German optical specialists Leica are a byword for camera quality. They’re also well-known for being on the pricier side of the balance sheet. It’s not surprising then that its newly-announced Lux grip, an iPhone accessory intended to turn your smartphone into a smarter camera, will leave a dent in your credit card.
Starting with the price, you can expect to pay at least R6,000 (£260), with an extra R1,450 (£50) netting you a high-quality carrying case for your camera attachment. The point of the Leica Lux grip isn’t just to look like the hippest of hipsters taking bespoke photos of your latest craft beer pub crawl either.
Leica to take photos
The Lux grip isn’t just for the iPhone 16. Any Apple iPhone supporting MagSafe attachments is eligible for upgrade via the German company’s gadget. It adds a two-stage shutter for more precise control over images. Apple might have a fancy new camera-specific button but it’s no match for… well, this.
A selection of manual controls — adjusting aperture, shutter speed, and zoom via a knob, plus a pair of buttons whose function can be defined in the Leica Lux app — are resident on the controller. Anyone who has held one of Leica’s full cameras will know how much stock the German specialists set by ergonomics.
An internal battery, charged via USB-C, will apparently last 1,000 shots. It’ll be back in action following two hours of charging.
The other headline feature here is the Lux app. It’s capable of simulating the company’s lenses using Apple’s camera hardware but to get the full benefit users have to subscribe to the Leica Lux Pro Photo Capture app. Or do they? Well, yes, eventually. The Lux Grip comes with a twelve-month subscription to the service (it’s normally R1,500/yr), providing fuller control over ISO, shutter speeds, and exposure, and adding lens simulation. The Summilux-M (R88,000) and Noctilux-M (R270,000) lenses are simulated, among others. Given how much the physical lenses cost, grabbing the Lux Grip suddenly seems like a bargain.
The Leica Lux grip has only just gone on sale overseas. We have yet to see it turn up here but odds are at least a few will arrive via the usual camera specialists in short order.
