Leica Q3 Expectations vs Reality Impressions?

[NicholasT]

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Now for the real torture test.

The first image is SOC, the second image with highlight and shadow adjustment and third is at 100% magnification

 

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[StefanoGili]

I can notice a very bad distortion even on the SOC image, is that a jpg SOC or a DNG you did not edit? ....  the shadows' recovery is really good

Edited July 12, 2023 by StefanoGili

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[NicholasT]

57 minutes ago, StefanoGili said:

I can notice a very bad distortion even on the SOC image, is that a jpg SOC or a DNG you did not edit? ....  the shadows' recovery is really good

Actually I failed to mention that I took the shot so haphazardly that camera was at crazy angle so I chose to adjust the horizontal plane and didn’t bother with vertical. 
None of these photos are keepers by any stretch of the imagination. All I wanted to test is camera’s ability to achieve focus under most adverse conditions ( shooting from hip, while walking ) 

In the case of this last photo as you mention shadow recovery is impressive but also the fact that Q3 can achieve that level of focus shooting into the sun I thought was equally impressive. 

Also she happens to be reading a book and even the small print is tack sharp, which pretty much says it all.

All the evidence I need to confidently use this camera in almost any unpredictable street shooting scenario.

Edited July 12, 2023 by NicholasT

[Opaea]

I have Leica Q3 for two weeks. I was a little disappointed compared to Q2 which seems to be perfect except the lack of tilt screen. 
My problem came from the iso and/or shutter speed which increase more than the Q2, probably because of the 61 m pixel compared to 47. 
After two weeks, I have no problem to manage that and absolutely appreciate the increase of resolution. The abilities to crop with a perfect sharpness is amazing. It’s obvious for macro but also in landscape or street photo. 
The only thing I am waiting for is a lightroom profile adapted to the Q3 and not only adobe profile which works good but should be better I guess 

[NicholasT]

5 hours ago, StefanoGili said:

I can notice a very bad distortion even on the SOC image, is that a jpg SOC or a DNG you did not edit? ....  the shadows' recovery is really good

I failed to answer your main question!

This was a DNG file.
I take JPG’s but only use them to share quick photo with family and friends by downloading to Leica app and iPhone.
Once I import DNG’s into Lightroom I discard all JPG’s. I doubt I could get anywhere close to this level of recovery out of the JPG, but to be honest haven’t even tried. 

Edited July 12, 2023 by NicholasT

[BobsFirstLeica]

Wrong Thread

Edited July 12, 2023 by BobsFirstLeica

[katieg]

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On 7/12/2023 at 6:53 AM, NicholasT said:

Thanks for sharing your Q3 initial impressions.

I’ve also owned the original Q (116), Q2 and now the Q3 and most recent M and SL cameras ( M-10, M-11, SL & SL2 )

I agree with your point #4 regarding ISO. About 1 stop better than Q2 but personally, I prefer not to go much beyond ISO 6400.

Also, agree with #5 regarding battery life but like you, I’m not much bothered by it, because I generally carry an extra battery and Q3 has many options for recharging ( USB-C, Leica Grip)

My biggest disappointment so far has been the start-up time. Q3 seems to take an eternity to turn on, to the point where when I’m out shooting I keep the camera on at all times. I let it time out to preset interval and press the shutter to wake the camera when I want to shoot. This process seems to take a fraction of the time. Also haven’t seen much of a difference in battery consumption versus turning off the camera after every photo sequence.

The feedback I found surprising was point #3 i.e. your disappointment with eye/face/body detection and IAF.

I’ve had the exact opposite experience and one that closely aligns with what David Farkas reported of Red Dot Forum. I find the eye/face/body detection results to be outstanding and far better than the Q2, which was and continues to be an outstanding camera in every other respect. I find the people detection performance to be better than SL2 as well. I haven’t owned the SL2-S so can’t comment on how it compares with that camera.

Below I post a few “test” shots followed by 100% magnification. All photos were taken from the hip, completely impromptu, with little preparation and while walking.

These results meet and exceed my expectations. I consider the AF improvements in Q3 to be the single biggest software improvement. 

I find that the flip screen is the biggest hardware improvement versus Q2. I do agree with the often-mentioned comment that the flip screen has negatively impacted the rear look of the camera. That said, I see the improvement in being able to more easily shoot from challenging vantage points (high and low) as more than worth the modest sacrifice of the clean lines of the original Q and the Q2.

