New Leica Q

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Geektastic

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# 175051 15-Jun-2015 22:07

Just been reading some early reviews on this camera which was officially released last week. US price is $4250. No price or availability for NZ yet that I have been able to find. One dealer suggested NZ$6k.

Essentially, the best of an M series, in a smaller lighter body, with a full frame 35mm equivalent sensor (24Mp) and a fixed 28mm f1.7 lens. With an EVF and AF.

Looks like a really interesting camera. The images I have seen are really good.

I normally shoot with two DSLR bodies, one with a wide zoom (17-35) and one with a tele zoom (70-200) but there is a significant weight penalty for that set up and, having injured my wrist in a way that means it may never fully recover, I am intrigued by the idea of (for example) replacing the Nikon wide zoom body with a Leica Q at half the weight.

For some dumb reason they have not weather sealed it, which given that it begs to be used as a PJ camera, seems a strange decision.

On a wider note, it could be the beginning of the end for the M series. A "Q 2" with detachable lenses etc would kill the M more or less stone dead I think.

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# 1325505 16-Jun-2015 09:34

I'd be more inclined to wait and see how the Sony A7R II performs. As it's got on-sensor PDAF, and apparently Canon EF lenses will auto-focus efficiently via use of a (Metabones) adapter, then you've got something FX, relatively lightweight, high resolution - hopefully with Sony low read-noise performance, and aren't stuck with the limited (and expensive) range of Sony FE mount lenses.
Without lens, it weighs about the same as the Leica Q, but looks a lot more ergonomic and isn't permanently limited to 28mm.
Otherwise, wait and see what Nikon delivers in the way of an FX-sensor mirrorless body with F-mount. Could be a long wait, but pays to remember that they (Nikon 1 system) were first to get good AF performance from on-sensor PDAF, they do work closely with Sony sensor division, and despite lack of action so far, if the A7RII is as good as specs and early reports indicate, then it might be the first mirrorless system which could start eating into Nikon's FX body market - which is where they seem to have been putting most of their effort.

Geektastic

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# 1326104 16-Jun-2015 21:31

I'm not convinced that Sony really would deliver what I want yet and I won't work without AF so that means Sony lenses only anyway if you want to be certain.

I'm certainly not prepared to wait for Nikon: my wrist injury is now, not in several years time when Nikon have gone through 3 iterations of mirrorless to finally get it right, still with the same huge and heavy f2.8 lenses stuck on the front!

A more likely option would be to see if Olympus can take M43 sensors to the next generation of performance in terms of low light use and AF when they bring out the OMD EM 1 successor (EM 2 I presume!)

Any change I make (which is for my personal circumstances not a general reflection on how 'good' the tools are in general) has to reduce the size and weight of the glass as well as the bodies.

Batman

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# 1326119 16-Jun-2015 21:44

Can i ask if you shoot professionally or as a hobbyist.

Coz I'm a hobbyist who dreams of going everywhere with two slr bodies and two f/2.8 zooms. But i thought that would look silly esp if you have a Canon white elephant "look at my big lens" so i travel with one body and a superzoom for discreet-ness.

Swype on iOS is detrimental to accurate typing. Apologies in advance.

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# 1326146 16-Jun-2015 22:09

Geektastic: I'm not convinced that Sony really would deliver what I want yet and I won't work without AF so that means Sony lenses only anyway if you want to be certain.

I'm certainly not prepared to wait for Nikon: my wrist injury is now, not in several years time when Nikon have gone through 3 iterations of mirrorless to finally get it right, still with the same huge and heavy f2.8 lenses stuck on the front!

A more likely option would be to see if Olympus can take M43 sensors to the next generation of performance in terms of low light use and AF when they bring out the OMD EM 1 successor (EM 2 I presume!)

Any change I make (which is for my personal circumstances not a general reflection on how 'good' the tools are in general) has to reduce the size and weight of the glass as well as the bodies.

From what I've read, I don't think there's much doubt that Canon EF lenses, and third-party lenses with EF mount will work well with the A7R II.
I have no expectation that Sony camera division will survive - it's such a tiny part of their empire that on a whim, they could close it down and not care.

