, above that you are likely to get grain/noice and odd colors. Each step of ISO either reduces light sensitivity to half, or doubles it.
You will use the thumb wheel for exposure compensation. As you clearly see the image in the EVF or on the LCD screen, you can notice if it's too dark or too bright. The suggested exposure is based on a light meter inside the camera that tries to make everything "middle grey" but of course has no idea what you are photographing. Hence, when you photograph a person in the shade and there is a lot of bright light in the background, the face will look dark; and then you use the thumb wheel to over-expose the image until the face looks right. Taking a photo in the evening in a dark street, the light meter will make sure the scene is bright, and that is obviously not how you want it to look; so you use the thumb wheel to turn down the exposure so the street looks like the street you see with your eyes.
You will set the White Balance to Daylight, which is a sunshine symbol. You will do this because you probably don't like to edit pictures on the computer, and Daylight is how all colors will look great in sunshine, and they will do so consistently throughout the day. If you go with AWB (auto white balance), the camera will adjust the colors from picture to picture, and then you have to adjust every picture on the computer for correct colors.
Fundamentally, you can photograph everything with Daylight, and then adjust (all) indoor pictures in restaurants to Tungsten, and they will look great (they will be yellow-orange, but once you adjust, the colors look right). And you adjust every picture taken outside in the shade (which will look blue) to Shade, and they will look in colors like the ones taken in sunshine.
If you don't want to deal with all this, then choose AWB (Auto White Balance), and the camera will set the color balance to whatever it thinks it should be. Try both and see what works best for you.
Now we get into auto focus, which is a big deal to explain, but simple to use after this: Change the iAF to AFs.
AFs means that the autofocus focuses on a single spot and remains there as long as the shutter release is pressed halfway or fully down. Another option is AFc, which is continuous autofocus, meaning that it tracks the spot and adjusts the focus as the subject moves. However, this continuous mode results in a slight vibration of the camera and the preview image as autofocus continually checks if the subject has moved. Whether AFc is suitable for photographing running people, moving cars, flying birds, playing children, or rolling skateboarders is something you need to assess. The constant checking-checking-checking may or may not be fast enough to capture the focus on the moving subject. My approach is to predict where the subject will be, set the focus there, and not change it, making AFs ideal for my style. I dislike having to keep an eye on what the camera's autofocus does by itself, as it often changes the focusing spot, resulting in a blurred face with a perfectly focused background!
iAF stands for "Intelligent Auto Focus," and when enabled, the Leica D-Lux 8 supposedly uses AFs until it detects that the subject moves, at which point it switches to AFc. Generally, with any camera, I prefer either manual focus or using AFs where the autofocus locks onto what I've decided it should lock onto (and then does not change). This way, I have control over what the camera is doing. With iAF, I don't know what or when the camera changes its mind. After all, I am the one taking the photos, not the camera.
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Another important detail in focusing the Leica D-Lux 8 (or any AF camera) is to 1) 'set the focusing' and then 2) 'take the photo.'
This means that you 1) point the focusing point of the Leica D-Lux 8 at the face or other subject you want to be in focus, the the Leica D-Lux 8 quicky zooms in to let yov verify you actually got the focus, and you simply hold the shutter release buton half down to lock the focus right there. Now you can concentrate on 2) taking the photo. You might even — while keeping the shutter release button half-pressed and thus keeping the focus locked — adjust the frame to get a more pleasant composition, or wait for a decisive moment, all while keeping the focusing point locked. Then, when you fully press the release, it takes the photo with no delay.
This has the advantage that your timing is perfect because there is no delay from the moment you fully press the shutter release to when the camera takes the photo. Otherwise, if you point the camera and focusing point at a face or other subject and then fully press the release to take a photo, the camera 1) first tries to find the focus, and then; 2) takes the photo.
The downside of this is a) there is a delay between pressing the release and the time the photo is taken (the delay is as long as the AF of the camera takes to nail the focus), and b) while you ‘snapshot’ the frame like this, you don’t actually see what the camera decides to focus on. All in all, the precious expression you aimed to capture in a photo happened 1/10 second before you took the photo, or the camera changed the focus to the ear instead of the eyes.
Optionally, you may also choose to manually focus the Leica D-Lux 8: Simply move the focusing selector on the left side of the lens from AF to MF. Now, when you look through the viewfinder, and when you turn the focusing ring, it will zoom in, making it really easy to focus. You can change the focusing enlargement from 100% to 5x to 10x by turning the thumbs wheel while in the manual focusing mode.
The advantage of manual focusing is that you now control the focus, and the focus stays where you put it; which is helpful if you want to focus on a person or place and keep the focus there to take a photo whenever something happens that you want to capture.
The advantage of manual focus is, as described above, that you decide where the focus is, and it stays there. Furthermore, if you've picked a scene in, for example, a restaurant where you want to wait for a couple at a table to have a certain expression, all you have to do is wait: Once you've set the focus on their faces, it stays there. No chance that AF decides to focus on the background or the front edge of the table or something.
