The new Leica Q3 43 - Review by Jonathan Slack

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2 hours ago, Cogito said:

I’m not a huge fan of the gray so I ordered just the matrix black rubber grips from this company (no vinyl coverings,) $10 shipped. Will report back when received and installed. 

 

Oh you can just ordered the grip section on its own? Even better.

I have the 43 on my desk right beside me. I don't dislike the finish, but time will tell if I decide to cover it.

[SrMi]

 

44 minutes ago, chrismuc said:

it is equivalent if the distortion correction is applied by the camera and written into the EXIF of by the raw converter

I do not understand what you are saying.

44 minutes ago, chrismuc said:

in the 'past', lenses had maybe 1-4% distortion

now they have eventually have 10-15% distortion

Yes, lens designers embrace the latest possibilities, especially with high-resolution sensors.

44 minutes ago, chrismuc said:

to correct it, the resolution in the corners will drop by that amount plus the losses of interpolation, no way out

Yes, the resolution will drop in the corner, but we do not know how much and whether it is relevant for the print or screen.

44 minutes ago, chrismuc said:

yes it's a kind of compensated by the high contrast at 40 lp/mm towards the corners of top level today's lens designs, still I would prefer less optical distortion in the first place

 If less optical distortion means worse results, I prefer more.

Edited September 28, 2024 by SrMi

[chrismuc]

I won't argue with you. Please check yourself and evaluate the IQ of a corner of an Q43 image before and after application of the distortion correction.

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[SrMi]

48 minutes ago, chrismuc said:

I won't argue with you. Please check yourself and evaluate the IQ of a corner of an Q43 image before and after application of the distortion correction.

 

Did you set sharpening for both files to zero? The difference is there, but in my book too small to matter.

200% view

 

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[Cogito]

3 hours ago, Cogito said:

one first world solution would be to pick one up in Japan.

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actually, according to Leica rep here in Los Angeles, I read this card incorrectly, all Q3 43 cameras have the same gray grip, even in Japan.

[SrMi]

3 hours ago, Cogito said:

one first world solution would be to pick one up in Japan.

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The difference seems to be only the language used for the same color. "Schwarz lackiert" is the same as "Black Paint Finish."

[chrismuc]

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13 hours ago, SrMi said:

Did you set sharpening for both files to zero? The difference is there, but in my book too small to matter.

200% view

 

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i only opened the file in Iridient Developer and made screen shots with the default settings, with and without distortion correction turned on

[chrismuc]

Just to put into perspective I added some other lenses/ cameras for comparison.

Leica M 24f3.8, M 35f2 Apo, M 35f2.4, M50f2 Apo, M50f2.4, M 75f2 Apo are all compact and have excellent sharpness. The distortion is very low.

Fujifilm X100VI w/ 23f2 and Zeiss ZX1 w/ 35f2 have basically zero distortion, Sony RXRMII w/ Zeiss 35f2 has some distortion, but far less than the lenses in the two Q cameras.

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[davidnvh]

I used to dislike the distortion of the Q 28 so much that I bought the Q2 and Q3 several times, only to sell them later. That was until one day I encountered a war photographer, Eddy van Wessel, who had real-world experience and photos to show. He simply praised the lens, calling it the best in his eyes, without a single word of negativity. That opened my mind so much that I began to realize that maybe the picture matters more than a digitally corrected distortion that I never actually noticed affecting my photos.

[FlashGordonPhotography]

1 hour ago, chrismuc said:

Just to put into perspective I added some other lenses/ cameras for comparison.

Leica M 24f3.8, M 35f2 Apo, M 35f2.4, M50f2 Apo, M50f2.4, M 75f2 Apo are all compact and have excellent sharpness. The distortion is very low.

Fujifilm X100VI w/ 23f2 and Zeiss ZX1 w/ 35f2 have basically zero distortion, Sony RXRMII w/ Zeiss 35f2 has some distortion, but far less than the lenses in the two Q cameras.

