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Bear with me. It will be slightly long…

I bought my first Q almost five years ago. The original, second hand. It was the gateway drug into Leica world… a m8 followed, then the m9m etc, and my first SL and so on. Many might know how it goes…

The biggest advantage of the Q2 was, and still is to me, its weather sealing. For a daily cam, I don’t want to carry a bag. And yes, downpours happen.

The Q was sold to fund a m10, which was sold to fund a m10m. Having a great monochrom, I added a Q2 for colour. After a while I concluded that somehow I didn’t like the Q2’s performance at indoor (high iso) shots and 28mm was rather wide. I sold it to fund another lens…

When the Q43 came out, it looked like a perfect camera, and it might be. But… the tiltable screen, though great, didn’t give me that waistlevel finder feeling: sth I found in the HB 907x. The 43apo lens. Wonderful, but, I preferred portraits with a 50mm lux. Colours: great. Except for late night indoor receptions without flash. Such events I would normally cover with the m10m, and I hoped the Q3 could keep up. It couldn’t.

In order to fund the Q43, I sold the m10m, a low light monster, though I prefer the output of the m9m which I rebought.

After five years, my Leica set consists of a m8, m9 and m9m with some lenses. A great kit, and regarding m, it is all I need. For portraits and events I have a SL2 plus SL lux and the 24-90. A great set, though resale value is very low. I recently bought into the older 50mp series of HB for long exposures and waistlevel shooting. Perfect set.

Yet, I miss this every day little camera, weather proofed, close focus, one-hand operation and so on.

When looking at reportage work of other photographers, I do like how they use a 28mm. But always in b/w, as it takes the distraction of the background away. I always feel inspired by good reportage work. Long time ago, when doing weddings, I had a three lens setup: 28, 45 and 90.

Today I came across a good deal for a Q2M. Maybe I should give it a try…

 

 

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You have a beautiful set of studio portraits on your Instagram. I'm sorry I won't be in Zagreb to meet you on Sept. 27th!

I have a database of photographs in Lightroom, and find it helpful to look at my work and see what tools would make those projects better. That has helped me choose lenses and cameras over the years. That said, I have been through Leica M 2, 3, 4, 6, 6TTL, 7, 8, 9 and currently have an M10 and M10M with multiple lenses for my main kit.

I too added an original Q when they first came out, but waited until the Q3 43 to upgrade, mainly for focal length but also for weather sealing and usb charging. I added a Q3 28 soon after and this will be my main kit for a trip to France in a week. I also shoot short video and the two Q3s will meet that need. This will replace an SL2-S with 24-90 which I have been using for these types of travel projects but weigh less. I'm not sure if this will work, but I'm going to have fun finding out!

The Q2M is a different tool than the M9M and if that works for you, go for it!

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A short update: the Q2M is on its way. I am very curious, especially since I was not fond of the Q2 and loved the Q43 yet still decided to sell it.

I do have high expectations though. To me, 28mm and b/w go very well together, and inside I can still close down with high enough shutter speed due to the monochrom iso capabilities.

Paired with a m9m plus 50mm lux, this set might be a great reportage set. 

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On 9/16/2025 at 6:54 PM, Olaf_ZG said:

A short update: the Q2M is on its way

Your original post, and the above follow up, made me smile.  I think the Q is a camera that 'comes and goes . . . and comes again'.  I'm on my fifth Q.  The original was replaced the a Q2 and that was replaced with a Q2 Reporter (silly really, just cosmetic).  Then came the Q2 Mono, after which I bought the M11 Mono so decided to sell the Q2 Mono and by a Q3 for colour.  

That's it, I'm done, well maybe . . .

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21 hours ago, T25UFO said:

Your original post, and the above follow up, made me smile.  I think the Q is a camera that 'comes and goes . . . and comes again'.  I'm on my fifth Q.  The original was replaced the a Q2 and that was replaced with a Q2 Reporter (silly really, just cosmetic).  Then came the Q2 Mono, after which I bought the M11 Mono so decided to sell the Q2 Mono and by a Q3 for colour.  

That's it, I'm done, well maybe . . .

Leica is a slippery slope 🤣

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  • 3 weeks later...

Today I finally managed to walk around with the Q2M. With the original and the Q2, the 28mm was too wide. Maybe due to colour always being too much. With the monochrom this won’t be a problem, but I also decided too photograph square, unless it is a documentary, when I might fall back to 3:2.

Square. Long time ago, my fav format. Having recently bought back into HB, I want to be square again. Pity the monochrom doesn’t have this format. 

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58 minutes ago, Archiver said:

Heresy, but have you considered a Fuji GFX100RF? Square format in-camera with a huge sensor. Just saying.

No I did not. To me, 100mp is too much, and for that reason I did not bought the x2d either. Furthermore I do have already MF with HB, but in this specific case, it’s the monochrom version which makes the difference.

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