Q3 - Any way to toggle face/eye detection with a custom button?

[DavideQ3]

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Hi everyone,

I've been using the Q3 for a year now and I absolutely love it — image quality, ergonomics, and the simplicity of the shooting experience are all top-notch. However, there's one feature I miss dearly from my previous system (Sony), and I'm wondering if there's a workaround or if others feel the same.

On my Sony body, I could assign a custom button to temporarily enable face/eye detection when pressed — regardless of the AF mode I was in. That meant I could be composing a precise shot using a specific focus point, and if a person suddenly entered the frame, I’d simply press and hold the shortcut button to instantly activate face/eye tracking and nail focus.

On the Q3, I haven’t found a similar function. So far, switching AF modes or enabling face detection seems to require digging into the menu or using a control that's not as immediate or context-sensitive.

So my questions:

• Have I missed something — is there any way to replicate this on the Q3 with the current firmware?

• Do you find this type of toggle useful? Have you found your own method to switch quickly?

• Is there an official channel or feature request path where we can suggest this kind of user-configurable toggle (similar to the recent "center AF subject" tracking shortcut)?

Would love to hear your thoughts and setups!

Thanks in advance,
Davide

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[gotium]

I asked the same in this forum a few months ago...

You can put the focus mode in your favorites, but it still takes five or six clicks to switch between eye and spot. 

[DavideQ3]

On 5/9/2025 at 6:36 PM, gotium said:

I asked the same in this forum a few months ago...

You can put the focus mode in your favorites, but it still takes five or six clicks to switch between eye and spot. 

Thank you!!!

i found it: 

 

Somebody know how to request that in some way for future updates?

Edited May 11 by DavideQ3

[Simone_DF]

On 5/11/2025 at 5:26 PM, DavideQ3 said:

Somebody know how to request that in some way for future updates?

Drop an email to info@leica-camera.com

[DavideQ3]

3 minutes ago, Simone_DF said:

Drop an email to info@leica-camera.com

Done, lets try! 🤞🏻

[mholeica]

What I do is probably similar to above. I set one of my programmable buttons to set focus mode (I use the one above the dial), then when I need to change focus mode I press that button, press up or down to select the focus mode and then enter. Not the quickest but can do it whilst still looking through the EVF.

Edited May 13 by mholeica

[jaapv]

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Of course, if the camera does not detect an eye or face, it will default to Field. On the SL2S I have one of the front buttons to AF mode and it only takes me one press and a select +press by the joystick. That is not five or six clicks. Doesn't the Q work the same? If not, Leica should implement it.

[Simone_DF]

46 minutes ago, jaapv said:

Of course, if the camera does not detect an eye or face, it will default to Field. On the SL2S I have one of the front buttons to AF mode and it only takes me one press and a select +press by the joystick. That is not five or six clicks. Doesn't the Q work the same? If not, Leica should implement it.

The problem is - again - when there are multiple people in the photo and the SL2-3 / Q3 variants go banana, and you have to quickly switch from eye to Field.

Also on the Q there's no joystick, it's slower than the SL2. 

Honestly this is a no-brainer and easy to implement feature that would speed up operations in critical moments.

[jaapv]

Well, joystick or arrow buttons, OK.
I find that I can control ( mis)behavior by judicious use of half-press but I agree that it is an annoyance. I such situations I like to use spot focus and select the correct eye myself. 

[DavideQ3]

12 hours ago, jaapv said:

Of course, if the camera does not detect an eye or face, it will default to Field. On the SL2S I have one of the front buttons to AF mode and it only takes me one press and a select +press by the joystick. That is not five or six clicks. Doesn't the Q work the same? If not, Leica should implement it.

Yes, that's true — if it doesn't detect any people, it falls back to field focus.
But the issue is that you have no real control: as soon as an unintended passerby enters the frame, you lose your field focus.

What I'm more interested in is the opposite scenario:

I'm shooting with spot or area focus and framing freely, often avoiding focusing on people who happen to be in the frame. But suppose suddenly or unexpectedly the scene changes, and a person becomes the subject. In that case, I'd like to be able to press a dedicated toggle to activate face/eye detection and track them quickly — either because they're moving or I'm panning the camera (assuming, of course, there aren't too many people in the frame, or it gets... banana 😄).

So far, I've written to the Italian Leica site, which told me to use the "Request a Feature" option inside the FOTOS app (which feels out of place for this kind of request).
I've also contacted the Leica UK site and the email suggested by Simone_df.

