Leica Q3 – Disappointed with High ISO Performance?

[Rbnich]

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Hi there,
I’m new to Leica and recently purchased the Q3. While I was excited to finally try a Leica, I have to admit I’m not impressed so far—particularly with the high ISO performance.

I’ve attached a screenshot of a RAW file at 100% zoom. No edits have been made apart from importing into Lightroom Classic and zooming to 100%.  I used the embedded profile and the histogram is balanced.

From everything I read before buying, I expected strong low-light performance, but what I’m seeing doesn’t match that expectation.  To be honest, my 14-year-old Nikon D750 seems to handle high ISO noticeably better, which is surprising given the time and tech gap between the two cameras.

It’s possible I’m missing something—maybe a setting or workflow adjustment that’s unique to Leica files? I’d really appreciate any insight. Hopefully, this is just part of the learning curve and not what Leica considers good high ISO performance?

Thanks in advance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[01af]

vor 6 Minuten schrieb Rbnich:

... at 100 % zoom.

Sigh ... percentage calculations are crapshoot, right?

[M11 for me]

vor 8 Minuten schrieb Rbnich:

I have to admit I’m not impressed so far—particularly with the high ISO performance

Do you know a better one? Sorry this is sarcastic. But the Q3 is a great camera.

vor 8 Minuten schrieb Rbnich:

No edits have been made apart from importing into Lightroom Classic and zooming to 100%

That is your mistake number one. . . .

No worry. The Q3 is great. Look at the "Details" settings in LrC. The noise in your image is nothing bad! It will disappear with no problem.

[JNK100]

The Q3 performs very well at high iso. I use it at 6400 routinely with processing.

There is no value at looking at an unprocessed file at 100%.

[LocalHero1953]

It would help your case if you told us what the ISO setting was and whether you have made the image lighter or darker in post.

[Le Chef]

I never understand why you would simply import into LR, do nothing, and then expect miracles. It's a waste of a good camera and a good image processing program.

[pgh]

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that nikon did very well with high iso at the time, but you're aging it some. it came out in 2014.

anyways, gains in sensor technology really sort of plateaued in a comparative sense not long after that. the difference between 2005 and 2015 sensors is more significant than the ones from 2015-2025. 

You're getting a lot more resolution, that's the tradeoff. 

In none of the recent generations of cameras does noise ruin images like it used to. They're all plenty good that if you actually make a strong picture, it will still be strong with the noise. 

the q3 is a stronger peer to other camera brands than Leica has tended to have. Up until the m11 they really tended to have a sensor that was a little worse than whatever was on offer from the Japanese brands. A little worse, but still perfectly good. 

Edited July 11 by pgh

[01af]

vor 51 Minuten schrieb Le Chef:

I never understand why you would simply import into Lightroom, do nothing, and then expect miracles.

It's because people don't understand raw-image processing. They falsely believe that not touching any sliders means not doing any processing—which of course is nonsense. Actually it means doing some random processing.

Moreover, a surpringsly high percentage of people doesn't understand that 100 % of 60 MP is more than 100 % of 24 MP.

Edited July 11 by 01af

[Le Chef]

The other aspect to all of this is "Denoise". It makes quite a considerable difference when used sensibly. 

[jgeenen]

If you need low ISO performance, it is hard to beat the D750 sensor. If you need high resolution, the very same D750 miserably fails compared to the Q3. You asked for a specific setting that is unique to Leica - no, there isn’t any. But if you want to compare D750 files to Q3 files, both scale them down to 24 Mpix or up to 60 Mpix. Don‘t be fooled by the 100 or 200% view on your computer - those are different depending on the size of your image dimensions.

[Aram Langhans]

As a former D750 user, now Z7ii and Q3, you are correct as far as viewing both at 100%.  But as many have pointed out, you are also comparing a 24mp sensor to a 60mp sensor and 100% is quite different screen magnifications for both cameras. Try making a print, say 8x10 or 11x14 from each camra and comparing the images if you want to see the real comparison of image quality. 

 I had a Q2 before the Q3 and comparing the Q2 with the D750 was a bit closer MP wise and the Nikon was indeed better.  I went to the Q3 because even with the higher MP sensor, it was quite an improvement on the Q2 for low light, high iso situations.  Just use the Q3 for a bit and you will be impressed by what it can do

[S Maclean]

Or try “viewing to actual size “ instead of 100% magnification.  That will give you the actual images as rendered by the camera.

[SrMi]

4 hours ago, Rbnich said:

To be honest, my 14-year-old Nikon D750 seems to handle high ISO noticeably better, which is surprising given the time and tech gap between the two cameras.

