Q3 review - with images.

[Emmanuel Nataf]

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A few landscapes from the Gorafe desert:

 

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Rest of the series on the Gorafe desert and cycling Badlands are on my website. I also wrote a longer review of the Q3 from the perspective of a Canon photographer on PetaPixel: https://petapixel.com/2023/12/11/leica-q3-review-from-a-canon-photographer-hit-and-miss/

 

[jaapv]

I think that you missed the point of the Q3. The high pixel count is to enable cropping zoom. If you prefer 35 mm, use the frameline and set a batch crop in your postprocessing. 

[jaapv]

Yes, I think he missed the point of the design philosophy behind the Q3. And I do have a right to my opinion, like every member on this forum. 

[Le Chef]

1 hour ago, jaapv said:

Yes, I think he missed the point of the design philosophy behind the Q3. And I do have a right to my opinion, like every member on this forum. 

Agree. A lot of criticism from someone who wasn’t sure about the camera to begin with. You get rid of lens “characteristics” using Lightroom. The aperture ring on the lens is tradition. I guess if you’re used to a point and shoot PASM camera it might seem odd. Street photography and auto focus tracking. I find it’s easier to use manual focus in street photography rather than trusting autofocus. Breathing time: unless you’re shooting live action sports this seems a trope of street photography. Surely anticipation, waiting and seeing something develop are characteristics more in keeping with street photography. Cropping to 35 or 50 - I do this in post (Lightroom) but will for street set the frame in camera to give me a better idea of boundaries. It’s in the instruction manual which you would think was worth spending some time reading if you had just spent $6k on a camera…

Each to his own.

[Emmanuel Nataf]

6 hours ago, jaapv said:

I think that you missed the point of the Q3. The high pixel count is to enable cropping zoom. If you prefer 35 mm, use the frameline and set a batch crop in your postprocessing. 

Every focal length is a radically different experience and geometry. You can't just crop, it's not how works…

[Emmanuel Nataf]

3 hours ago, Le Chef said:

Agree. A lot of criticism from someone who wasn’t sure about the camera to begin with. You get rid of lens “characteristics” using Lightroom. The aperture ring on the lens is tradition. I guess if you’re used to a point and shoot PASM camera it might seem odd. Street photography and auto focus tracking. I find it’s easier to use manual focus in street photography rather than trusting autofocus. Breathing time: unless you’re shooting live action sports this seems a trope of street photography. Surely anticipation, waiting and seeing something develop are characteristics more in keeping with street photography. Cropping to 35 or 50 - I do this in post (Lightroom) but will for street set the frame in camera to give me a better idea of boundaries. It’s in the instruction manual which you would think was worth spending some time reading if you had just spent $6k on a camera…

Each to his own.

I don't know how one gets a sharp image manual focusing at 1.7 with moving subjects. But I should probably read the manual.

[FusionX.Photo]

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2 hours ago, Le Chef said:

Agree. A lot of criticism from someone who wasn’t sure about the camera to begin with. You get rid of lens “characteristics” using Lightroom. The aperture ring on the lens is tradition. I guess if you’re used to a point and shoot PASM camera it might seem odd. Street photography and auto focus tracking. I find it’s easier to use manual focus in street photography rather than trusting autofocus. Breathing time: unless you’re shooting live action sports this seems a trope of street photography. Surely anticipation, waiting and seeing something develop are characteristics more in keeping with street photography. Cropping to 35 or 50 - I do this in post (Lightroom) but will for street set the frame in camera to give me a better idea of boundaries. It’s in the instruction manual which you would think was worth spending some time reading if you had just spent $6k on a camera…

Each to his own.

I think the so called "review" is the biggest load of garbage i've read about the Q3 to date. I don't "love" my Q3, I love my family, I don't have own a pair of rose tinted glasses either but I will call out BS when I see it. The number of inaccuracies is incredible and frankly embarrassing.

As for not being able to use the Q3 in motion.....😆 I think the examples below are a bit faster and harder to capture than someone walking down a street. I also have zero issues with the AF in poor light, quite the opposite, i've been able to consistently get shots in almost complete darkness. I also run street photography tours and workshops and can tell you the Q3 is every bit as capable for that genre than any of the Sony, Canon or Fuji bodies i've had and inspires confidence to point the camera at subjects that you possibly wouldn't with a larger set up.

Where I will criticise the AF is in eye/face/body mode, it's useless, constantly locks onto objects other than people in photo and video.
 

