Leica Q, in stock, Amazon prime.
Since I have been shooting and appreciating the Leica M-D and 28 Lux lately, I have grown more fond of the Leica Q as well, with its 28mm Summilux lens, gorgeous color and loads of snap to the images. I have been seeing some gorgeous results with the Q, (A nice post on the Q will be up tomorrow) that are quite different from what I see in the M and 28 Lux. Not better, not worse, just different. Today we have so many choices and even in this area we have the lovely Sony RX1 MkII that sort of goes against the Leica Q.
Some prefer the Sony, some prefer the Leica but I feel it comes down to 28mm vs 35mm and Sony sensor vs the sensor in the Q, which is not from Sony. Both offer different looks, rendering, color, DR and low light performance.
The Sony wins on DR and low light but I feel the Leica wins on AF speed and color and of course that “Leica look”, which the Q has all over the place.
In any case, MANY are still drawn to and purchasing the Leica Q , and if you want one tomorrow, Amazon has one in stock via PRIME:
Man, I could order in the next 3 hours and have one at my doorstep and for $8000 less than an M-D and 28 Lux. That makes the Q look like a steal of a deal to me.
Of course I could also email Ken Hansen at khpny19@aol.com and have one tomorrow as well. Yes that was a plug for him, but well deserved and warranted!
Other places to get a Leica Q? PopFlash.com, and B&H Photo.
I’ve had the pleasure of owning the Leica Q for the last several weeks and am wondering if any custom Lightroom presets are available as jpegs out of camera are well documented to be very poor especially indoors. I’m using the portable Leica flash SF26 for some indoor lower light fill as well as for outdoor less contrasty bright sun conditionsl. There seems to be more compatilbility with this flash now that I’ve updated the firmware recently posted for the Q. I’m enjoying the tracking focus for fast moving subjects such as our 7 year boy on the go. Much faster and more accurate focus when using tracking combined with AF-S as compared to AF-A surprisingly enough. Was shooting lightning on the horizon this evening with fully automatic settings and tracking focus in AF-S and was able to obtain some amazing results on the fly! But again, there’s a lot of tweaking to get those wonderful colors shooting DNP with this camera. I’ve cut back to -20 in orange saturation in Lightroom for some of the indoor shots, and am working with the Adobe Standard profile that’s available for this camera in Lightroom 6.6.1 on our Macbook Pro 15″ Retina. I do agree there’s a lot more character and amazing ergonomics and autofocus, very accessible menus, and the best battery capacity compared to the Sony’s. Sony Alpha 7Rii and RX1R ii from my limited testing both have much better out of camera jpegs. I wish this was more the case with the Leica for those times you just want to go out and shoot without worrying so much about post processing. I enjoy having more of these options readily available and am hoping a future Leica firmware update may resolve some of this inconsistency for some of the out of camera colors. Just curious if there’s some presets available to download or at the very least some user recommended settings within Lightroom so that minimum tweaking can produce great that great pop, contrast and dynamic range the Q is certainly capable of. There are times that I even prefer the embedded file vs. Adobe Standard profile in Lightroom. It all comes down to patience in obtaining the best results that appeal to each user. All in all, a wonderful product, just wish there were more presets available as they often are with the Sony’s for example. Thanks for reading and any recommendations the users here on this always informative site can provide.
… but, like I think you said in your post(s) about the M-D.. the camera body will get outdated, but the lens can stay forever.. too bad no way to update the body and keep the camera/body combo of the Q to stay updated over time.
But I think there is quite a lot to be said for getting as close to what you mainly want as possible in one compact combo without lens changing. I’d be hard put to choose between 28 and 35……
I own a Q as well, and i’m still coming to grips with the whole idea of this camera. $4250. Fixed lens. 28mm (really more like 26mm). It’s a lot to swallow and this sort of commitment demands to be fully explored.
As far as the eventual obselescence of the body, it is definitely a concern, but I really feel that digital imaging has reached a stage where advancements are going to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. One already sees folks dithering over the relative file qualities of some of the newest fuji and m4/3 sensors vs. the previous sensors (ie are the 24mp and 20mp results really any better than the 16mp). There are plenty of people who swear by the original fuji xtrans sensor vs the latest.
So I’m confident that the image quality of the Q will be competitive and enjoyable for a good number of years to come. Who knows, the Q ‘look’ might even attain cult status like that of the M9 where even after technical advances there are still folks who prefer the older output, giving the camera a longer lived desirablity.