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"Set it and forget it" menu settings
for Leica D-Lux 8
By Thorsten von Overgaard
Once you have set up the following six menu screens, you can mostly just use the outside controls of the camera.
Menu Screen 1 settings:
Main Menu
1 2 3 4 5
Drive Mode
Continious - 2 fps
Self Timer
Off
Focusing
AFs
Spot
> Focus Aid:
Auto Magnification: On
Focus Peaking: Off
AF Assist Lamp: Off
Exposure Metering
Multi-Field
Exposure Compensation
0 EV
ISO
Auto ISO
Menu screen 1 of the Leica D-Lux 8 explained:
Drive Mode should be set to Continuous - 2 fps as a good all-round setting for singles and series. This enables you to take just a single photo (by pressing the shutter and letting go), but also to continue taking a series of photos if you are chasing a moving subject or trying to capture a changing expression (by simply holding the shutter release down).
Self Timer is a feature used only to delay the photo. It can be set to a 2 or 12-second delay, so the Leica D-Lux 8 takes a photo 2 or 12 seconds after you pressed the shutter release. You have to set the Leica D-Lux 8 to Single drive mode for Self Timer to be available.
Focusing shoud be set to AFs(ingle) and Spot.
Auto Magnifocation is set to On as that is what zooms in quickly and let you confirm visually that you focused on the right spot, and that the camera in fact did nail the focus.
Focus Peaking is set to Off as it is red outline around things in focus. While it should give confidence that you have somethign in focus, it blinds you so you can't tell if the main subject is actually in focus.
AF Assist lamp I set to Off as it will else light up when it is dark, and I don't want people to see a bright AF light in their face.
Exposure Metering I set to Multi-Field or Center-Weighted. The Center-Weighted is the classic metering method where the camera aims to get the 2/3 center of the frame (imagine an oval) to match midtone. This matches what a normal city scene looks like; a mix of colors and tones that together in a mix is midtone. Multi-Field is a slightly more advanced metering method where the camera tries to foresee the correct exposure based on a midtone center, taking highlights and shadows into account. It doesn't always work great in all cameras, but in the Leica D-Lux 8, it works well enough to be the standard setting.
Classic
Center-weighted:
Spot:
Multi-field:
All is adjusted so the center oval is mid tone.
All is adjusted so the spot is mid tone.
All is adjusted depending on what the algorithm in the camera think it is..
In perhaps 70% of cases, the light meter will get the exposure right. In the 30% of cases where you have a dark background, or perhaps a person with strong light behind the person, the light meter will get it wrong, and then you use the thumbs wheel to adjust the exposure brighter or darker untill it looks right.
ISO is a number that indicates how sensitive to light the sensor is. The abbreviation ISO stands for "International Organization for Standardization," which decided those standards for sensitivity back in 1947.
The point is that when you change the ISO number, you change how sensitive to light the sensor is. Set the Leica D-Lux 8 to Auto and the camera will roll up and down the ISO sensitivity to find a sensitivity setting that works for your photo.
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Auto ISO Settings has to be set to a maximum ISO of 6400 (or 3200) as that is as high as you can go in sensitivity befoer you see noise/grain and the colors start looking off.
The shutter speed must be set to minumum 1/250th of a second as that ensures that - no matter what - you freeze the movement of your subject.
White Balance can, for the most part, be set to Daylight (5400 Kelvin) as this will work in most cases, and the look of the images will look right in any daylight sunshine scene, anywhere in the world.
You would also use AWB (Auto White Balance) which will adjust the colors to look neutral and correct, as the eye does for us all the time. Only problem is that the AWB works by finding a neautral white or grey spot in the frame to balance the colors overall. If you take three photos of the same scene within two seconds, you'll notice the white balance changes slightly from frame to frame. It means the camera really tries to get it right, but to get it really-really-right, you have to finetune or adjust it in editing.
Despite the fact that the color of light changes throughout the day from cold blue to white to warm orange to cold blue, and indoors often to yellow warm light from artificial light sources, the eye and the mind neutralize it all to be "white light."
White Balance is balancing colors to be neutral white (which is the color of sunlight in the middle of the day). White Balance and the color of light are also often referred to as "Kelvin" because it was the Scottish-Irish physicist William Thomson Kelvin who defined color temperatures for light and other things.
As said, the eye and the mind adjust it all to white. Once you start noticing colors of light, you can see the color changes from warm to cold, and even green tint from some types of articifical light. You see that fluorescent lamps are green, that tungsten lamps are yellow/orange. However, to a camera sensor, color temperature is very influential for how the overall color balance looks.
A candlelight is 1200 Kelvin (very red in a photo), a tungsten lamp in a living room, office, or restaurant is 3200 Kelvin (very yellow-orange in a photo), sunlight during the day is 5400 Kelvin and is called “white light” or “daylight” because in this light, the standard for how colors look is set or perceived. In the shade of a building or a tree, or indoors during a sunny day, the Kelvin is 7300 (colder blue in a photo), and towards sunset, the overall last daylight raises quickly from 8,000 to 12,000 Kelvin overall while the sunlight itself is very warm.