The technology has not advanced that much since the D750. Since the D750 is a 24MP camera, you need to compare its output with Q3's output downscaled to 24MP, not by looking at 100%.

[RQ44]

I have your solution,

 

Re-box the unit and take it back.

[frame-it]

7 hours ago, S Maclean said:

Or try “viewing to actual size “ instead of 100% magnification.  That will give you the actual images as rendered by the camera.

thats prolly what the OP means by 100% in lightroom

the OP has unfortunately used the word zoom, and opened up a can of strange "apple forum" type responses about> no processing, zoomed in, raw file etc etc. the OP's point was prolly only about a noisy unprocessed raw file, screenshots have no exif, so maybe the exposure settings/ ISO are all over the place.

autoISO is the devil in disguise

Edited July 12 by frame-it

[Jonas Larsson]

14 hours ago, Rbnich said:

It’s possible I’m missing something—maybe a setting or workflow adjustment that’s unique to Leica files? I’d really appreciate any insight. Hopefully, this is just part of the learning curve and not what Leica considers good high ISO performance?

Rbnich have written 3 posts. He is new to Leica. The answer he gets / help is beyond bad.  I’m sorry Rb. 

[Smogg]

Check the settings in the Details section. When importing from some cameras, the noise reduction slider is zeroed. Compare the slider values for your Nikon and Leica cameras.

[S Maclean]

It is an odd general response, I agree with that. I don’t think we’re helping much.

What is strange on the image post it is that, it being a low light shot it is a bit over exposed. Or rather a little flat.  What metering mode did you use? Did you shoot manual or set everything on auto? Did you use the exposure compensation and added ( pushed) the exposure up? Is it possible you pressed the auto button in LR so the computer tried to recover the image?

also strange that the light leaking through the blinds wouldn’t have clipped highlights when compared to the rest of the room… if you where spot metering, or highlight  metering, where does this crop belong within the rest of the image? Was there any part of the image correctly exposed ?

@Rbnichcan you share/ post the entire image with us and share or take a snapshot of the exif data, please?
 

this sort of performance I could maybe expect of the image had been under exposed by a few stops and then recovered in LR. 
 

Place the camera on a table or tripod, set the exposure meter at multi-zone and try to replicate the exact same shot and conditions but take:

one shot on aperture priority at f1.7 ISO 200 and shutter in auto ( it will probably be too slow to hand held.) note what the shutter speed is.

one shot at F1.7, shutter at S-125 and automatic ISO. - note what the iso is. 
 

The camera should be exposing correctly on both of those shots.

if you do share the exit/ info of the shot and the whole image see may be able to figure out what went wrong.

 

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[Luke_Miller]

Maybe I'm missing the point, but the post by Rbnich sounds very much like my experience when I bought my first high resolution body. I was not used to seeing the ISO noise that the small photosites on the high resolution sensor produced at my normal ISO settings  I was used to the noise levels from large photosites on my 24 mpx, which did not become visible until much higher ISO settings.  I should have expected it since the observed noise is a function of the signal to noise ratio and the small photosites collect less signal (light) so the noise is higher.  Once I realized  the noise was not visible in the output sizes I used with my images I was fine.  I did a test between my 20 mpx best low light camera and my new 45 mpx camera.  Once I downsized the 45 mpx images to 20 mpx the differences were indistinguishable.

Edited July 12 by Luke_Miller

[Steve7]

According to Bill Claff's measurements (https://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/PDR.htm), the Q3 noise performance is almost identical to the D750 (see table on the left, lower on the page).  I guess the progress in all those years is giving such low-light performance at 60 MP rather than 24 MP.  Looking at other cameras with same or similar high-res sensors (e.g. Sony A7RV), the Q3 is in the same ball park as those.  One outlier is the Sigma fp L; it's about a stop better.  The fp L, has the same sensor but has a very slow sensor readout.  My understanding is that slower readout rates introduce less read noise, albeit with the potential cost of banding in artificial lighting and strong rolling shutter effects with moving subjects.

Visually, I see Leica being conservative with noise reduction on the out-of-camera JPEGs.  They seem to apply liberal chrominance noise reduction but relatively little luminance noise reduction, leaving lot's of detail and few or no noise reduction artifacts.  I personally much prefer this "honest" look to the images at, e.g., ISO 6400 and 12800.

For out-of-camera JPEGs, under Q3 JPEG settings, you can try setting Noise Reduction to high and see if you prefer the look of the JPEG images.

Best of luck finding a path to success with the Q3.