News Leica Q Type 116 Leaked Image, Specs

OK, that makes more sense. Ming admits his bias upfront before going into his glowing review. Having read his site regularly, however, that's no surprise. This is like the Ferrari version of his favorite photographic tool. Having seen the DPR images, it seems to be a really camera. If money were no object, I'd grab one.
 
I think that increasingly we may see 28mm as a "new normal". Not that it isn't a touch too wide for most.......but there are now enough megapickles that each frame can be 28, 35 OR 50. I don't do the fancy maths, but I remember when Olympus said that they would never see the need to go past 6MP (or maybe it was 8 or 9). At the time I felt that was accurate. So now that we have 24MP sensors as the norm.....is a crop of a 28mm shot to a 50mm FOV still give you a a 6 or 8 MP image?

That seems to be what Leica is banking on to some extent. If you didn't see, the new Q has a 28mm lens, but also has a 35mm and 50mm crop mode that are 15MP and 8MP, respectively. If you shoot JPG they're cropped in camera, if you use DNG format then LR will show the crop by default but you can change it in post and retain the entire file.

That's one of the pluses of the models coming out with 36-50MP resolution. I've had a D800 for 2.5 years, and while i don't like dealing with the huge file sizes it really is nice to have the ability to crop in post while still retaining a respectable file size. The extra detail is great if you do any retouching work for portraits. In-depth retouching will make you very picky about detail in your files in a hurry :D
 
I want one badly, but I need a snug compact case like the 18709 X1 case that protects the lens barrel. The half-case and holster have no protection.
 
Probably did miss your point. It's not that my arguments work for me - this CAMERA would work for me. I know my preferences really well by now. I know what features matter to me and which don't and this one has all the ones I care about, and probably several I don't care about. Nonetheless, I just don't have that kind of scratch floating around, the Coolpix A does the same things probably 90% as well, the Df with the right lens probably does it every bit as well with a bit of a size/weight penalty, and I HAVE both of those cameras. So I'll enjoy this one from the sidelines, much as I might like to be in the game...

Anyway, happy shooting with whatever combination of gear floats your boat.

-Ray

Ray, apologies for my terse reply to you earlier. I think to be fair, I am somewhat annoyed at Leica. Why could they not have done an integrated EVF like this with a MF lens (peaking) in the X1/X2 series and priced it accordingly? For some of us that is enough IQ. Sure we always want more but its often hard to justify more camera expense when the prints don't go to that size. Add to it IMO my images are not good enough content wise to merit such a price.

While the X2 does have the slide on EVF, one of the reasons I am on forums like this is one of my first criteria with a camera these days is size/performance with price quickly thrown in. I do hope Sony do a RX2 as I might push the RX1 price down a bit and I might just try a RX1 soon.
 
I've read a few reviews and it seems as though Leica's made a really great camera with the Q ... a worthy followup to the RX1 which itself is a fantastic camera. What will be most interesting to me is whether Sony follows this with an RX2 with a built-in EVF or something along those lines.

Definitely the price is high but can't be that much of a surprise given the RX1 + EVF was within $1000 of that price new. Maybe Leica will actually include a battery charger with the Q for the price premium :p
 
Sony has a whopping advantage at this moment, because they can do new tech at much lower cost than Leica - a double whammy.
 
It looks like a winner but for me the 28mm is my least used fl. What worries me more, and this applies to the RX1 too, is that once the sensor fails and it becomes an obsolete model, the camera is then useless. That beautiful lens would be wasted.
 
It looks like a winner but for me the 28mm is my least used fl. What worries me more, and this applies to the RX1 too, is that once the sensor fails and it becomes an obsolete model, the camera is then useless. That beautiful lens would be wasted.
Very true. It's a downside of all fixed lens cameras, but it's a lot easier to stomach in something that costs several hundred dollars than a few thousand! Ricoh tried to get past that to some degree with the GXR, but by combining the lens and sensor in the same module, they didn't leave anything terribly important for the body to do, so you'd still have to replace the lens and sensor at the same time. Maybe for higher end cameras like this and the RX1, where so much value is in the lens, they should think about some way of doing an upgradable sensor program, where you can send the camera in every few years and have a newer, more up to date sensor, installed. Don't know how realistic, but seems one way to improve the cost-benefit with cameras like this. I think it's tough to beat interchangeable lens systems on a lot of levels, but of course they have their downsides too, generally related to size when you can't bury a good portion of the lens inside the body. And there's also something about the perfection of mating a sensor and lens in a body - even down to the level of the small sensor GRD cameras, it really made a difference. In some sense, NOTHING I've used has matched the best of the images I got out of the RX1.

