Last Updated on 05/25/2023 by Chris Gampat
Since it was leaked years ago, photographers within the Leica circle have awaited the Leica Q3. With the Q2 being such a hit for the company, the Q3 seemingly addressed many of the photographers’ vexations with previous versions. Indeed, the Leica Q3 remedies most of those concerns. First of all, the autofocus is much snappier and has been studying up on its scene recognition. Just as notable, there’s a brand new tilting LCD screen. Leica previously stated that the LCD screen would compromise the IP52 durability rating of their cameras. However, they found a way to do it — and the Leica Q3 retains the stellar durability that saved photojournalist Gabriele Micalizzi’s life in the middle of a war.
Editor’s Note: Leica loaned us a pre-production Leica Q3 unit, which we have returned. This blog post is not our review but an initial impression after three days of using the Leica Q3. None of the “reviews” published thus far are with finalized versions of the camera. Specifically, the Leica Q3 we tested did not have the final firmware. Cosmetically, it’s finalized. And in terms of image quality, it’s nearly finalized. The Phoblographer is not a paid influencer, and we believe in being incredibly transparent with our audience. You can find our policies here.
What’s New in the Leica Q3 for Photographers?
- 60MP Full frame sensor, not totally the same as the Leica M11
- New battery that’s the same size as the older one
- Tiltable 3-inch LCD screen with touch capabilities
- Animal detection autofocus
- With an optional grip, it can be wirelessly charged
- Digital frame selection of up to 90mm
- Medium and small DNG RAW options
- HDMI and USB-C
- 5.76MP OLED Viewfinder that can do 120 frames a second
Ergonomics
The Leica Q3 is nearly identical to the original cameras. In fact, it’s difficult to tell them all apart. The most notable differences are on the top — and even those are subtle.
The Leica Q3 has a fixed 28mm f1.7 Summilux APSH lens attached. We thought that it wasn’t capable of resolving a 60MP sensor’s fullest potential. But so far, it seems to be capable of it; but we have to do more tests. It’s a special lens, in case you’re not familiar with it.
Part of what makes the lens so special is the manual focusing, autofocusing, and macro capabilities. Thar means that there are a bunch of controls around the lens. Zone focusing is elementary enough to do, while autofocus is done simply by locking the lens to the AF function. Then you can set it to macro focusing or normal.
The top also has the hot shot, threaded shutter release, shutter speed dial, and a custom function button.
The bottom of the Leica Q3 has a new battery which has a higher capacity and is the only one that can let you shoot at 8k at the highest speeds. If you’re a photographer that doesn’t care about video, there’s no need to worry here. It’s also the same size as the previous battery.
If you look at the back, the camera looks very similar to the older Leica Q2. There’s the EVF, diopter, custom function buttons, and various settings. Most notable, though, is the new tilting LCD screen.
This new screen can pop out, tilt up, and tilt down. It reminds us a lot of the older Sony screens.
Here’s another view of the new screen on the Leica Q3.
Build Quality
Well, I’m elated to say that Leica did what they previously stated was impossible. Not only are there exposed ports on the bottom of the Leica Q3, but there is a tilting LCD screen. Despite all this, they kept the IP52 durability rating. According to the standard, the Leica Q3 has the second-highest durability against dust and some of the best protection from water falling vertically on top of it. With all this said, the Leica Q3 feels every bit as fantastic and romantic as the previous iteration of the cameras felt. It’s nearly impossible for you to pick it up and not like it.
Walking around with the camera for a while proves it to be very lightweight and comfortable. This is truly a camera I want to bring everywhere with me. Personally speaking, I’d rather use a lens filter than the lens hood — which I feel makes the camera look a bit more obnoxious.
Ease of Use
I wish the menu was fully touch-screen capable. Leica’s menu system can be just as quick to navigate as Canon’s if this ever came. However, the screen can be adjusted and set when shooting using the touch-screen interface.
I tried shooting with the Leica Q3 at super slow shutter speeds. Optical image stabilization isn’t what I’d expect it to be — to be frank, it’s a bit weak. There were a few tests I did at night using ISO 50 and long exposure. After 75 minutes of yoga, my breathing and heart rates were pretty steady. But this camera made it seem like my hands were super shaky. That made no sense, as I’m able to do longer exposures with many other cameras. As a point of reference, someone cannot join the Phoblographer’s review team unless they can handhold a camera for longer than one second and get a camera-shake-free photo. With that said, everyone who reviews products is capable of doing this.