You can forget 4/3 making advances in high ISO/low light. Sensor quantum efficiency is already >50% - even if 100% could be achieved, then it's less than one "stop" improvement left. Remember that for # of photons collected across the sensor area, to equal f2.8 on FX format, you need f1.4 on 4/3 format. You can buy a light, cheap, 50mm f 1.8 FX lens for nicks. The equivalent 4/3 lens is a 25mm f0.9, which would cost 10x as much, weigh more, and offer less resolution.

I'm not a Leica fan, but in terms of "equivalence" the "Q" in 4/3 format has a 14mm f0.8 lens. I don't think that's coming in 4/3 format any time soon.

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# 1327149 18-Jun-2015 11:19

I plan to get the Leica Q. Just sold my A7S today, I was using it exclusively with the VM-E close adapter and M lenses. The Q is in a really interesting spot because it does a few things well for its price. This is going to sound crazy for a $6500 camera to say its a good price, however you just have to approach it from a M owner's perspective. I've been looking at getting the 35 1.4 FLE which is about $6800 just for the lens. If I did get it, it would still be a full manual lens on my M body, which is fine but with the Q, I get a 28 1.7 thats similar quality to M glass AND a full frame body AND really fast AF. Now you may wonder, why do I care about AF all of a sudden when I've been shooting in full manual, the answer is my wife can use it and I finally get to guest star in some photos that aren't taken with an iPhone. The Q also offers a massive boost in usable ISO range to my M9-P which I never push above 800.

The A7S with M glass really showed me that the M9 was no slouch, it's still renders colours better than any other body I've used including the old 5D2 I had. In the 6 months of owning the A7S as a secondary camera to the M9, I found I avoided using it when I didn't need it (which was only at night) cause I didn't want to spend time correcting colors in Lightroom all night from the Sony files. So the color rendering I've seen in the Q samples plus all the above is an instant buy for someone like me. It's sold out world wide now too, I know quite a few Leica shooters are they're all praising it, and these are people who have S2's M240's M246's to work with.

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# 1336199 3-Jul-2015 09:19

joker97: Can i ask if you shoot professionally or as a hobbyist.

Coz I'm a hobbyist who dreams of going everywhere with two slr bodies and two f/2.8 zooms. But i thought that would look silly esp if you have a Canon white elephant "look at my big lens" so i travel with one body and a superzoom for discreet-ness.

I shoot professionally. My cameras are Nikons so the lenses are not white. (the white lenses were apparently a work of marketing genius done so that they would stand out in TV coverage of sports games etc!)

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# 1336205 3-Jul-2015 09:26

koruki: I plan to get the Leica Q. Just sold my A7S today, I was using it exclusively with the VM-E close adapter and M lenses. The Q is in a really interesting spot because it does a few things well for its price. This is going to sound crazy for a $6500 camera to say its a good price, however you just have to approach it from a M owner's perspective. I've been looking at getting the 35 1.4 FLE which is about $6800 just for the lens. If I did get it, it would still be a full manual lens on my M body, which is fine but with the Q, I get a 28 1.7 thats similar quality to M glass AND a full frame body AND really fast AF. Now you may wonder, why do I care about AF all of a sudden when I've been shooting in full manual, the answer is my wife can use it and I finally get to guest star in some photos that aren't taken with an iPhone. The Q also offers a massive boost in usable ISO range to my M9-P which I never push above 800.

The A7S with M glass really showed me that the M9 was no slouch, it's still renders colours better than any other body I've used including the old 5D2 I had. In the 6 months of owning the A7S as a secondary camera to the M9, I found I avoided using it when I didn't need it (which was only at night) cause I didn't want to spend time correcting colors in Lightroom all night from the Sony files. So the color rendering I've seen in the Q samples plus all the above is an instant buy for someone like me. It's sold out world wide now too, I know quite a few Leica shooters are they're all praising it, and these are people who have S2's M240's M246's to work with.

I agree. I am almost certainly going to get one.

As a former M shooter who sold the lot (far too cheaply, just before Leica's renaissance!) principally because I could no longer reliably focus them, the Q is what the M should be. However, Leica will be well aware that if they made a Q that had interchangeable AF lenses nobody would ever buy an M again!

I am hoping that a Q2 with a Tri-Elmar or a fast 90mm on it is in the pipeline. With that and the Q1 I could certainly leave the DSLR's for studio or location work in NZ and take the Leicas when I travel.

Fred99

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# 1336249 3-Jul-2015 10:02

Geektastic:
joker97: Can i ask if you shoot professionally or as a hobbyist.