I like 28mm a LOT, but not nearly enough to spend like this on it. Maybe in a couple of years, if the used prices get down below $2000 and if these don't have Leica's typical QC problems, I'd think about getting one then. Leica gear (at least the non-Panasonic Leica gear) doesn't usually tend to depreciate that much, but this is a new direction for them and it seems to be drawing radically more interest than any of their other recent high end offerings. That tells me they're trying and succeeding at playing in more of a mainstream market (as does everything about this camera, including how clearly they're trying to emulate the RX1 and do it one better). And, if so, the depreciation is likely to be more like everything else in the mainstream market as well. A lot of non-traditional Leica buyers are lining up for this model, and they'll probably be more ready to jettison it when something better comes along in another 2-3 years than the typical M-system owner has been, because nobody's really been competing on the same ground as the M system...

-Ray
 
I have one on the way. The decision wasn't easy. Prior experience with the Leica X1, Nikon Coolpix A, Panasonic GM1, Leica X Vario, Leica T - all helped inform the decision. Here are a few impressions:

Leica X1: A beauty - the right size and format, great images, no complaints whatever.
Nikon A: Very small - the handiest fixed-lens camera ever, but images lacked warmth.
Pana GM1 w/12-32: Very cute camera - nice images, no complaints, easy to shoot one-handed with objects in other hand.
Leica X Vario: Great lens and images, a bit too slow for a zoom lens.
Leica T w/18-56: Same comments as X Vario, except the T never felt like a Leica. The touch screen was OK, but given a choice the X Vario was much nicer to hold and shoot.

Given my experiences in cropping with the above cameras, I expect to use the 35-50 crop features of the Q, at least initially. But the priority is on seeing in 28 mm, and the prior cameras paved the way for that.
 
[...]

I like 28mm a LOT, but not nearly enough to spend like this on it. Maybe in a couple of years, if the used prices get down below $2000 and if these don't have Leica's typical QC problems, I'd think about getting one then. Leica gear (at least the non-Panasonic Leica gear) doesn't usually tend to depreciate that much, but this is a new direction for them and it seems to be drawing radically more interest than any of their other recent high end offerings.

Ray, I think you doth protest too much... I have a feeling I'm going to log in several months down the line and you'll have a Q in your hands somehow anyway - hahah. :D

The depreciation factor on the Q should be interesting. The RX1 pricing took a nose dive despite it being a well loved and excellent camera. I'm curious if the Q will have a similar trajectory or if it'll be more typical of the Leica brand's general propensity to hold value. I would have to imagine used value of the Q would also be affected if/when there is any response from Sony in form of an RX1 mkII or similar.
 
Ray, I think you doth protest too much... I have a feeling I'm going to log in several months down the line and you'll have a Q in your hands somehow anyway - hahah. :D

The depreciation factor on the Q should be interesting. The RX1 pricing took a nose dive despite it being a well loved and excellent camera. I'm curious if the Q will have a similar trajectory or if it'll be more typical of the Leica brand's general propensity to hold value. I would have to imagine used value of the Q would also be affected if/when there is any response from Sony in form of an RX1 mkII or similar.

I got a very good resale on my used X1 and X Vario, but couldn't get more than 1/3 of what I paid for the 'T'.
 
Ray, I think you doth protest too much... I have a feeling I'm going to log in several months down the line and you'll have a Q in your hands somehow anyway - hahah. :D

The depreciation factor on the Q should be interesting. The RX1 pricing took a nose dive despite it being a well loved and excellent camera. I'm curious if the Q will have a similar trajectory or if it'll be more typical of the Leica brand's general propensity to hold value. I would have to imagine used value of the Q would also be affected if/when there is any response from Sony in form of an RX1 mkII or similar.

Jay, given my history and how fickle I've been with cameras at times, I get why you'd hold this suspicion. But my GAS has overwhelmingly calmed down over the past year or year and a half. Once I'd tried the DF, but before I'd bought it, I tried to double down on Fuji and tell myself I didn't care about what full frame had to offer. But I couldn't sell myself on that, largely based on the experience I'd had with the RX1. Once I just said "screw it" and sold all of my Fuji gear and my small remaining m43 kit and bought into Nikon just about a year ago, I really haven't had any second thoughts or lusted after anything else. BTW, I recall you making similar assertion when I was talking about my early satisfaction with the Nikon gear, that I'd have moved on and bought something else within months. But I haven't - just a few lenses, mostly old ones that are incredibly inexpensive.

