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1) Remember that the Q was originally an in-house research project to examine digitally correcting lens output, distortion in particular. The Q "28mm" lens is intentionally designed to natively produce a lot of fisheye distortion (thus keeping it smaller than expected), which the camera firmware straightens out.

This was to test the concept, for use in the SL lenses if/where needed (and save size and the amount of optical correction needed in those**). But once the Q got rave reviews from beta testers, it was put into production as its own product line.

2) Most (not all, but most) compact "kit zooms" start at "28mm" - 35mm is passé, and 24 is rare. And that is the ultimate target market for the Q - a high-end FF fixed-lens "camera bag in one camera." As the Q has acquired higher-resolution sensors, a cropping function is available to provide reasonably decent resolution when cropped to 35, 50 and now 75mm framing (similar tech is now available in the M11 60Mp camera). The 2004 Digilux 2 also sported "28-90" framing, and the Q is in some degree the updated Digilux 2 (outstanding f/2-ish fixed lens, EVF in the "M-like" corner location, manual shutter/aperture/focus controls).

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3) 28 is popular with many "street shooters," for the added DoF and other reasons (Garry Winogrand used 28 a lot). Leica did "abuse" the 0.72 M viewfinder - going all the way back to the M4-P - by squeezing in 28mm framelines. And even briefly produced an optional "wide M" 0.58X viewfinder, to make the 28 lines even more visible.

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** This is rumored to be the reason Erwin Puts, an expert on Leica's optical correction genius over the decades, walked away from Leica in his last years. He was disgusted that Leica would stoop to digitally-correcting its top-end lenses.

https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2019/10/erwin-puts-says-farewell-to-leica.html#:~:text=Erwin Puts%2C who for several,no longer willing to follow.

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50 minutes ago, bobtodrick said:

This.

Most new photographers are coming up from their iPhone which is approximately 28mm...so it is an easy transition to the Q series.

when the Q was introduced in 2015  it was the iPhone 6  (later in the year it was the iPhone 6s).  The camera in those iPhones was nowhere as popular or good as today.  The Q in no way was influenced by the effective focal length of the Q

 

Edited by prk60091
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3 hours ago, earleygallery said:

Size was the deciding factor apparently, 28mm being a good compromise.

Everything I have read in the last 8+ years supports that the 28mm was a size (on the camera) that would be light enough to carry and small enough to be unobtrusive.  A 35mm would require more glass and a bigger footprint and a much heavier camera.

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32 minutes ago, prk60091 said:

when the Q was introduced in 2015  it was the iPhone 6  (later in the year it was the iPhone 6s).  The camera in those iPhones was nowhere as popular or good as today.  The Q in no way was influenced by the effective focal length of the Q

 

You can find many reviews (dating back to 2015) like this speculating that Leica went with the 28mm "with the iphone it is the most used focal length in the world" https://kristiandowling.com/blog/2015/6/10/leica-q-typ-116-camera-review

This was verified by our Leica rep at the time.

It may not have ever been stated by Leica in their literature...but it definitely influenced their thinking.

I, and many people I know had an iphone in 2015.

 

Edited by bobtodrick
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1 hour ago, prk60091 said:

when the Q was introduced in 2015  it was the iPhone 6  (later in the year it was the iPhone 6s).  The camera in those iPhones was nowhere as popular or good as today.  The Q in no way was influenced by the effective focal length of the Q

 

iPhone 6 means about 12 years of iPhone on the market - you have to include the “s” variants every other year - with billions of units sold between the various models. Copying from Wikipedia, the iPhone 6 sold 222 millions units worldwide. If that’s not popular to you, I don’t know what could be considered popular. 

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1 hour ago, prk60091 said:

Everything I have read in the last 8+ years supports that the 28mm was a size (on the camera) that would be light enough to carry and small enough to be unobtrusive.  A 35mm would require more glass and a bigger footprint and a much heavier camera.

Usually, the wider you go, the biggest the lens. Look at the 28mm Summilux M and compare it to the 50 and 35mm Summilux

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3 hours ago, prk60091 said:

Everything I have read in the last 8+ years supports that the 28mm was a size (on the camera) that would be light enough to carry and small enough to be unobtrusive.  A 35mm would require more glass and a bigger footprint and a much heavier camera.

Not true. The smallest Summiluxes are the 35mm Summilux and the smallest Summicron is the Summicron 35 (and 40C). My understanding is that Leica wanted to go as wide as possible for a Summilux lens because it opens more possibilities for cropping, resulting in the widest digital zoom range possible. The X range was built around 35mm FL because it is the most compact and also because cropping from 28mm with a 10MP(X1) to 16MP(X2 and later) sensor does not yield enough pixels for 50mm crops (5 - 8 MP as it is now compared to only 3 to 5 MP)

I think in the hands of an experienced photographer the 35mm FL fixed lens could work better. The iPhone generation seems to be reluctant to take a step back where needed. My favorite FL is the 40mm, so I would crop away half my pixels most of the time with the Q. Of course, I would just treat it as a 28mm in stead. 28 mm is my least used FL on FF. I will rather go longer or wider like 21mm or 40 mm. IMO there is a lot of potential for a Q variant with a small fixed Summilux 35. I love my X2 and never had the feeling it is not wide enough.

Edited by dpitt
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9 hours ago, Einst_Stein said:

35mm was traditionally Leica’s golden wide angle. 24mm seems to be Japanese’s favorite wide angle.

Why Leica didn’t choose 35mm or 24mm for Qx?

It was -as usual- a compromise between size, quality and price. 

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vor 1 Stunde schrieb jaapv:

Not if you use the lens as designed including the digital lens element. 

I use Lightroom so there is no way to not use the Q as intended by Leica and the lens is definitely wider than any 28 I own. The 35mm crops are wider than any 35 I own and the 50 crops are wider than the 50 I own. And if you go online and search you‘ll find others who say the same and measured the same. It’s not an issue for me I‘m just pointing it out. 

Edited by Qwertynm
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4 hours ago, Qwertynm said:

I use Lightroom so there is no way to not use the Q as intended by Leica and the lens is definitely wider than any 28 I own. The 35mm crops are wider than any 35 I own and the 50 crops are wider than the 50 I own. And if you go online and search you‘ll find others who say the same and measured the same. It’s not an issue for me I‘m just pointing it out. 

Most lenses are not exactly the focal length on the barrel. Many 50 mm lenses are 53 or 54 mm for instance. If you want to calculate the exact focal length of a lens you must measure the angle of view (or measure the focal length on an optical bench.) it may well be that the Q is precise and your 35 and 5 too narrow. 

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