The Leica Q is a stunning camera to use at a somewhat scary price point. It’s well worth it, however.
Leica sells itself as a premium camera brand, and there are more than enough people willing to shell over serious money for Leica gear to keep the company going. Its latest effort, the Leica Q (Typ 116) is a compact camera with a built in 28mm fixed lens and a full-frame 24 megapixel sensor.
It’s an interesting combination, if only because it sits at an interesting space in Leica’s lineup. You could spend quite a bit more on a Leica M series camera with any number of lenses, but equally, it’s hard to overlook the Leica Q’s asking price.
I normally leave pricing information to the end of a review, largely because I like to process the ups and downs of a product independent of its price point. It’s very easy to get caught up otherwise, but the Leica Q’s asking price — $6000 — rather grabs your attention the moment you get your hands on it. As such, this very much isn’t a camera for everyone.
Physically, the Leica Q is almost as imposing as its asking price, with measurements of 130 x 80 x 93 mm and a carrying weight of 640 grams. Leica’s reputation for solid build quality extends to the Leica Q, because while it’s not the lightest camera you’ll ever use, it feels really good held in the hand. Leica’s contention is that it’s an ideal camera for street shooters, and I can easily see that.
The 28mm lens on the Leica Q is fixed with a f/1.7 maximum aperture, making it a very capable camera. There’s a choice of manual or automatic modes depending on your skill level and/or interest, although at that price point you would naturally want to be rather committed. It supports Wi-Fi connectivity via 802.11b/g/n with, as is the style of the time, an Android/iOS app for easy file transfer. Images are captured in JPG and DMG standards with three default image standards that you can crop to in-camera to create either 24MP shots (28mm), 15MP (35mm cropped) or 8MP (50mm cropped). The Leica Q is video capable, but only to 1080p standard in MP4 format.
Leica, it should be noted, only loan out the Leica Q for a seven day testing period, so this isn’t quite as in-depth as I might have liked. This also happened to coincide with a rather serious bout of poor health, so I wasn’t able to (carefully) take the Leica Q out for too many photo treks. C’est la vie.
Still, even with my own limited photographic ability, I was able to get some really nice pictures with the Leica Q.
One of the more interesting aspects of the Leica Q’s construction is that its automatic modes are very good at creating film-style photos that will generally please most simple shooters. At the same time, however, I suspect the more serious, indepth shooters might want more than it offers and be better off with an M type camera if Leica is their bag. Then again, based on some of the drooling that my more photography-focused friends did when I mentioned I had the Q in for review, maybe the allure of Leica is enough anyway.
At $6,000, there’s no doubt that the Leica Q is specialised equipment, even though within its sphere it’s not actually expensive. What I found with the Leica Q was that it refreshed my desire to get out there and take photos, which means that at least at that level, it’s a remarkable success. A good camera, after all, shouldn’t get in the way of you capturing your visions, and on that score the Leica Q is an exceptionally good purchase.