I bought my Leica CL nearly a year ago. It's been all over the place with me since, so I thought it was time for an update on how things are going. As usual this isn't a scientific study of bits and bytes - it's my view on what it's like to use this little camera.

Lenses

I've got 3 "TL" lenses now - the 23mm prime, 18-56 and 55-135. All are really good from a clarity and sharpness perspective. The zooms are a bit slow, but the upside is that they are compact which means you are more likely to take them with you everywhere rather than leaving them at home. Image quality from them is really impressive. 

I did have the 18mm lens to start with, but I found it not much benefit over the 18-56. It was only a tiny bit faster, so I might as well have the flexibility of the zoom lens instead. But it is a nice, small lens which, if you are after the smallest possible general one-lens setup with AF it's ideal. In reality the 18-56 is my most used lens. It's on the camera pretty much all the time, and the 23mm the least of the time.

The 23mm replaced the 18mm as I find the 35mm equivalent focal length to be more useful than the 28mm equivalent. Plus, f/2 gives you more opportunity than f/2.8 to use bokeh if you're feeling that you need some subject isolation. I also found the 23mm edged the 18mm on sharpness and clarity, but not by very much. If you're just looking for a single prime lens setup, my recommendation is to go with the 23mm.

If I were just to go for a single lens setup, it would be the 18-56. It's pretty compact, has a good range, and the image and build quality is super. It would be great if it was, say, a constant f/2.8 but then it would be a lot bigger and heavier which defeats the point of a small, light camera. And anyway, just set the camera to auto-ISO and you're sorted.

I've still got one Leica-M lens left in my kit bag - a 90 Summicron. It's a beautiful lens as you probably know, and it works out at a 135mm equivalent with an approx f/3.5 depth of field.

Using manual focus on the CL is actually really simple and easy. Getting focus right without zooming in is pretty simple, and to get critical focus I'll use the top wheel to zoom in. It's quick and effective. Having the flexibility to use multiple lens types (especially M lenses with the official 6-bit compatible Leica adaptor) is a great feature.

For landscaping, I use filters extensively. The Lee Seven5 filter set is my choice, with a holder, 0.3, 0.6 and 0.9 graduated filters and a polariser. Some adaptor rings let me use this on any of my lenses. Again, it's a compact filter set that is easy to use, with no vignetting at 18mm.

I have been ogling the 11-23 as an ultra-wide zoom, but I tend not to do much ultra-wide photography which is why I haven't gone for it yet. I may yet capitulate. But as it is, the 18-56 and 55-135 make a really superb 2-lens combination.

Handling, Buttons, Dials

One thing I love about the CL is the simplicity of operation. With a minimal set of dials and buttons, it's easy to use in typical Leica fashion. It's such a lovely and refreshing change to the button-laden and confusing cameras from the likes of Sony.

What I don't like is the whole multi-purpose dial/button thing. This is the drawback of the CL compared to an M10 or LX100 or X100F (still a total favourite of mine). These cameras have a dial that does a thing. You know when you twiddle the dial that a certain thing will always happen. The dial has numbers on it so you can look at it and know what it is set to. The importance of this cannot be underestimated in my humble opinion.

Being able to look at the top of a camera, without it needing to be on, and seeing what you've got it set to, is a basic pre-requisite for a good user experience in my view. That's why I loved my M10 so much (damn - shouldn't have sold it). Here's a shutter speed dial - it changes the shutter speed - nothing else.

The addition of the ISO dial to the M10 gave that final visible parameter.

The CL has gone down the route of "soft" dials that can change function. This takes away an element of "direct" control. Of course we know the only thing with direct control on an M10 is the lens aperture, but because you can see what the dials do, and they only do one thing, your brain doesn't need to work out what is going on. 

With the CL, a dial can be aperture, or exposure, or ISO, or focus zoom. Which means your brain is working out what it's meant to do before twiddling it, rather than instinctively twiddling it because you know what it does.I'm happy to admit that practice results in better results, and you can get used to it.

I operated my Canon 1Dx bodies with my eyes closed when shooting sports (not literally, but I never needed to look at the controls) because I was using them week in week out at major sports events. But for non-professional use, it should be a lot simpler than it is with the CL.

I would love the CL to have the three major controls - aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and possibly exposure compensation, as single-use labelled dials. That'll be a Fuji then!

Anyhow, enough ranting. In actual use the CL is a delight. Once you have it set so that, in aperture priority (which I am using more and more these days instead of manual), the right dial always does aperture and the left always does exposure compensation, your sorted. But when you put it in shutter priority mode the right dial then does exposure compensation. OK, you can tweak this using menu options, but you get what I mean.

Basically, it could be easier and feel a lot more connected than it does not.

But I do love the buttons within the top dials. They are a genius idea.Aside from that long-winded gripe, the camera is a joy to use. I have the FN button set to toggle the LCD/EVF modes. You can long-press it to get it to do something else. This is handy when in manual mode with auto-ISO, when you lose the ability to change exposure compensation when using auto-ISO. Press FN and set it to change exposure compensation, and you're sorted.

I find the viewfinder to be excellent - it just does what it has to do without problems. Wearing a dark jacket as all photographers tend to can confuse the eye proximity detector though, so your LCD view switched to EVF when you don't want it to.

Everything else is pretty simple. Leica have done their usual thing, and got as much complexity out of the way so you can focus on taking pictures of stuff.

Oh - I forgot - the "wandering focus point" problem. The camera has often switched to spot focus, or put the field focus point in an awkward corner of the frame, with no prompting. It's generally suspected that this is due to buttons being pressed accidentally before the camera has gone to sleep while it is in a bag. But my word it's annoying!

Versus the M10

I get lots of questions about this. "Why did you sell your M10 for a CL?" The M10 is stunning, beautiful, exquisite. I loved mine. So here's the logic my brain went through when doing the swap:CL pros:

• Smaller body

• Lighter body

• Autofocus

• Zoom lens convenience

• Excellent built-in WYSIWYG EVF

• Simple controls

• Much cheaper

• Not really much difference in image quality

• No rangefinder to go out of alignment

• Can buy another motorbike with the extra money

M10 pros:

• Full frame sensor and all the lovely bokehness you get with it

• Smaller lenses (though you can use them on the CL too)

• Best user experience of any camera ever

• Just holding it

• Smells nicer

Heart says M10. Wallet says CL + motorbike so I can ride to more places to take pictures. It was a difficult call, but I simply could not justify an M10, and the CL is actually a far more flexible platform.

After a year with the CL, it has proven to be a wonderful, versatile and portable camera that does everything I need.

It doesn't mean I don't miss the M10 though. But from a final image perspective, the output of the CL is just as good as the M10. That's the case with most quality digital cameras these days. Nobody will notice or care what sensor is used. So it comes to weighing up price, flexibility and user experience. In this case, the price and flexibility beats the user experience. 

The CL is truly a lovely little camera, with some excellent lenses. It has a few issues on the user experience perspective side, but these are outweighed by the positives that the camera brings.

While I am tempted by the M10-P, and lots of other fancy gadgetry, in reality the CL gives an ideal mix of high quality, flexibility, portability, usability. I don't need anything else. I'll save my money for going to nice places to take more interesting photographs.