Let's wait  

[LocalHero1953]

I would also like such a toggle function. It appears to be a fundamental flaw with all Leica interfaces: they are based on selecting a menu function, not a specific action: you can programme a button to take you to the AF mode function, but not to a specific AF mode. This is the same with all their cameras that I've encountered: press a button to choose AF or MF, not press a button to select AF, press a button to choose metering method, but not a button to choose Highlight-Weighted etc. I suspect it would take a fundamental shift in their interface design philosophy to make such desirable options possible.

For the Q3 43, I press the centre button to go to AF mode (1 press), and the arrow buttons to select Field (3 presses from Face, 4 presses for Spot), and another press to select - 5 or 6 presses in total, though the buttons are close together. It's an interface designed by a linear-logic coder, not by a photographer.

Edited May 14 by LocalHero1953

[DavideQ3]

20 hours ago, Simone_DF said:

Drop an email to info@leica-camera.com

The customer service replied:

Quote

Thank you very much for your feedback.
I will forward your experiences and suggestions for improvement to the responsible product management so that they can be taken into account in future updates.

 🤞 🤞 🤞 🤞 🤞 🤞 🤞 🤞 🤞 🤞 🤞 🤞 🤞 🤞

[Kim Dahl]

email sendt ☺️👍🏻

[Smogg]

1 hour ago, LocalHero1953 said:

I would also like such a toggle function. It appears to be a fundamental flaw with all Leica interfaces: they are based on selecting a menu function, not a specific action: you can programme a button to take you to the AF mode function, but not to a specific AF mode. This is the same with all their cameras that I've encountered: press a button to choose AF or MF, not press a button to select AF, press a button to choose metering method, but not a button to choose Highlight-Weighted etc. I suspect it would take a fundamental shift in their interface design philosophy to make such desirable options possible.

For the Q3 43, I press the centre button to go to AF mode (1 press), and the arrow buttons to select Field (3 presses from Face, 4 presses for Spot), and another press to select - 5 or 6 presses in total, though the buttons are close together. It's an interface designed by a linear-logic coder, not by a photographer.

This is the main reason I sold the Leica Q3 43. Switching between autofocus modes takes so much time and actions that you end up just giving up face detection and switching to simple point focus. But in this case, the whole point of autofocus is lost. And it's easier to use the M11 in this case

[jaapv]

13 hours ago, Simone_DF said:

The problem is - again - when there are multiple people in the photo and the SL2-3 / Q3 variants go banana, and you have to quickly switch from eye to Field.

Also on the Q there's no joystick, it's slower than the SL2. 

Honestly this is a no-brainer and easy to implement feature that would speed up operations in critical moments.

The strange thing is that something less urgent like perspective control  can be assigned to a single Fn button press 

 

Leica’s idea I suppose is to use halfpress shutter- manual focus override in situations like these. Or can the Q use BBF? 

[jaapv]

1 hour ago, DavideQ3 said:

The customer service replied:

 🤞 🤞 🤞 🤞 🤞 🤞 🤞 🤞 🤞 🤞 🤞 🤞 🤞 🤞

What other automatic response can they give?  They get good suggestions, but also silly, incompatible and technically impossible ones this way. 

[Simone_DF]

13 minutes ago, jaapv said:

The strange thing is that something less urgent like perspective control  can be assigned to a single Fn button press 

Exactly. If you’re using perspective control you’re either shooting landscapes or architecture, so it’s a slower process and that’s fine, usually you don’t need to switch quickly in these situations. 

 

16 minutes ago, jaapv said:

Leica’s idea I suppose is to use halfpress shutter- manual focus override in situations like these. Or can the Q use BBF? 

Not that I know of.

[Simone_DF]

9 minutes ago, jaapv said:

What other automatic response can they give?  They get good suggestions, but also silly, incompatible and technically impossible ones this way. 

At least you get an acknowledgement. I guess they have a backlog somewhere with all requests from users, and they get evaluated by number and frequency of these requests, among other factors like feasibility, cost, time, effort, etc

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Hallo,

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[DavideQ3]

 

24 minutes ago, Simone_DF said:

At least you get an acknowledgement. I guess they have a backlog somewhere with all requests from users, and they get evaluated by number and frequency of these requests, among other factors like feasibility, cost, time, effort, etc

Exactly, it's what I'm hoping to.

For sure, it is essential to give them feedback, otherwise they can't know that ... and we won't receive that toggle 😭

[jaapv]

Well, they do monitor this forum.