For the human eye, all light looks white unless you pay particular attention. We adjust constantly for color temperature and see almost any scene in correct “daylight” colors. Therefore, it is often a mystery for people why their photos look orange from last night inside the restaurant.
The answer is simply that the camera doesn’t automatically adjust. The solution is near because a digital camera has the possibility to set the Kelvin "color temperature" to match the light – so as to add warm or cold tones digitally to what the sensor captures. The result will be clean and clear, correct colors.
As color balance is the most important aspect in making aesthetically color photos with clarity and refinement, Kelvin is quite an important feature to master.
Color film used to be (and still is when used) balanced to Daylight 5400 Kelvin, which is why most photos in daylight look satisfactory. Hence, the same route can be taken with a digital camera when you are not happy with what the Auto White Balance setting delivers you.
Here is the original photo photographed at 5029 Kelvin, adjusted to 7086 Kelvin. As you can imagine, a scene like this is open to interpretation because you have colder light in the shades than the sunshine reflected. The key is the skin tone that should be correct, but also the overall mood. How does it make you feel? But knowing that the daylight Kelvin is 5400 (the sunshine) and shade Kelvin is around 7300 usually, you can use that as a guide.
The white balance menu also offers to set the White Balance to Daylight, Overcast, and other possibilities. Setting a camera to 5400 Kelvin or Daylight can be workable, as that is what color film used to be, but also because it will give a consistent look to your colors and pictures. In editing, you may then adjust the Kelvin in those pictures that need adjustment, to whichever Kelvin you feel is right. Knowing that shade is usually 7300 Kelvin can make editing as easy as simply leaving scenes in sunshine at 5400 Kelvin and changing all scenes in the shade to 7300 Kelvin.
You can also use a WhiBal card or a Kodak R-27 Graycard to balance the colors before or after you take a photo: You simply hold the card up in the scene, take a photo of the card, and then in post-processing (editing), you can use the White Balance pointer to calibrate all colors after that card (this will calibrate not only Kelvin - which is warm/cold, it will also calibrate Tint - which is magenta/green cast). Once you have balanced the test photo, you can apply the same white balance to the series of photos taken in the same conditions.
Photo File Format should be set to DNG (Digital NeGative), a raw format made by Adobe that (unlike raw files from Nikon, Fuji, etc., that consist of two files) is all picture data in one single DNG file. The DNG file is a complete dump of all the data the sensor captured, into one big file. This allows for even extreme changes of exposure, colors, shadow details, highlight details, and more.
A DNG or raw file upon import will traditionally look a little dull, and that is how it is supposed to be. So, some editing is required to make it sing and have punch. Once you are done editing your DNG photos in Capture One or Lightroom, you export them as JPG files, ready for use on screen, email, print, etc.
The Leica D-Lux 8 has a special quality in that the DNG files are often very close to the final result you would want. They are not as 'flat' and 'dull' as DNG files can tend to be. This overall makes editing of Leica D-Lux 8 files easy and fast.
You can set the camera to record both DNG+JPG, so as to have a "ready to use" JPG file, and if you like them, no need to edit the DNG.
JPG Settings are relevant even if you don't plan to photograph in JPG, because the setting of the JPG also determines the preview in the EVF or on the screen.
For example, you can set the JPG to Film Style > BWnat Monochrome, and you will see a preview in black and white at all times in the viewfinder, but it also means that if you download photos to your smartphone via the Leica Fotos App on the road to post them or mail them, the previews you download will be black & white. If you choose Vivid, the previews will be in vivid colors. And so on.
iDR is "intelligent dynamic range" and should be set to OFF. You may experiment with it, but my policy is that I will not let a machine apply "intelligence" to how something should look in some randomized manner.
Shutter type you set it to Hybrid as it means the camera will use the mechanical leaf shutter for slower shutter speeds, and electronic shutter when there is a lot of light. In the Leica D-Lux 8 you won't really notice the difference if the shutter is mechanical or electronic.
Leica FOTOS is an app you can download online, and once it is on your smartphone or iPad, you simply open Leica FOTOS on the camera and connect it to the app. This allows you to download previews of photos you have on the camera, so as to post them on social media or to send them in email. The app also allows you to remote control the camera, as well as update firmware via the phone. Leica collects exit data from the photos and uses it to know what settings people use.
As a side note, the Leica FOTOS app connects to any and all Leica cameras you have. You can remote control video recording via the smartphone or iPad. You can put the camera on a tripod and click the focusing point to your face and record a video that will stay in focus on your face.
Camera Settings > Acoustic Signal should all be off.
Camera Information is serial number, regulatory information and Firmware version. If there is a newer version of the Leica D-Lux 8 Firmware available, you download it to an SD card, and when you insert the SD card and go to Firmware > Start Update,it will install the newer firmware. This can also be done with the Leica FOTOS app, but that is challenging technology and life unnecessarily. Update via SD card works well.