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I think the Eye/Face/Body detection does really really well with single subjects. When you get more than one person in the scene…it seems to freak out. At least for me. Which is a challenge for me because I have 4 kids and 2 dogs, LOL… I have been experimenting more with it and seeing which scenes do better for it E/F/B detection vs. just using single point. More to test, I did like using Singe point focus with Eye/Face/Body detection when I have multiple subjects…it doesnt seem to hunt and go crazy.

 

More testing to come…

[katieg]

On 7/12/2023 at 6:53 AM, NicholasT said:

 

My biggest disappointment so far has been the start-up time. Q3 seems to take an eternity to turn on, to the point where when I’m out shooting I keep the camera on at all times. I let it time out to preset interval and press the shutter to wake the camera when I want to shoot. This process seems to take a fraction of the time. Also haven’t seen much of a difference in battery consumption versus turning off the camera after every photo sequence.

 

 

 I also agree with you on this…my most frustrating part of the camera. Good to know about it not affecting battery life the way you’d expect. What interval do you have it set out for the timeout? I may do the same. I’ve always just turned camera off and on when I’m in between finding a scene. 

[NicholasT]

1 hour ago, katieg said:

 I also agree with you on this…my most frustrating part of the camera. Good to know about it not affecting battery life the way you’d expect. What interval do you have it set out for the timeout? I may do the same. I’ve always just turned camera off and on when I’m in between finding a scene. 

I have the camera power saving set to 2 min. It seems to strike a good balance with my shooting style and preserving battery power.

If I’m actively working a scene I generally will be composing my next shot within the 2 min timeframe.

If the interval is longer I don’t mind re-activating the camera. It powers up pretty fast from standby mode.

I haven’t missed any shots using this process.

[Meos]

On 7/12/2023 at 4:29 AM, musers said:

Tell me more about video. Are you saying handheld but not moving your feet you got jello effect and/or no stabilization in the footage? 

Yes. These shots were handheld, without moving. It’s probably related to the high MP of the sensor

[FusionX.Photo]

10 days into Q3 ownership coming from Sony and some of their very best glass.

Zero issues, on firmware 1.1.0 out of the box.

Shot a whole day /evening event plus some personal stuff, some shots in almost darkness, 99% hit rate on focus, I suspect the one's that missed was me not the camera.

No lock ups, using Transcend V90 cards.

I've shot action using the screen rather than EVF at 7fps, worked great.

Tracking leaves something to be desired, it isn't sticky but it wasn't on the A7 IV either. Personally on all the cameras i've used from Sony, Fuji and now Leica I find zone gives accurate results for moving subjects.

DR is sublime.

SOOC B&W JPG's are great, although I shoot RAW mostly. Tried the colour JPG's and there's enough loss of DR for me to stick with RAW for work related stuff.

I've read a lot of the complaints in this thread and some of it is 100% down to impatience / lack of knowledge.

It's a fine product and I have no issue using it professionally, it's liberating and has proven to me that you don't need a bag of heavy expensive glass if you take the time to learn how to use it. 

I'm sure some will disagree with the above, i'd be the first to reject it if it really did have all of the issues mentioned in this thread.

[bobtodrick]

4 hours ago, FusionX.Photo said:

10 days into Q3 ownership coming from Sony and some of their very best glass.

Zero issues, on firmware 1.1.0 out of the box.

Shot a whole day /evening event plus some personal stuff, some shots in almost darkness, 99% hit rate on focus, I suspect the one's that missed was me not the camera.

No lock ups, using Transcend V90 cards.

I've shot action using the screen rather than EVF at 7fps, worked great.

Tracking leaves something to be desired, it isn't sticky but it wasn't on the A7 IV either. Personally on all the cameras i've used from Sony, Fuji and now Leica I find zone gives accurate results for moving subjects.

DR is sublime.

SOOC B&W JPG's are great, although I shoot RAW mostly. Tried the colour JPG's and there's enough loss of DR for me to stick with RAW for work related stuff.

I've read a lot of the complaints in this thread and some of it is 100% down to impatience / lack of knowledge.

It's a fine product and I have no issue using it professionally, it's liberating and has proven to me that you don't need a bag of heavy expensive glass if you take the time to learn how to use it. 

