Leica V-LUX 30 14.1 MP Digital Camera with 16x Leica DC-Vario-Elmar Optical Zoom Lens and 3-Inch Touchscreen

Leica quality product: still perfectly work until this time.

Unless that red dot is worth $500 to you. They are the same camera. While the Leica version might be a bit better for low light photos (slightly better firmware in the Leica holds the shutter open longer), the rest of the camera is the same.

I am an avid user of different digital cameras and I am truly impressed with the quality of the Leica V-Lux 30. I can use ISO up to 800 without to much noise level with great details for a camera this size and price (I compared it with M9 and EOS 5 MarkII). At the same time it is made easy to change settings around. Obviously the f stop range is very limited with is a clear shortcoming of compact cameras. HDMI filming is great even in low lighting. I could truly recommend this camera and guarantee you that will enjoy it. The camera is fine for beginners as well as a back up for more qualified photographers.Marcus Meier

Initially I liked the Leica camera, a little pricey, loved the size, had a lot of features, even though the photos didn't compare with the picture quality of my Nikon. I wanted a smaller camera to take on shorter trips which had automatic continuous focusing for video, unlike the Nikon. The reason why I've given the camera a poor review is because the video would and then wouldn't review on the camera. Initially it did and then it didn't no matter what I tried. Obviously it was defective. The battery life was marginal also, unlike the Nikon. So I returned it and am still looking for a smaller camera to buy. Might be tempted to try the cheaper Panasonic clone, after the bugs have been resolved.

This is my first "review" on Amazon, also, I've never reviewed a camera before so forgive me for lacking technical jargon as I am not a pro fotog either.I had a little C Lux Leica which I loved but the gf dropped it so here I am.... Technically this camera is waaay more advanced as far as the megapixels and the 1080 video (this also however comes at a price, the size. Its not the smallest camera out there).... But, thats exactly what brings me here: The 1080i AVCHD format!I will give this camera more stars and update this review as things progress/develop as for right now.... The stills are awesome, lots of pre set modes to chose from, nice focus, etc... The vids are very nice too but I have an issue with saving them onto my Macbook pro running snowleopard 10.6.8. The camera comes bundled with Premier Elements 9 which I have to use to open the vids with and edit (I can NOT see them when I stick the card into my pc or hook up the camera) and there are several options for saving the vids but none of them has worked for me so far.I called Leica as well as Mac, so far no help.Here is a thread I started to get help on this:[...]Anyone else have the same issue? Or, knows the answer? Thanks.

I purchased my Vlux 30 a few years ago from Herrington, not Amazon. I use it for all of my real estate photography and my wife and I enjoy using it for our personal photography as well. I have used the video mode a great deal as we have incorporated those into our virtual tours on line. I am primarily a "point and shoot" photgrapher and have never used all the added options on the camera. For our purposes it has been outstanding and I have no criticisms. Frankly I was really rather stunned by the low reviews by other reviewers and the only reason I was writing this was to offer a different perspective. I was doing a little research on line while considering purchasing another camera and wanted to add my views. The Vlux 30 has the best zoom of any in its class from what I can see although there are now cameras with greater pixel capacity. I haven't found one with a comparable zoom lens in this price range in a compact digital camera that has also at least 20 or more megapixels. I love the size and simplicity.

Did not perform in low light...terribly grainy. Facial features often blotchy. Menu completely user unfriendly....even my tech savvy adult kids could not help me. After one year without being dropped or mishandled, the camera suddenly gave me a system failure warning and shut down. I had taken out the memory card to empty it...when I reinserted the card the system failure message flashed. I sent it to Leica who said it would be too expensive to fix. So that was the end of that camera. For me, it was a waste of money. I had bought the Canon G12 for my son at the same time that I bought the Leica for myself. They love that one and I should have bought it as well, since it was less expensive and a FAR better camera. Now I'm looking to buy the Canon G1x perhaps as my next compact camera.

This item was fine, except it was sent with no wrist strap!! This was disappointing and frustrating since a wrist strap should come with a quality camera, regardless of where it is purchased.