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All you need to know: The Leica D-Lux 8
This is how short and sweet it can be said. In my personal opinion, features matter very little with this camera. Nobody is going to buy this camera for the megapixels or ISO. They are going to buy it because of the desire for a simple camera that can take pictures. And yes, besides that, it has enough of all the technical stuff.
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Understanding exposure
The correct exposure on a camera is ensured by three parameters that match so that the image you record looks like what they eyes saw. Now darker, not brighter. Just exact the correct exposure.
It's sometimes referred to as a triangle. Not because it's part of a conspiracy but because it has tree elements you can adjust: Aperture, ISO and Shutter Speed.
Keep in mind that a camera is a dark box that doesn't let any light in, because photography is "painting with light" (which is the meaning of the words photo=light and graphy=drawing). So, when you take a photo, you are letting light in to draw the picture on the sensor. And the amount of light has to be exactly right. Too much light makes a white, overexposed picture, and too little light makes a too dark picture.
This is the fundamental of photography and how it's always been. It never changed, which is why I applaud any camera that keeps the controls and features of a camera to those simple few that enables you to just getting the right exposure.
It's all about light and there are just 3 controls for you to take control of so the picture looks right.
Aperture
The aperture is a Latin word meaning “to open”. If you change the aperture ring, the ring inside the lens (made of metal blades) narrows the lens opening from wide open to small. When the aperture is wide open at 100% the maximum amount of light passes, and when “stopped down” the amount of light becomes as small as 2%. You can see the aperture blades inside the lens on the photo above.
The smaller the aperture "hole through" is, the more depth-of-field there is. The moew wide open, the more narrow-depth-of-field you have, and what some would say "a dreamy" or "artistic" look.
Shutter
The razor-thin metal curtain that separates the dark and the light is named after the shutters in front of windows that keep the sun out. In some cameras it's a curtain just in front of the sensor, in others (as the Leica Q2) the shuitter curtain sits inside the lens.
Shutter speed is how long the curtain is open and the sensor can be exposed to the light that goes through the lens.
The rest of the time, the curtain is closed and the sensor rests in the darkness. In the beginning of photography, the photographer's hand in front of the lens acted as the shutter to keep it all in the darkness.
ISO
ISO is a strange word because it is short for International Standard Organization. It's simply a measurement for how sensitive to light, something is. It goes from 100% to 50,000% (500 times more sensitive) in the Leica Q2. When you say 100 ISO, you are referring to an international standard of sensitivity to light.
1:2/50 the description says. But what does it mean?
1: - Basically means 1 divided with. But why is it on the front of the lens? If you look close, a lens will often say 1:2/50mm on the front, meaning it is a 50mm lens with an f/2.0 apterture. The 1: itself is a ratio, that indicates that the aperture diameter (25mm) is the ratio of 50mm divided with 2.
It's a strange way of writing product information on modern products, but here's how it's right:
a) A lens is called a 50mm lens because there is 50mm from the sensor to the center of focus inside the lens.
b) A lens is f/2.0 when the widest opening is 50mm divided with 2 = The lens opening is 25mm in diameter at it's widest. Had it been an f/2.8 lens (1:2.8/50), the widest aperture opening would be 50mm divided with 2.8 = 17.8mm.
AF = Auto Focus. The idea is that the camera does the focusing itself (the word auto comes from Greek "self").
Aperture = The f/ stop on the camera that regulates how much light passes through the lens. On a f/1.7 lens the lens is fully open" at f/1.7. At f/2.0 the aperture inside the lens make the hole through the lens smaller so only half the amount of light at f/1.7 passes through. For each f/-stop (4.0 - 5.6 - 8.0 - 11 - 16) you halve the light. The aperture of the lens is basically the focal length divided with the f/-stop = size of the hole (28mm divided with f/1.7 = the hole is 45 mm). ORIGIN: Late Middle English : from Latin apertura, from apert- ‘opened,’ from aperire ‘to open’.
The camera in Aperture Priority Mode
Aperture Priority Mode. When the shutter speed dial on top of a Leica camera is set to A, it is short for “Aperture Priority” and allows the user to set a specific aperture value (f-number) while the camera selects a shutter speed to match it that will result in proper exposure based on the lighting conditions as measured by the camera's light meter. In other words, you set the aperture as priority (f/1.4 for example), and the camera calculates a shutter speed (1/250 of a second) that matches that. If you change the aperture to f/2.0 by changing the aperture ring on the lens, the camera will re-calculate the speed to 1/125 so as to get the same amount of light to hit the sensor (f/2.0 is half the light through the lens as f/1.4 and 1/125 if twice the amount of light on the sensor as 1/250).
spherical (ball)
a-spherical (non-ball)
ASPH = (Aspherical lens) stands for "aspheric design".
Most lenses have a spherical design - that is, the radius
of curvature is constant. These are easy to manufacture by
grinding while "spinning" the glass. This design
however restricts the number of optical corrections that can
be made to the design to render the most realistic image possible.
