This is one of the hybrids Leica sells under its own brand. They let Panasonic manufacture the lens under a license and the camera hardware. There are some small differences between the V-Lux 4 and its Panasonic sibling, the FZ200. The zoom rocker is different, the rim around the flash sensor is gone and the flash pop up dome has been flattened. All cosmetic changes. There is a raging debate as to whether the Leica version is just the FZ rebranded with the red dot logo ala the old Mercuries, which were rebranded Fords with slightly different grills. No, the Leica is more like the Toyota Camry and Lexus 300, the same car, but with noticeable upgrades.
There used to be more differences between the Leica and Panasonic cameras. At one time Leica used different coatings to add a more contrasty look. From what I've been able to tell the coatings on the two cameras are identical now. Where the differences come in are with how the two cameras process images and quality control. Leica has its own processing software, even though the processing engine is the same. The differences are subtle, but noticeable. Leica's processing affects color balance, tone and white balance. I found in my tests the Leica's were fairly consistent out of the box and produced standard looking photos whereas the Panasonics were the luck of the draw. Some of the Panny's were over saturated or had a color cast to them or the white balance or exposure was off. Not so with the Leicas. I'm told that Leica has representatives in the factory in Japan who test a high percentage of cameras that come off the assembly line. Panasonic grabs a representative model to test for every 100 K cameras produced by comparison. The differences in the tolerances between these two cameras is very apparent.
What about the camera itself? To me the Leica part of the partnership did well. The lens is sharp and fast remaining at 2.8 aperture all the way to 600mm. The images produced by Leica's software are very impressive, especially for a small sensor camera. What is not impressive is the Panasonic side or the camera itself. It doesn't feel very durable in your hands. The door that opens for the USB port is flimsy and feels like it will break off after about a dozen uses. Likewise the rear LCD doesn't feel like it's connected to the camera very well and could break. The screen is sharp and rotates, which is a nice feature. The EVF likewise is surprisingly sharp and clear giving close to 100% view of the scene. Autofocus is slow and iffy. Even with autofocus tracking turned on if there is any movement in the subject the camera focuses out and then in and then finally in focus again. This can be very frustrating if you are shooting people or wildlife. With stills I haven't noticed any problems with the focus, other than the fact that it is slow. Manual focus is a pain to use and not practical so it is not any help in these situations.
I found the exposure meter to be accurate and you have multi meter, center weighted and spot to choose from.
Image quality is good up to around 800 ISO where noise becomes a real problem. The small sensor is sensitive to noise and noise is apparent even at 100 ISO under magnification. However, I've found it is easily removed by running Neat Image and without any damage to details. Speaking of details, the default setting for noise in the camera is rather aggressive and causes loss of small, fine detail. But setting NR to -2 helps recover that detail.
One thing you should know is that with small sensor cameras depth of field is different than with large sensor cameras (DLSRs). What this means is that shooting at an aperture of 2.8 will be totally different. With a small sensor camera, like this one, if you were to shoot a bouquet of flowers at f2.8 the entire bouquet of petals would be sharp. But shooting that same bouquet with a DLSR at f2.8 will result in the flower or petal you focused on being sharp and the rest of the bouquet being thrown out of focus. This is known as bokeh. Because you will have a larger zone of sharpness (depth of field) at f2.8 with this camera you can keep it set to f2.8 when in low light, thereby enabling you to use a lower ISO which will help with the noise issue. This is where having a constant 2.8 aperture pays off.
Is the V-Lux 4 worth the extra money over the FZ200? That's a harder one to answer. If you get a good FZ200 that's within tolerances then it becomes even harder to answer. But keep in mind that Leica comes with a two year warranty versus the FZ200's one year. And the Leica comes with Lightroom 4.3. The extra warranty and Lightroom likely offset the price difference, unless you already own Lightroom or Aperture.
All in all this is a camera that has a lot to offer. When you compare it to its competitors you'll find they all have glaring deficiencies. I gave this camera four stars because it represented the best balance in the bridge camera line up irrespective of its flaws and shortcomings. I shoot with a !d series Canon professional camera with L lenses. That adds up to a lot of weight to carry around. The V-Lux 4 gives me a long reach high quality lens on a camera that produces very good quality photos all in a lightweight package that's easy to carry around.
4.5 Stars
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