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So what? Does the X100VI out resolve the Q3? Nope. About six people bought the Zeiss and they're basically gone as an entity.

We get it. You don't like the modern correction software on mirrorless cameras. So there's no need for you to take your horse and buggy from the Amish community down to the local Leica store. Please move on so we can enjoy our new cameras without this droll boring constant whinging about a camera you aren't going to buy.

Gordon

And for the record. ALL M lenses have corrections baked into the DNG files for digital M's and NONE of the film M's can out resolve a current digital M. And if Leica didn't need to make M lenses to work on cameras from 60 years ago I guarantee you'd not see these optical designs. The APO M's cost AUD 15 GRAND! And do not outperform the SL APO's at half the price.

[Simone_DF]

2 hours ago, chrismuc said:

Leica M 24f3.8, M 35f2 Apo, M 35f2.4, M50f2 Apo, M50f2.4, M 75f2 Apo are all compact and have excellent sharpness. The distortion is very low.

 

One of the main reasons M mount lenses are so compact is because they don’t have to integrate any autofocus motors

[T25UFO]

On 9/26/2024 at 2:06 PM, jonoslack said:

Q3 Crop vs MP

28mm	9520 x 6336 px	60.3 MP
35mm	7616 x 5072 px	38.6 MP
50mm	5328 x 3552 px	18.9 MP
75mm	3552 x 2368 px	8.4 MP
90mm	2960 x 1968 px	5.8 MP

I can see how you calculate the MP from the dimensions, but how do you reverse the formula and calculate the focal length from the dimensions?  I'm not so good at maths so just curious 👀

[sls]

On 9/28/2024 at 3:54 AM, hoppyman said:

Hi and thanks for your perspective. I am an amateur enthusiast. Except for travel and family, I shoot nearly all in a studio space. and on tripod. M9, M (typ 240), then S system. For how and what I shoot in studio the SL system offers a lot of advantages.... when I type that this is not an inexpensive pursuit!
I couldn't possibly shoot high volume rapid sequences with usually flow posing models/dancers as I do currently with the other systems.  After all of that I am hoping that the SL3 is noticeably lighter and smaller than my SL2. For me the SL system is larger and heavier than I want for travel. I guess Jono is younger and fitter than I am.

For fun I recently shot a project entirely with the Q3 using the full 28mm of the frame, weird angles and the like. Then I saw Jono's Q3 43 review just days before I am to visit the biggest Leica Camera store here (in Melbourne). This could be very bad.

My photography is almost entirely travel and out and about in London. Virtually every portrait image I’ve taken has been with 50/1.4. I used to carry around a 90/2 but found it too heavy and use a 90/2.8 thin body that I’ve had for years, had cleaned and recalibrated, and suits me fine. So if I could get something close to the image quality of the 50/1.4 with Q3/43, I’d be a very happy bunny.

some years ago I went to a couple of lectures at our local photographic society about fashion photography and object photography. They were both by a Canon house photographer and spectacularly complicated, way above my pay grade, it was as much the lighting considerations that did my head in. 

As to fashion and portrait photography, to a rank amateur observer like me, open the pages of Vogue these days and a lot of the images are easily relatable to Norman Parkinson’s images for the same magazine 70 years ago, whose approach was a fundamental change from the society portrait exemplified by Cecil Beaton. I look at the fashion and portrait pictures my friends’ daughter takes, because they pop up on my Instagram, and to me they look like someone reinvented photography again. She wanted to be a fashion photographer from when she was a kid, at art college in London they had a store of loan equipment and I remember after graduation she used to rent equipment depending what she needed. Norman Parkinson could probably have worked most of his career with a single lens on his Mamiya medium format camera. She does a lot of work for shoe companies, so you can imagine the images are pretty heavily distorted.

I was only interested in the SL camera because apparently the SL3 is significantly lighter than previous models, but it’s really more the weight of the lenses and whether I’d be happy walking around all day with 24–70 attached. Sooner or later I’ll have to borrow one and give it a try.

after some 40 years of uncomplicated amateur photography purely for my own pleasure, mostly with 35 mm or 50 mm lenses,but then using the Q/28 most of the time for the last nine years, Q/43 just seems to be the best of both worlds.