ASPH lenses (a-spherical, meaning non-spherical), however, involve usually 1 element that does
*not* have a constant radius of curvature. These elements
can be made by 1) expensive manual grinding, 2) molded plastic,
or 3) Leica's patented "press" process, where the element
is pressed into an aspherical ("non-spherical")
shape. This design allows Leica to introduce corrections
into compact lens designs that weren't possible before. Practically,
the lens performs "better" (up to interpretation)
due to increased correction of the image, in a package not
significantly bigger than the spherical version.
There is another Aspherical lens manufacture technique: an uneven coating layer is applied to a spherical lens. The coating is thicker on the edges (or on the center, depending). Canon "Lens Work II" calls these "simulated" aspherical lenses. Simulated and Glass-Molded (GMo) asphericals show up in non-L Canon lenses, while the L lenses have actual ground aspheric elements.
A- means non, or without.From Latin, ex.
Sphere: ORIGIN Middle English : from Old French espere, from late Latin sphera, earlier sphaera, from Greek sphaira "ball".
Normal spheric lens (grinded)
ASPH (note the shape of the glass as result of pressing rather than grinding)
Auto- means “self”. The idea is that when a camera has auto-(something), it does that (something) by itself.
Auto Focus = The idea is that the camera does the focusing itself (the word "auto" comes from Greek "self"). Ironically and factually, it does not work that easily, which is why many types of Auto Focus have been added to this feature. Ironically, it was supposed to make it easy for the user to get sharp photos but has become a filter of focusing complexities in front of the user with a variety of made-up fancy names: Face detection, iAF (Intelligent Auto Focus), AFc (continuous), Tracking AF, Multi-Field AF, Eye Detection AF, Zone AF, and more.
Bokeh = The visual quality of the out-of-focus areas of a photographic image, especially as rendered by a particular lens: It's a matter of taste and usually photographers discuss a 'nice' or 'pleasant' bokeh (the out-of-focus area is always unsharp, which is why the quality discussed is if one likes the way it renders or not by a particular lens). The closer you get to something, the 'more' bokeh' you get (in that the focus becomes less for the background and foreground at close distances than at long distances). ORIGIN from Japanese 'bo-ke' which mean 'fuzzines' or 'blur.'.
Camera -is today’s short name for Camera Obscura (meaning “a dark room”). CamerameansChambre and was used only as a Latin or alien word, actually only for Spanish soldiers’ rooms, until popularized in connection with photography in 1727: “Camera Obscura”. In 1793 the slang term “camera” was used by Sterne Tr. Shandy: “Will make drawings of you in the camera” and by Foster (1878), “The eye is a camera”. Camera Obscura was described by Iraqi scientist Ibn-al-Haytham in his book, “Book of Optics” (1021) and by Leonardo da Vinci in 1500; popularized and made widely known in 1589 by Baptista Porta when he mentioned the principle in his book “Natural Magic”. Johannes Kepler mentions Camera Obscura in 1604.
Camera = chambre (room), Obscura = dark (or cover).
Why is it called a "camera"..?
The word Camera is today's short name for Camera Obscura (which originally means “a dark room”).
Origin of the word Obscura means "dark" or "covered", and the word Camera meansChambre and was used originally only as a Latin or alien word, actually only for Spanish soldiers' rooms, until popularized in connection with photography in 1727: “Camera Obscura”.
In 1793 the slang term “camera” was used by Sterne Tr. Shandy: “Will make drawings of you in the camera” and by Foster (1878), “The eye is a camera”.
Ibn-al-Haytham mentioned Camera Obscura in his "Book of Optics" in 1021.
The concept of Camera Obscura was described by Iraqi scientist Ibn-al-Haytham in his book, “Book of Optics” (1021) and by Leonardo da Vinci in 1500; popularized and made widely known in 1589 by Baptista Porta when he mentioned the principle in his book “Natural Magic”. Johannes Kepler mentions Camera Obscura in 1604.
Camera = chambre (room), Obscura = dark (or cover).
CMOS sensor (as used in Leica D-Lux 8, Leica CL, Leica T/TL/TL2, Leica M11, Leica S Typ 007, Leica SL3, Leica Q3, Leica Q2, Leica M10, Leica X, etc.) = (Complimentary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) chips use transistors at each pixel to move the charge through traditional wires. This offers flexibility because each pixel is treated individually. Traditional manufacturing processes are used to make CMOS. It's the same as creating microchips. Because they're easier to produce, CMOS sensors are cheaper than CCD sensors. CMOS allow Live View and use less energy than CCD.
Contrast - The degree of difference between tones in a picture. Latin contra- ‘against’ + stare ‘stand.’
Depth - Distance between front and back. Distance from viewer and object.