When I turned the OIS setting off, it still wasn’t able to get a blur-free photo. This is really odd as it’s a 28mm lens and should be absolutely qualified to do this task. The Leica M cameras can do this and so can many others. I think that the OIS needs to be tweaked accordingly; hopefully it will with future firmware updates.
For a variety of reasons, I wish that Leica stuffed this camera with an SSD for storage the way they did with the Leica M cameras. This would make so much sense because there’s only one card slot.
Focusing
By far, this Leica Q3 is the fastest autofocusing Leica camera I’ve used. Along with this lens, it’s positively game-changing. Why would I need an ILC if I mostly use one focal length? It’s true, on my Fujifilm, Leica, Canon, and Sony cameras, I mostly use just a few lenses. I see how some might need a camera with a zoom lens. However, I could imagine myself using my Leica SL2s along with the Q3 to do most of the work I need.
Bird detection and mammal detection is in there — and I’m specifically stating this because it’s a new feature. Leica puts all animals in when they mention that it has animal detection autofocus.
There’s great news along with that! This camera nails it when it comes to autofocusing on people for street photography most of the time. At 28mm, you’ve got to get up close, though. But beyond that, it’s also got animal detection that works on dogs, cats, mammals, and birds — it’s quite impressive. There’s also the option to zone focus at will or use macro-focusing capabilities.
When switching the focus modes, animals/humans are together on a separate page by themselves. This hints to me that more focus modes are coming in the future. I mean, why would Leica put one mode on a page all by itself? That’s weird, right?
In low-light environments, the Leica Q3 doesn’t seem to focus well on melanated people of color moving around in low light. I found this to be the case in both bars and with the NYC subway. Though this is only a pre-production unit, I feel like autofocus might be relegated to less diverse parts of the world or when I’m just having fun. If I want to do serious street photography work, I might then be better served using zone focusing. And for the record, pretty much every camera brand is awful at focusing on melanated people of color. Lots of folks think it’s because of low contrast. But some technical representatives have told me that it could be a problem with lens algorithms. Until more POCs come forward about this, it might not ever get fixed.
With that said, I found the zone-focusing points on the distance scale to be slightly off. My sweet spot is focusing around 5 feet away and stopping down to f4 or f5.6 when using a 28mm lens. But with the Leica 28mm f1.7 attached to this camera, I need to figure out someplace in between the 3 foot and 6 foot markers. You’d think that that would be simple, but it didn’t seem like that. To be honest, it felt almost like my lens and camera needed to be calibrated to one another, and the camera might have needed a CLA.
Yes, this shouldn’t be the case with an autofocusing fixed-lens camera. But it is, for sure.
Image Quality
In Capture One, the RAW files didn’t perform as well as I’d like them to. And I fully blame that on this being a pre-production camera model. In Lightroom, they’re a bit better but only slightly so. Maybe this will change with a future update of the programs. Here are some image samples that we’ve shot.
The Leica Q3 is also supposed to have special image styles called contemporary, classic, and more. But when we tried them, our camera couldn’t render the looks. They have yet to be delivered, and we’re eager to see them.
From day one, The Phoblographer has been huge on transparency with our audience. Nothing from this review is sponsored. Further, lots of folks will post reviews and show lots of editing in the photos. The problem then becomes that anyone and everyone can do the same thing. They’re not showing what the lens can do. So we have a section in our Extra Image Samples area to show edited and unedited photos. From this, you can make a decision for yourself.
Unedited
Edited
First Impressions
The new Leica Q3 is proving to be on track to go down as the greatest Leica camera ever. Sure, we’re positive it won’t have the durability and staying power that many of the company’s analog cameras have. But in the hands of the right photographers, this camera could be incredibly capable and a fine package for anyone looking for a compact, fixed-lens camera. The market is seriously lacking in that department because brands are going after the average consumer with them. However, anyone buying a camera these days is typically reaching for higher fruit. The only other cameras that could possibly hold a candle to the Leica Q3 are the Fujifilm X100V, Ricoh GR series, Sony RX1R series, and the Canon G1x Mk III. But even so, none of them are going to be able to compete.
Sure, the Leica Q3 has a high price tag of $5,995. But you’re getting durability holistically throughout both the camera and the lens. It’s also incredibly small, capable, and can become a camera body you don’t even need to do major edits with.
We’re holding out for our full-production review unit, so stay tuned.
