Sall's design for the Leica X3 concept is designed to be small, leveraging a connection to a cell phone or tablet, the goal being to share higher quality images than can be produced by today's smartphone. Stressing this, he says, 'This project is about filling the gap between big cameras with great image quality and smartphone cameras with limited quality/control.'
Vincent makes it clear that his project is not associated with Leica in any manner. It is inspired by the Leica X2, hence the branding. The design features a large optic that is concealed by the camera's body, which swings out of the way to convert from a lens cap to serve as the camera's right grip.
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There is no LCD or electronic viewfinder; instead Sall envisions an optical viewfinder directly opposite the lens. While this is an interesting idea in principle, it's hard to imagine where one would put an image sensor between these two optics. The large front lens element also has insufficient room to focus anything behind it if a sensor were there, so it seems like this design would have to get a lot thicker to achieve this kind of classic beauty while still managing to work as a camera. But it's a concept, not an actual product. Perhaps a future with transparent semiconductors might eliminate at least one of these impediments.
The charging unit for combined with the body makes it look like an ultra-thin version of Leica's X series of compact cameras.