I'm sure some will disagree with the above, i'd be the first to reject it if it really did have all of the issues mentioned in this thread.

I’ll agree with one point in particular.

Been selling hi-end photo gear for 30 odd years.  I’ve found that for some reason, no matter what the brand pros seem to have few issues.

But hobbyists have issues…and to many times when they are asked if they carefully read the manual I am indignantly told how they have been photographing for XX years and don’t need to ‘carefully’ read the manual.

Then one of our staff show them what they are doing wrong.

Not saying their aren’t issues with any new camera, including the Q3…but for better or worse we’ve hit a complexity point where the camera shouldn’t even be turned on til an hour or two is spent with the manual.

[BobsFirstLeica]

5 hours ago, FusionX.Photo said:

I've read a lot of the complaints in this thread and some of it is 100% down to impatience / lack of knowledge.

It's a fine product and I have no issue using it professionally, it's liberating and has proven to me that you don't need a bag of heavy expensive glass if you take the time to learn how to use it.

I don't disagree with what you've said.  I shoot with Sony professionally and there are situations where I can use the Q3.  But I'm not ready to abandon a system that works well and provides great results. When I retire I plan to dabble again in film.  But for now I'm about to create a variety of User Profiles in the Q3 to make it quick for a variety of situations.  After all, it's a lot lighter than some of that gear!

Bob

[JeremyLM]

On 6/29/2023 at 9:17 AM, LatestWord33 said:

2. The exposures and consequently EVF/LCD live view images go wrong when the shutter button is half depressed

 

I don't know if someone has already answered this. But have you tried turning off the Intelligent Dynamic Range (iDR) in the settings?

That did the trick for me 😉

[stindiri]

Switched from Q2 with additional gear trade in as part of a gear minimalisation measure. 

My personal positives:

- USB charging (no need for extra battery, get some food and charge with a power bank)

- tilt screen helps ergonomically a lot in composing and stealthiness as well

- Leica looks CNTP and CLS quite good even comes close to Fuji simulations (also hoping for additional looks via FW update later on)

- 50mm crop now with reasonable MP/Resolution

 

Frankly my update was not really necessary, Q2 is a wonderful tool. But when you love the Q system it definitely makes sense (or just telling myself 😁).

 

 

 

[Dr. G]

On 7/12/2023 at 12:13 PM, Opaea said:

I have Leica Q3 for two weeks. I was a little disappointed compared to Q2 which seems to be perfect except the lack of tilt screen. 
My problem came from the iso and/or shutter speed which increase more than the Q2, probably because of the 61 m pixel compared to 47. 
After two weeks, I have no problem to manage that and absolutely appreciate the increase of resolution. The abilities to crop with a perfect sharpness is amazing. It’s obvious for macro but also in landscape or street photo. 
The only thing I am waiting for is a lightroom profile adapted to the Q3 and not only adobe profile which works good but should be better I guess 

You bring up an interesting point about resolution and shutter speed.  I'm shooting at an event next week.  So far I've only used my Q3 for static subjects/landscapes, etc.  When shooting people that are moving around a little I usually go with 1/125 on my SL2-S with a 35mm lens - but it's only 24Mp.  What have you found to be the lower limit of your shutter speed in situations like (street) that with the Q3?

[adrianh]

You need a shutter speed short enough to freeze the movements. If 1/125 is enough (might be or not, depending how your subjects move/dance/run) then this would be also enough on 60 Mpix. 

Edited January 4 by adrianh

[jaapv]

On 7/12/2023 at 2:47 PM, StefanoGili said:

I can notice a very bad distortion even on the SOC image, is that a jpg SOC or a DNG you did not edit? ....  the shadows' recovery is really good

That distortion is not caused by the lens but by the camera tilted upwards. It works well compositionally.

[JohnSantaF4]

On 7/1/2023 at 1:59 PM, LocalHero1953 said:

 

 

Am I the only one here feeling VERY confused?

No experience with the Q3, but at best, after reading these posts there’s little consensus here. Confusing? Yes.

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Hallo,

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[Miltz]

8 hours ago, JohnSantaF4 said:

No experience with the Q3, but at best, after reading these posts there’s little consensus here. Confusing? Yes.

My sister’s car wouldn’t start. She called 3 different mechanics. They all came to look at it and all 3 found the problem to be something different.