Anybody have a Q2 Monochrom as a companion for their M11?

[TheEyesHaveIt]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Just thinking about it - not as a camera I'd carry alongside the M11, but as one that I can take for a different shooting and editing experience from time to time. I have a bunch of M lenses, so I thought about the M11 Monochrom, but it's twice the price of the Q2M. Wondering if anybody enjoys using a Q2M as a different / secondary camera with their M11?

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[Stef63]

No experience with the Q2M, but a mint used M10M would be my choice. Probably in the same price range as the Q2M and - my experience- an excellent camera alongside an M11. 

Edited August 9 by Stef63

[HansLee]

I have a Q2M and then got a SL3.  I like having the Q2M for a different shooting experience and mindset.  I actually prefer the resolution in the range of 47mp. The form factor, the B+W and lens constraint is great for just going out and shoot. I use the SL3 to shoot with M and L lenses. Even when I use the SL3 with a single lens it's much more bulkier and has a more visible presence than the Q2M - so this impacts what bag I bring or how I handle the camera in a walk-about situation.  Just for context, I shoot mostly street or documentary or urban landscape.  

[Eoin]

Q2M is a fantastic device, very capable with many modes. I keep mine in Auto (lazy) mode and tend to use it for occasions where I don’t necessarily want to be the photographer.

My M11M is my main B&W camera alongside a M10R, with a bunch of lenses. This shows up the limitations of the Q2M as a fixed lens camera, but only that fact. 
 

In your case, I’d opt for a Monocrome M to offer more flexibility with your lens collection.
 

[Kiwimac]

They’re quite scarce here in NZ. 
 

I’m hoping that there’ll be a Q3 Mono so that some rich dentists will upgrade! 🤣

[T25UFO]

Any Q camera is a good partner to the M.  I’ve gone in the opposite direction for a colour and B&W combo with a Q3 and M11 Mono, but a Q2M alongside a regular M11 would work very well.

[jcraf]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I've had all the Monochrom M cameras, apart from the M11M. The original CCD camera remains my favourite (but that's a different story).

I now use a Q2M for my B&W work. It's the only Q camera I've really bonded with, and that includes my (recently-departed) Q3 43.

I'd highly recommend one.

[jankap]

Does the M11 have monochrome mode? Eventually monochrome in post. There are pixels enough on the sensor.

Buying is passive, exploring is active.

Edited August 10 by jankap

[Derbyshire Man]

Having been a Canon and Fuji photographer I started with a used Q2M, it was such a unique prospect. I then added an M11P and a small lens collection grew. I did consider the M11M at the point I bought the Q2M but felt the cost of any M camera was so high that the lack of flexibility was ludicrous. Shortly after I sold my Q2M and turned it into a M11M;-) I then added a M11D as I love the concept and industrial design, I really enjoy using them all.

There are some times however where autofocus and image stabilisation is useful and I had been using my X100VI for that, however I haven't been truly enamoured with the output and picked up a *very* used Q3 second hand which I prefer. So in a way I've looped around but it interests me that I didn't re-land on the Q2M.

98% of my photography is monochrome.

[Photoworks]

16 hours ago, Stef63 said:

No experience with the Q2M, but a mint used M10M would be my choice. Probably in the same price range as the Q2M and - my experience- an excellent camera alongside an M11. 

I found mixing the M11 with M10M was a challenge for me.

different base ISO, and other missing faster shooting. shooting the same in color and b&w needed taking on and off the ND filters.

But if you shoot lenses at f8, your experience may be different!

[DenverSteve]

Not as a compliment but yes as an alternative option to the M11.  I've found that I have no use for a M camera because the Leica cameras do fantastic in B&W HC capture.   I have a profile setting on all my Leica bodies for B&W set for my monochrome preference.  That way I have RAW files to work with and mono JPEGs.

[Chris_Jenks]

I had a Q2M for a couple of years and recently traded it in on an M11M, wanting to be able to use the lenses I have for my M11. To be honest, I really wish I’d kept the Q2M, it really came into its own in poor light, especially at night. It’s definitely a different experience to the M11, but I found the autofocus and image stabilisation quite reliable allowing me to shoot wide open in poor light - a real bonus I think. A great camera, don’t hesitate.

[DadDadDaddyo]

Well, I'll stipulate: I'm a dinosaur, a living fossil, a Coelecanth brought up unexpectedly in a fishing net. 

That said, I've found the M11M to be a natural companion to the M11, but then, admittedly, I'm dyed-in-the-wool in regards to feeling natural and relaxed around the Leica Rangefinder way of doing things, owing to many years, many, many years, of doing so. 

Historically, and in the longer scheme of things, autofocus still seems to me to be a fairly recent development. That's not by any means to imply that it's somehow not ready for prime time. Quite the opposite, it's obviously completely mainstream and expected as the norm. 

I shoot formats from APS-C, to 35mm (analog and digital), all the way up to Large Format (4x5 and 8x10 inch). Picking what to shoot with is typically a matter of assessing and balancing format attributes and situational requirements. When I wish for autofocus, I simply use a system that has it. 

That said, the vast majority of the equipment and systems I employ do not offer autofocus, nor, in many cases, do they even use built in metering. Even with those systems that do offer in-body metering, my approach to picture taking is to evaluate exposure decisions myself, whether relying on built-in or hand-held metering, and to apply my decisions directly to the equipment by setting aperture and shutter speed. It's just the way I like to do things. 

That's not to say that I'd suggest that anyone else travel this path. The reason I didn't factor the use of use autofocus into my decision making from the start of my photographic journey is that it was a pipe dream for the first twenty years or so that I was seriously messing around with cameras. 

I remember a long-ago friend of mine commenting once, in my early days of my guitar playing, that the idea was to get to the point where you could simply play anything you could whistle. In other words, it's best when the instrument, essentially, disappears, and you're simply thinking musical thoughts and having them come out as sound. 

I believe that my picture making is at its best when the equipment "disappears" in much the same way, despite the very hands-on nature of the type of gear that I prefer to use. This kind of disappearance is a natural outcome of time and practice.

So from my perspective not only by by using the same lenses, batteries, etc., as each other, but also by feeling very much the same in the hand, the M11 and M11M are a perfectly natural match for each other.

[kiwidad]

On 8/10/2025 at 7:26 AM, Photoworks said:

I found mixing the M11 with M10M was a challenge for me.

different base ISO, and other missing faster shooting. shooting the same in color and b&w needed taking on and off the ND filters.

But if you shoot lenses at f8, your experience may be different!

I try to shoot at f1.4 and can't say I have had challenges switching between the m11 and m10m.  Bit annoying carrying s sets of batteries but otherwise it's great. B&Wshooting to me is more thoughtful and so the slower M10M doesnt really matter. If any of y'all m11m haters want to trade let me know 🙂

 

[pacnwleica]

As mentioned earlier the Q2M is a wonderful camera, this was the camera that brought me into the Leica world - and I may have gone a bit crazy since then with other Leica's

Stabilization, plus monochrome sensor makes it rather easy to get images. Yes it has auto focus, I tend to use mine in fully manual mode.

Anyway I highly recommend one, nice to have with an M camera

[fordfanjpn]

The Q2M is an amazing camera. I mistakenly sold mine and ended up buying another one because I missed it so much. I also have an M11M, but I learned my lesson and will always keep the Q2M. I also have a Q3 just in case I want to shoot color for some reason, but it's the black sheep of the family. I take the M when I'm going out specifically to shoot on the streets, and the Q at any other time.