 

 

[SrMi]

Thank you for the review @jonoslack. Do you know whether Leica still recommends turning off OIS to get the most out of Q's lens? Have you set OIS to Auto or "Always On?"

Does Auto OIS turn OIS on/off at a shutter speed different than 28?

Edited September 29, 2024 by SrMi

[Smogg]

26 minutes ago, SrMi said:

Thank you for the review @jonoslack. Do you know whether Leica still recommends turning off OIS to get the most out of Q's lens? Have you set OIS to Auto or "Always On?"

Does Auto OIS turn OIS on/off at a shutter speed different than 28?

This is an important question! Thanks for asking.

[BWColor]

On 9/27/2024 at 3:48 AM, sls said:

I really don't like tilting screens and that helped me not want the Q3. On top of which we were in Florence a couple of years ago and I bought the lovely tan Q2 half case in the Florence Leica store, and I'm as much attached to that as the camera.

I have the 90 degree viewfinder for M10 and did a whole series of cathedral and church ceilings in Spain, the whole way down the west from Bilbao to Seville and then up to Toledo. quite a few with the 15mm Voitlander. Works a treat. Also used it in the Baptistery in Florence. We were in the Camera degli Sposi in Mantua a few weeks ago and it would have been helpful, but with a wide angle lens only. Tilting screens to me are just an accident waiting to happen.

Aging hasn’t been kind to my balance, or flexibility.  I prefer using the EVF, but greatly appreciate the tilting screen for images taken from a low perspective, because for me, the “accident waiting to happen” is the one that happens when I fall using my M11M because I tried to take a photo from a low perspective and was overly lazy and didn’t mount my articulating Visoflex 2.  So, a vote for rear articulating screens and the more axis of rotation the better.

[nemendes]

8 hours ago, davidnvh said:

I used to dislike the distortion of the Q 28 so much that I bought the Q2 and Q3 several times, only to sell them later. That was until one day I encountered a war photographer, Eddy van Wessel, who had real-world experience and photos to show. He simply praised the lens, calling it the best in his eyes, without a single word of negativity. That opened my mind so much that I began to realize that maybe the picture matters more than a digitally corrected distortion that I never actually noticed affecting my photos.

Exactly! If people gives attention more to corners of your photo, means that there is nothing interesting in the middle and as a whole. 

[jonoslack]

On 9/29/2024 at 4:27 PM, SrMi said:

Thank you for the review @jonoslack. Do you know whether Leica still recommends turning off OIS to get the most out of Q's lens? Have you set OIS to Auto or "Always On?"

Does Auto OIS turn OIS on/off at a shutter speed different than 28?

Hi There

I'm really not sure about that - I'll check it out and get back to you - I have mine set on Auto (seems reasonable)

All the best

[jonoslack]

On 9/29/2024 at 3:09 PM, T25UFO said:

I can see how you calculate the MP from the dimensions, but how do you reverse the formula and calculate the focal length from the dimensions?  I'm not so good at maths so just curious 👀

Hah! that's an interesting question and one I had thought about, I think that as long as you keep the 3x2 ratio then you can just use the long dimension and it should be quite simple , but I think I'm going to leave it up to you (I'm on holiday in Crete and dinner calls!)

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica Q

[jonoslack]

On 9/27/2024 at 9:24 PM, M Street Photographer said:

Have you compared the 43 with the M 35 or M 50 Apo? Are there any visible differences in any respect? Of course it is a bit difficult because the 43 is in the middle. Because Apo quality does not always have to be identical.

Hi There

sorry for the delay in replying (Critibrain - I'm on holiday in Crete). I didn't do any direct comparisons. I did think about it, but it seemed to me to be obvious that it was in the same territory (from the MTF and the images) and anything more stringent was kind of angels dancing on the heads of pins.

All the best