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[Le Chef]

4 minutes ago, Emmanuel Nataf said:

I don't know how one gets a sharp image manual focusing at 1.7 with moving subjects. But I should probably read the manual.

Practice - it’s what professional photographers used to do. And if you’re doing street, is f1.7 what you really need? Unless the subject is static it’s more likely you’re shooting f2.8 or higher.

[jaapv]

11 minutes ago, Emmanuel Nataf said:

I don't know how one gets a sharp image manual focusing at 1.7 with moving subjects. But I should probably read the manual.

Every single Leica M user or anybody else used to manual-only cameras knows: anticipate, prefocus on a spot where the subject is going to be and release at the right moment... There were photographs of moving subjects taken before the advent of AF, you know.

[FusionX.Photo]

2 minutes ago, jaapv said:

Every single Leica M user or anybody else used to manual-only cameras knows: anticipate and prefocus on a spot where the subject is going to be and release at the right moment... There were photographs of moving subjects taken before the advent of AF, you know.

Radical view 🤣

[jaapv]

13 minutes ago, Emmanuel Nataf said:

You get rid of lens “characteristics” using Lightroom

I didn't even bother to mention that; he is obviously oblivious of the basics of present-day hybrid lens design. 

[jaapv]

19 minutes ago, Emmanuel Nataf said:

Every focal length is a radically different experience and geometry. You can't just crop, it's not how works…

Totally debunked - perspective is a function of subject distance, not focal length.

[David Wien]

It seems to me that his review was written before he had had time to really become familiar with the camera. In my own case I have not had the Q3 long and am still familiarising myself with it. Every time I revert to my Canon R6 everything seems much easier, but I realise that this is because I have been using it for two years and it feels familiar in my hands, which the Leica does not yet. I have the same experience when I get a new car: it takes time to be able to use all the controls instinctively.

That said, I prefer the way the Leica controls are organised.

David

Edited December 12, 2023 by David Wien

[jaapv]

1 hour ago, jaapv said:

Totally debunked - perspective is a function of subject distance, not focal length.

 

28 mm shot.

 

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Cropped to 70 mm angle of view

 

 

70 mm shot

 

 

 

The only difference is the DOF Had I stopped down a bit on the 70 mm shot, the results would have been fully identical

 

 

 

[andybarton]

The personal attacks in this thread are completely unnecessary. Thanks. 

[jaapv]

Some Snarks are Boojums...😅 I don't doubt the quality of his photographs, I doubt the quality of this review..

[Emmanuel Nataf]

1 hour ago, jaapv said:

Every single Leica M user or anybody else used to manual-only cameras knows: anticipate, prefocus on a spot where the subject is going to be and release at the right moment... There were photographs of moving subjects taken before the advent of AF, you know.

Respectfully, I'm completely aware of this. However, my goal is not to lose half the shots because they're out of focus. I use the term "hit rate" in the article and explained how it changed dramatically from one camera to the other. I'm not the guy who takes 20 shots to get it right — a couple of clicks and I'm gone. I'm totally uninterested in having to do more thinking — I'm trying to be creative. There's great technology available today that makes things far better, and it should be in the Q3.

Anyway, attaching something more poetic, let's be friends.

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[jaapv]

I can understand-but hit rate is really down to the photographer and his familiarity with his tools. Friends certainly - I think the Leica forum is a different public than a general one on other forums.  100 years of photographic experience gives Leica another perspective, shared by many of its customers. Many have years of experience with “primitive “ tools that makes them more effective than modern refinements can offer. 

[Olaf_ZG]

@Emmanuel Nataf in this forum you ain’t supposed to be critical towards the Q or even hope Leica will ever bring a Q with tighter lens. There will be a hard core of forum members tumbling over you that you simply can’t be right. 
 

The Q is perfect. No discussion possible. No wider nor tighter version needed.

 

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica Q

[jaapv]

As for the critique of the Q lens: as you probably know, lens correction basically consists of transforming aberrations and shifting them to the next element until the lens is optimally corrected (how is that for simplification?) On the Q the designers shifted all optical aberrations into distortion which can be best corrected digitally, which resulted in a better, but more importantly, a more compact lens. This obviously works best in a single unit lens-shutter-sensor module which the Q has, making it compact. Nearly all system lens designers nowadays use the same philosophy, baking the final correction into software, be it for quality, price or size, but this is obviously less straightforward on an interchangeable lens camera.
If you want the same quality lens on the Q without the digital lens element, it would be twice the size, defeating the concept of a high-quality compact.