Looking forward, high resolution ain't my drug of choice, so the higher res full frame sensors that seem to be coming down the pike don't matter to me - I simply love the images I can turn out with the DF's meager 16mp, the flexibility it gives me to use older lenses (which weren't built for ultra high-res sensors) and the incredible job that sensor does in low light. I know the 12 mp in the Sony A7S is a bit better yet, but the DF is so good I don't care, and I pretty vastly like Nikon's controls more than Sonys. I miss the RX1 just a little for no good reason other than it was a pretty special little camera and I hate to let stuff like that go. But I like the DF so much I just wasn't using it and I'm pretty unsentimental - if it doesn't get used, it doesn't take up shelf space or budget space. I suppose if there's a DF2 at some point with a 20mp sensor that's notably better yet at high ISO and DR (rumored for a coming D5), I might take a look at it. But I'd probably wait a while and buy that used or refurbished too - I just want for nothing right now. With the possible exception of a great auto-focus 135mm... :cool:

I think I primarily got excited about the Leica when I first saw it because it appeared to fill in all of the little details I'd have improved about the RX1 if I could have when that was my main camera. It's 28mm, it's much better set up for zone focus, and it has a great auto ISO setup with shutter speed control in A mode - a real serious pet peeve of mine ever since I discovered the power of that setup for how I shoot when I first got the Coolpix A almost two and a half years ago. But I lost my lust pretty quickly and the reason is that I already have that camera completely surrounded. I have the very small version in the Coolpix A which does EVERYTHING the Leica does but with a somewhat lesser lens and sensor, but still suits my needs really well, at let's say 85-90% of the quality of the Leica. And I've got the DF with some excellent lenses that does EVERYTHING the Leica does at least as well, is better in low light, and only has a penalty of a bit of size and weight (but not enough to have ever bothered me), and a louder shutter (which rarely bothers me and I've got the Coolpix A for when it might). So the DF is really a slightly bigger package that does everything I want it to do better than the Leica and the Coolpix A is a slightly smaller and lesser version of nearly the same thing. I have a little sports car and a luxo-cruiser - I just don't feel the need for a mid-size sedan in this area...

And the two Nikons also do something that the Leica doesn't, which is frankly pretty key for how I shoot a lot too. I like to have groups of custom settings that I switch between pretty often. On the fixed lens Coolpix A, I only have and only need two. On the DF, with the variety of lenses and uses I have for that camera, I have four groups of settings. And I really like to be able to switch between them fairly quickly - at the very least between a street and non-street setting as I walk around urban areas (which I do quite a lot). I can do this on the mode dial of the Coolpix A, which has two custom settings, and I can do it in the shooting "banks" on the DF, which I'm able to name so I know what each group of settings is for. Even my little Canon G7X does this brilliantly moving between street and non-street - it's custom setting even remembers my manual focus distance, which none of the other cameras do. The Leica has all of the specific settings I need and has a set of "user profiles" that you can use as different banks of custom settings BUT there's no way to switch between them easily. They may fix this in firmware at some point, because the X and the M models have quicker access to these custom settings, but the Q requires a pretty cumbersome menu-diving exercise to switch between groups of settings. It's not even a few button clicks, it's MANY. Even if they fix that problem in firmware, I don't see what the Q would add to what I've got other than a third mid-point option for a set of uses I already have well covered with two cameras - three really counting the little Canon G7X. Despite the initial excitement because this camera sounded just like something I once wished I had, I really already have it. Twice. With one option that's smaller and one option that's better in terms of my preferences.

So I'm good. Really I am. I reserve the right to buy a used one in a couple of years or more if the reviews are uniformly great and for some reason I need something new to play with and the price comes waaaaaay down. But I wouldn't spend over $4000 on it even if I was convinced it was absolutely PERFECT and was actually substantively BETTER than what I've already got. And it's neither. Besides, the price is just crazy money. Even the RX1 was too much money when I bought it new in early 2013. But for a while I had a source of photo-related income and I could sort of justify that one time splurge. But at any other time of my life (definitely including now) $2800 would be waaaay too much to spend on a fixed lens, fixed focal length camera. And $4200 is just laughably beyond ridiculous. The only way your prediction comes true is if I hit the lottery and money ceases to even have value. But I don't play the lottery.

-Ray
 
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