Digital Shutter = A digital shutter is simply "turning on/off the recording of the sensor. In the "old days" this had to be done with an actual mechanical shutter curtain; a metal curtain in front of the sensor (or film) that goes up for 1/125th of a second, for example. In the Leica TL2, there is a mechanical shutter curtain from 30 sec. to 1/4000 shutter times, and digital shutter from 1/4100 to 1/40,000 shutter times. In the Leica D-Lux 8 there is a mechanical shutter to 1/2000, and then digital shutter from 1/2001 sec to 1/16000 sec.
Diopter adjustment = Adjustment in a camera viewfinder to fit to the eye's ability to focus. Often a camera has a little dial too adjust for eyesight less than perfect.
The Leica Q3 has a -4 to +2 possible adjustment so that the electronic viewfinder will look sharp by moving the focus distance to the screen so it fits the eye.
Lens distortion looks like this. The lines are not straight. Our eye uses distortion correction. Lens designers can design lenses so they have very little distortion, or they can make less complicated lens designs and "fix" the distortion in software.
Distortion = In photo optics/lenses: When straight lines in a scene don't remain straight because of optical aberration.
Lens designers can correct for distortion to a degree so the whole image field is perfect corrected and all lines remain straight. In modern lens design many designs rely on Software Distortion Correction (SDC).
The eye adjusts for distortion so we always see vertical and horizontal lines straight when we look at things. Even when you get new prescription glasses (if you use such), you will often experience distortion in your new glasses. After a few days they eyes have adjusted for the glasses and the distortion you saw to begin with is now gone. Software Distortion Correction (SDC) is far behind what the human eye can perform of adjustments. (Also see my definition on Perspective for more on the eye and optics)
DNG = Digital Negative, an open standard developed by Adobe. It is a single file that contains the raw image data from the sensor of the camera as well as date, time, GPS, focal length, settings, etc.
The alternative is a RAW file + XLM file where the RAW file contains the image information and the XML contains the rest of information about where, how and when the picture was taken.
A Camera Raw profile (that is specific for that camera) in the computer helps the software program, for example Adobe Lightroom, to translate the RAW data into the image.
A raw file (or DNG) is simply the full recording of digital data (1's and 0's) from the sensor. In the computer, the sensor data is translated into the exact colors, via a camera profile.
DOF = Depth of Field. This is how much of the image will be in focus or "acceptable sharp". The DOF is determined by the subject distance (the farther away, the larger area is sharp; the closer the focus is, the less of the lage is sharp), the lens aperture (the depth of field is narrow at f/1.4 and larger at f/5.6) and the focal length of the lens (tele lenses has very narrow depth of field whereas wide angle lenses has a wide depth of field) and film or sensor size (small-sensor cameras has a wide depth of field wheras medium format or large format cameras has a very narrow depth of field). As an example, a Leica 21mm Super-Angulon-M f/3.4 lens is sharp all over the focus field from 2 meter to infinity when set at a distance of 3 meters at f/3.4. The DOF scale measurement on top of the Leica lenses shows lines for each f-stop that indicates from which distance to which distance the image will be sharp. Shallow DOF is a generally used term in photography that refer to lenses with very narrow focus tolerance (which can be used to do selective focus; making irrelevant subjects in the foreground and background blurry so only the subjects of essence are in focus and catches the viewers eye).
Depth Of Field scale from Fujifilm.
Dynamic range. The grade of ‘contrast range’ (or number of tones) a film or sensor, or simply a photograph, possess between bright and dark tones. The human eye is said to have a dynamic range of 10-14 ‘stops’ (but because we scan area by area and compile a concept of the overall scene, they eye is often thought to have a much higher dynamic range), Film used to have 7-13 ‘stops’ and some modern sensors have up to 15-17 ‘stops’.
EVF = Electronic ViewFinder. A viewfinder where you look at a small screen through optics/prisms. The advantage is that you see what the sensor sees.
f- (focal length). Often given in mm, for example 90mm. In the past they were often given in cm or inch, for example 9.5 cm or 3.2 inch.
f-stop = the ratio of the focal length (for example 50mm) of a camera lens to the diameter of the aperture being used for a particular shot. (E.g., f/8, indicating that the focal length is eight times the diameter of the aperture hole: 50mm/8 = 6,25 mm); or the other way around, the hole is the focal length divided with 8).
ORIGIN early 20th cent.: from f (denoting the focal length) and number.
One f-stop is a doubling or halving of the light going through the lens to the film, by adjusting the aperture riing. Adjusting the f-setting from f 1.4 to f.2.0 is halving the light that goes through the lens. Most Leica lenses has half f-stops to enable the photographer to adjust the light more precicely.
The aperture blades inside the lens is clearly visible in this photo by Eolake Stobblehouse.
Flare = Burst of light. Internal reflections between (and within) lens elements inside a lens. Mostly, flare has a characteristic "space travel" look to it, making it cool. Particularly in older lenses with less or no coating of the glass surfaces to suppress this, it can be a really cool effect. In newer lens designs, the coatings and overall design try to suppress flare and any reflections to a degree, so that there is seldom any flare to be picked up (moving the lens to pick up a strong sunbeam), but instead a "milking out" (or "ghosting") of a circular area of the frame; meaning simply overexposed without any flare-looking flares.
