Leica LUX camera app for iPhone review: A good start, but needs refinements

The camera app for iPhone field is becoming increasingly crowded. What can a high-end brand such as Leica bring to the table?

Leica is known for its high-end, luxury camera and lenses, with its glass being some of the best — and most expensive — in the industry. Its announcement of a camera app in early June 2024 wasn’t exactly on brand as a result, but the Leica LUX aims to emulate the famous look of its cameras and lenses on your iPhone. 

Leica has had partnerships with major phone makers, resulting in special phones with the Leica branding and camera technology. However, the company says around 80% of Leica camera owners have an iPhone, so it makes sense for it to release an app specifically for the device.

Before diving into the review, let's take a look at the features. The engineers and app developers worked hard to emulate classic Leica camera and lens looks. The key features include:

• Reproduces the look of classic Leica M lenses, including the Noctilux-M 50mm f/1.2 (a great ‘nifty fifty’), Summilux-M 28mm f/1.4, Summilux-M, and 35mm f/1.4. Other lenses include a 13mm, 77mm, and 135mm (only available with the iPhone 15 Pro Max). More lenses will be added in the future.
• Several Leica Looks: Standard, Vivid, Natural, Classic, BW Natural, BW High Contrast, and more.
• Proprietary Leica image processing image helps get those Leica lens and camera looks, including its classic bokeh effect.
• Different modes: Photo (more auto), Aperture (manual).
• Shoot on JPEG, RAW, or HEIF.
• Works great on the iPhone 12 Pro or later.

The APO-Telyt-M 135mm f/3.4 Leica lens-style option is only available on the iPhone 15 Pro Max, so I wasn’t able to take advantage (I use an iPhone 15 Pro standard). The reason is the iPhone 15 Pro Max has a better telephoto option.

Out of the box, you get plenty of features with the free version of the app, but if you want more, including five additional Leica Looks, four Leica lenses, manual focus and exposure, and capture in Bayer RAW, you’ll need to pay the $6.99 monthly subscription (see more below). That’s a steep price for a camera app, but in-line with the luxury of Leica. It also adds focus peaking and histogram. 

Leica LUX in action

For this review, I went to the beach in Southeast Florida in the evening and snapped a few photos. The issue was a storm out west that blocked the setting sun. While the images looked good, I noticed a slight lag when I pressed the button to take the photo and the picture actually being taken. Upgrading to pro seemed to mostly take care of it, but it’s still there.

I then did my usual test in the swamp preserve and tested the available lenses and settings, and I really liked the results: Colors and overall image looked good - Vivid was my favorite for just taking general photos. The 50mm lens looked really good. I also took some photos by an inlet near the ocean and played around with the Leica Looks.

For fun, I also used it during fireworks for the 4th of July to decent results. The slight lag in taking pictures is noticeable, and to be honest, photographing fireworks with a smartphone, no matter the device, always comes with mixed results. The same applies here.

Leica cameras and lenses have a specific look, and an old friend of mine uses the brand for most of his photography. If you look at photos taken with a Leica M camera and glass, it’s clear it’s Leica — it has that classic and unique look. And the company worked to emulate it with the LUX camera app.

One important thing to remember is that you can get plenty of features with the ‘free’ version of the app, but you really need to upgrade to the paid subscription to take full advantage of key settings, histogram, and that additional 135mm f/3.4 lens (with the iPhone 15 Pro Max).

I would also like to see something that indicates a photo has been taken. With the built-in iPhone camera app, it 'blinks,' if you will, going dark for a quick moment.

Final thoughts

As I was using the Leica LUX camera app, I began to really like taking photos with it. I feel the developers did a pretty good job emulating the look and feel of Leica cameras and lenses, the shutter lag notwithstanding. It's a very good start but definitely needs refinements and bug fixes.

The images looked pretty good, and I’m sure the iPhone 15 Pro helped with that. I can’t take full advantage since I’d need the Max version to get the bonus 135mm lens. Leica is listening to feedback, so I suspect we’ll see more improvements and features soon.

The subscription: While many still and cinematography apps have a flat cost (Halide Mark II from Lux Optics or Camera+) or are free (Blackmagic), the Leica LUX app is subscription-based, and it isn’t cheap: $69.99/year to get the additional features, or $6.99/month.

You’d have to weigh the cost for the additional features (more Leica Looks, Lenses, etc.) vs. using the free version (no manual focus and exposure or RAW shooting). If you’re a passionate iPhone photographer, chances are possibly good you already have the latest iPhone Pro Max device, so I’d recommend taking it for the available two-week trial test drive to determine if it’s worth the money to emulate that famous Leica M camera and lenses look.

tl;dr

• Leica released the LUX camera app to emulate the look of its famous cameras and lenses on iPhones, primarily targeting iPhone users, as about 80% of Leica camera owners have an iPhone.
• The app offers features such as reproducing classic Leica M lenses, various Leica Looks, proprietary image processing, different shooting modes, and format options, but some features are only available through a paid subscription.
• The app generally provided good results, but there were slight lags in capturing photos, especially noticeable during fast-paced events like fireworks.
• The subscription for the app is quite expensive, priced at $69.99 per year or $6.99 per month, prompting users to consider the additional features against the cost and possibly try the two-week trial before making a decision.