The Boxing Project uses the Leica D-Lux 5
For the past year I have been collaborating with the Comune de Bassano del Grappa on a project called Boxing. A multigenerational, intercultural initiative using stories and reminiscence as its premise. I visit different towns (Bari, Bassano del Grappa and Maastricht) and work with an elder and a child, where the elder tells of a story about their life perhaps within dance, art or other work and pastimes, to the child and the child photographs aspects of the story. Both parties keep diaries throughout the duration of the project along with items to put in a hand made paper box.
The Boxing Project is heavily supported: The European Cultural Foundation provided funding and Leica Camera AG, Manfrotto, and Carterie Tassotti have all provided camera equipment, tripods and the paper boxes and diaries. It is a well received project and perhaps welcomed in these times of disparate family and social lives.
Whilst I documented the whole process with my Leica M9, The Leica D-Lux 5 was the camera utilised by the children for this project and certainly was a fabulous digital compact for them to enjoy. This intelligent camera has a host of functions built within its tiny body. Two main menus allow you to choose between simple or advanced, depending upon the user and of course the job in hand. For the children I ensured the menu was on the basic format, purely so that we could get on and work on the ‘Looking’ part of the image capturing. But even in this mode, the camera has a number of functions that really allow you to take control of what you would like to achieve. Within the settings are some familiar icons: ‘portrait, landscape, infinity, shade’ … and on the top dial is a range of modes: ‘automatic, snapshot, aperture priority, shutter priority’. Really, this little camera has all the functions of what you would come to expect these days on a bridge camera (I consider any larger DSLR body with perhaps a fixed lens, or limited inter-changeable lenses to be a bridge camera), where the lens quality supersedes the capture volume.
Where Leica have come into the market with this camera certainly overtakes many of these bridge cameras as this little DLux 5 also has the lens to compete with the bridge boys with a faster LEICA DC VARIO-SUMMICRON 5.1 – 19.2mm f/2 – 3.3 ASPH lens with an extended range of focal lengths equivalent to 24 to 90mm in 35mm format. The D-LUX 5 delivers images in 4:3, 3:2, 16:9 formats as well as 1:1. The camera’s 1,280 x 720 pixel HD video function in memory-saving AVCHD-Lite format, allows for some creative movie making too. The D-Lux 5 has a 3” LCD monitor has a wide viewing angle and a resolution of 460,000 pixels, displaying images in superb detail, and allowing photographers to assess images precisely both during composition and after capture.
The output of the 4:3 format - 3648 x 2736 pixels at 10 Mega Pixels or the 1:1 format – 2736 x 2736 pixels at 7.5 mega Pixels is certainly more than what you would expect from a camera of this size and with a suggested RRP for the LEICA D-LUX 5 at £644 including VAT, this camera really was an absolute gem to work with.
Something that Leica have attached with this camera are a hand grip and digital eye viewer, so that you can continue to be a photographer and not simply an image capturer. This eye viewer allows you to carry on composing your shots, just as you would with a range finder or an SLR. They have recognised that it is not necessary to change the habits of a lifetime or to start bad habits by looking at a screen on the back and confusing it with the vista in front of you.
I thoroughly congratulate Leica and the DLux 5 for this simple but oh so fabulous attachment of the EVF1 electronic viewfinder and the easy grip for a better handling of this little camera. Although this camera does indeed shoot RAW, for the Boxing Project, I simply shot with the JPEG function, as the photos were going to be used mainly for digital output, it also allowed for the children to edit their own photos -if they wanted to.
Whilst most of the children had already used cameras before in some way or another, they really did not need much instruction on how to use the D-Lux 5, but I did point out some lovely aspects that the camera had to hold. Firstly, the eye viewer and this was the only way that I would allow the children to be taking photographs with me. This I think was the biggest surprise to the children, they had obviously used the small digital cameras without the adaption and this in effect slowed down the process and allowed them to look with a more constructive idea of what it was they were to be taking photographs of.
Secondly, the menu; the children after getting used to the camera asked to investigate the other functions within the camera, this was a welcome request as it meant that they wanted to take more control over their work, take more responsibility for the photographs they were going to shoot and something that excited me from their response. And finally, the way they (with my initial guidance) started to bend their knees, bend down, squat, ask the model to move their head, or simply they would move to another position to get the final shot. Something perhaps as I mentioned from my guidance, but really this might well have been from the fact that I was doing this whilst I was taking my own photos and sometimes, learning by example does have the best effect.
Roberto Casarotto (the project administrator and my partner in planning the Boxing Project), filmed the meetings of the elders and children with a Kodak Playsport HD video camera (video camera the size of an iphone), has captured many a time, my movements whilst taking a photograph and that of the children also moving around like real photographers! The Boxing Project, the children and the DLux 5 were perfect partners.
I must admit that whilst working on the project, I did not really go into too much depth with the DLux 5, but since my return have started to understand the benefits of having such a small camera in your bag at all times, a camera that has such a big menu and can take such big image capture. It focuses up on small items and takes a fast image capture, something that these bridge cameras cannot claim.
I make a whole heartedly show of respect for this little camera the Leica D-Lux 5, perhaps because I am totally in love with his bigger brother the M9, and perhaps because I know that Leica have put everything they can into this little compact and in the way they know best, with ultimate utility, function and design – the Leica way.
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Boxing Project and the Leica D-Lux 5