Sunlight creating (fairly supressed) flare in the bottom right quadrant of the image of a modern lens.
Fn = Short for Function. It's a button you can program. Usually, if you hold down the button for a few seconds, the screen shows a selection of things you can select this button to perform, and you choose the one you want. On the Leica D-Lux 8, the button on top right, 'inside' the thumb wheel, is the ISO selection by default.
A 28 mm lens has a 74° viewing angle
Focal length = On the Leica D-Lux 8 you have a zoom that performs focal lengths from 24mm to 75mm. It originally referred to the distance from the sensor (or film in older days) to the center of focus inside the lens. Nobody uses that measurement, except those who construct lenses! For users of lenses, focal length refers to how wide the lens sees. The viewing angle, which is often given in for example 90° viewing angle for a 21mm lens, 74° viewing angle for a 28mm lens, 6° viewing angle for a 400mm lens, etc.
Each human eye individually has anywhere from a 120° to 200° angle of view, but focus only in the center.
Focus, in - Sharp and clear in appearance. Focus - “The burning point (of a lens or mirror)”. In Latin the word focus meant fireplace or hearth. The word was probably first employed outside of its Latin literal use as “the burning point of a lens or mirror” in optics, and then came to mean any central point. The German astronomer Johannes Kepler first recorded the word in this sense in 1604.
Full Frame (FF) = The size of the sensor is 24 x 36mm which is the format Oskar Barnack and Leica Camera AG invented with the first Leica that was introduced in 1925. Many other formats invented since, such as APS, APS-C and all usually refer to Full Frame ratio, by which it means what size they have compared to Full Frame.
Full Frame is "king of photography"
The 24 x 36mm Full Frame format is so "king of photography" that it has continued to be the ideal for all cameras. Besides this, there exists Large Format cameras such as 4x5" (100 x 125 mm) and Medium Format 6x6 (60 x 60mm amongst other sizes in that area).
Hue = A color or shade depending on the dominant wavelength of red, green or blue. The word Hue comes from Swedish hy which is "skin complexion". It is independent of intensity, so often (in computer editing programs for example), Hue is an adjustment along Saturation which is (intensity of color as compared to white).
iAF is "Intelligent Auto Focus," and when on, the camera supposedly uses AFs (Auto Focus Single) until it detects that the subject moves, at which point it switches to AFc (Auto Focus Continuous). Generally, with any camera, I would either manually focus or use AFs, where the autofocus locks onto what I've decided it should focus on (remains stable and does not change). This way, I have a clear understanding of what the camera is doing. With iAF, I don't know when or why the camera changes its focus. After all, I am the one taking the photos, not the camera.
AFc (Continuous) means that the autofocus constantly checks if the focus has moved, triggering a continuous movement of the autofocus mechanism in the camera. This movement is accompanied by vibration, which can be felt and sometimes heard. At the same time, the preview in the viewfinder or on the screen constantly 'vibrates' or 'breathes.'
AFs (Single) is where 1) you point the focusing spot onto a subject or detail or the subject, and 2) when you touch the shutter release, the camera quickly focus on that spot, and 3) as long as you hold the shutter release half down, the focus is locked on that distance no matter where you move the camera (to recompose for example, or to wait for the right moment), and then 4) when you press the shutter release down, the camera takes that photo without delay (as the focus ia already set). When you move your finger away from the the shutter release, the AF is ready to a new cycle of 1, 2, 3, 4.
ISO = Light sensitivity of the camera sensor is given in ISO (International Organization for Standardization). It's a standard that was used in film and is now used in all digital cameras also. The base ISO for the Leica Q sensor is 100 ISO which means that this is what the sensor "sees". All other levels are computer algorithms calculating the effect as if the sensor could "see" more (hence noise at higher ISO levels).
ISO goes in steps of doubling: When the ISO is raised from 100 ISO to 200 ISO, the camera only need half the amount of light to make a picture. For each step in ISO to 400, 800, 1600, 3200, etc the light sensitivity is doubled for the sensor (and the camera sensor only need half the light of the previous ISO to record the same image).
JPEG = A standard for picture format made in the 1990's by Joint Photographic Experts Group). Mostly referred to as JPG as in L1003455.JPG which would be the name for a JPG file from the camera.
Summilux = Refers to the maximum lens aperture - normally f1.4 , "-lux" added for "light" (ie. the enhanced light gathering abilities). In the Leica Q the lens is a Summilux even it is a f/1.7 and not f/1.4.
Leica = A compound word derived from " (Lei)tz" and "(ca)mera". Apparently they were originally going to use "LECA", but another camera company already used a similar name in France, so they inserted the 'i' to prevent any confusion.
Light = Tiny particles called photons that behaves like both waves and particles. Light makes objects visible by reflecting off of them, and in photography that reflecting off of subjects is what creates textures, shapes, colors and luminance. Light in its natural form (emanating from the sun) also gives life to plants and living things, and makes (most) people happier. So far, nobody has been able to determine exactly what light is. The word photography means “writing with light” (photo = light, -graphy = writing). Read more about light in my book Finding the Magic of Light.
Live View = This is the ability to see the image the sensor see, live, via the screen of a digital camera, or via an electronic viewfinder (EVF).
MACRO = Macro lens. The Leica D-Lux 8 can be turned to Macro which enables you to go close so as to enlarge smaller subjects. The word macro comes from Greek makros ‘long, large.’
Megapixel (or MP) - Millions of pixels. See pixel further down. How many units of RGB is recorded by a given sensor by taking height x widt. A Leica M10 delivers a 5952 x 3968 pixel file = 23,617,536 piexls. On a screen the resolution you choose determines the size of the image. Say you have a 5000 pixel wide file and your screen is set for 8000 pixels wide. Then the image will fill only the 5000 pixels fo the 8000 and the rest will be empty, If you then change the screen resolution to 5000 wide, the image would be able to fill out the whole screen.
mm = millimeter(s), as in a 50mm lens. (Earlier in lens history lenses focal length was given in cm = centimeters; as in a 5 cm lens). For anyone used to centimeters and millimeters, it’s no wonder. But if you grew up with inches, feet and yards, you may have had a hard time grasping what a 50mm lens was. But as lenses were designed first in Europe, the metric system with centimeters and millimeters was used to describe lenses.
The reason a 50mm lens is a 50mm lens is that there is 50mm from the focus plane (the film or sensor) to the center of focus inside the lens. When photography was a young subject, it was engineers who made it all, and the users were expected to understand. The engineers were so into the making of the lenses, that it apparently never dawned upon them that today’s users would think of a 21mm lens as a wide angle lens rather than a lens where there is 21mm from the sensor to the center of focus inside the optics.
PASM in the menu is most likely is made up from the letters of a mode dial on a traditional camera. Nobody knows for sure.
PASM (screen mode) = Basically means that you are in control of the camera and haven't selected any of the Screen Modes available in the Leica Q menu. PASM is most likely short for P = Program Mode / A = Aperture Priority / S = Shutter Priority / M = Manual Control (... what Moron comes up with those silly abbreviation; and then don't explain them in the manual?).
Pixel - Made up word from Pix (picture) and el (element). A pixel is the smallest full-color (RGB) element in a digital imaging device. The physical size of a pixel depends on how you've set the resolution for the display screen. The color and tonal intensity of a pixel are variable, meaning that each pixel contains RGB. This is different from a camera sensor's small eyes (photosite) that are an intensity of either red, green or blue. You could say that the digital sensor's photosite (where each unit collects just one color; red, green or blue) is the input technology, whereas the pixels on a screen (where each pixel contains red, green and blue) is the output device. So while sensors are measured in megapixels (mega = million), it's their output unit of pixels, and not the input unit of photosites that is measured and stated. See illustration below.
Saturation: How colorful, intense or pure the color is. Less saturation would be less colorful, more saturation would be more colorful. In today’s photography, de-saturating a photo on the computer will gradually make it less and less colorful; and full de-saturation would make it into a black and white photo.
Sensor = A device that detects a physical property (like light) and records it. A camera sensor is a plane plate with thousands of small “eyes” with (photosites) a lens in front of each (CFA, Color Filter Array), which each individually records the amount of red, green and blue light rays that comes through the lens. Together, Red, Green and Blue form all colors of the spectrum, which becomes a pixel. Sensor comes from Latin sens- ‘perceived’.
Shutter speed dial - The dial on top of the Leica M where you can set the shutter speed manually. It can also be set to A which stands for Aperture Priority (where the camera suggests a shutter speed; or when you move the dial away from A, the camera will show arrows in the viewfinder, suggesting which direction to change the Aperture to, to get the correct exposure).
A shutter speed dial set to 1/1000 of a second.
Summilux = Refers to the maximum lens aperture - here f1.4 , "-lux" added for "light" (ie. the enhanced light gathering abilities). In Leica terminology a Summilux is always a f/1.4 lens and a Summicron is a f/2.0 lens. In the Leica Q2 the lens is f/1.7 but is called a Summilux because it is closer to f/1.4 than f/2.0.
Three-dimensional = Having the three dimensions of height, width and depth. In photography and lens design, three-dimensional effect is also the perception of even small micro-details; the texture of skin can appear flat and dead or three-dimensional and alive. Also, selective focus (foreground and background out of focus) can change the perception of depth. Also see Perspective.
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, the overview screen shows Program mode, AUTO ISO, and iAF. This has to change to Aperture mode and AFs. In the following, I will go over why that is and what it does for you. The idea is that once you have set up the camera, you don't have to do much in the menu in the future.
Bokeh: The visual quality of the out-of-focus areas of a photographic image. Photo at Bar del Fico in Rome. 
The aperture blades inside the lens is clearly visible in this photo by 