Coz I'm a hobbyist who dreams of going everywhere with two slr bodies and two f/2.8 zooms. But i thought that would look silly esp if you have a Canon white elephant "look at my big lens" so i travel with one body and a superzoom for discreet-ness.

I shoot professionally. My cameras are Nikons so the lenses are not white. (the white lenses were apparently a work of marketing genius done so that they would stand out in TV coverage of sports games etc!)

Not according to Canon:
http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/education/infobank/lenses/black_or_white_lenses.do

At a guess, that might have been exacerbated in the case of Canon's long telephotos because of the use of synthetic fluorite elements. Unsubstantiated rumour was that NASA chose Nikon over Canon for space missions because the flourite elements in Canon's long telephotos are more susceptible to mechanical shock damage than conventional low-dispersion glass. (until recently, Nikon only used fluorite in rare "UV Nikkor" 105mm lens). If that was true, then they're stuffed now, as the new ultra-telephoto Nikkors have fluorite elements too.
There's quite a selection of lenses on the ISS - Nikkors and one Sigma lens (300-800). Last information I saw was that NASA were using D3s. the Russians D3x bodies.
No Leicas up there - they did use Hasselblads a few decades ago (moon missions in particular) but left most of them behind - all but one apparently.

Geektastic

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# 1341968 13-Jul-2015 09:52

Fred99:
Geektastic:
joker97: Can i ask if you shoot professionally or as a hobbyist.

Coz I'm a hobbyist who dreams of going everywhere with two slr bodies and two f/2.8 zooms. But i thought that would look silly esp if you have a Canon white elephant "look at my big lens" so i travel with one body and a superzoom for discreet-ness.

I shoot professionally. My cameras are Nikons so the lenses are not white. (the white lenses were apparently a work of marketing genius done so that they would stand out in TV coverage of sports games etc!)

Not according to Canon:
http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/education/infobank/lenses/black_or_white_lenses.do

At a guess, that might have been exacerbated in the case of Canon's long telephotos because of the use of synthetic fluorite elements. Unsubstantiated rumour was that NASA chose Nikon over Canon for space missions because the flourite elements in Canon's long telephotos are more susceptible to mechanical shock damage than conventional low-dispersion glass. (until recently, Nikon only used fluorite in rare "UV Nikkor" 105mm lens). If that was true, then they're stuffed now, as the new ultra-telephoto Nikkors have fluorite elements too.
There's quite a selection of lenses on the ISS - Nikkors and one Sigma lens (300-800). Last information I saw was that NASA were using D3s. the Russians D3x bodies.
No Leicas up there - they did use Hasselblads a few decades ago (moon missions in particular) but left most of them behind - all but one apparently.

I've certainly seen D3 bodies in footage from the space station etc.

I cannot yet imagine a need for me to own the large teles. I had a 2.8 300 and the first gen 200-400 Nikons but sold both when I realised that they were more a PITA than they were useful! Shame it is not as easy to rent here in NZ as it is in the USA.

Hasselblad used to make a big thing in their ads about the moon cameras and how they did not need any mods other than bigger knobs so that they could be used wearing a space suit.

Of course, since all the shots were on a set in a secret hanger in the US it is a bit of a moot point whether they were left behind or not...!

ricky1981

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# 1342094 13-Jul-2015 12:40

Very tempted by the Q, currently using my RX1 but the EVF and fast AF would be very nice.

Geektastic - have you got yourself one yet?

ricky1981

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# 1349488 21-Jul-2015 19:57

Caved in and ordered one, will post here once I get my hands on it (sounds like it might be a long wait)

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# 1354944 29-Jul-2015 22:58

Spoke with Progear today and they have been told that it could be October before they are available in NZ.

Very annoying when you know that the Yanks had them on 11th June!!

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# 1354946 29-Jul-2015 22:59

ricky1981: Very tempted by the Q, currently using my RX1 but the EVF and fast AF would be very nice.

Geektastic - have you got yourself one yet?

Ordered but not got!

Given the dollar shift, the second tranche could see a big price hike.

ricky1981

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# 1354954 29-Jul-2015 23:03

Ouch, I know 2 came into the country but sadly I didn't get one. I'd been told it wouldn't be a huge wait but October is crazy so hopefully that'll turn out incorrect! I knew I should have held onto my RX1 a bit longer!

ricky1981

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# 1365527 13-Aug-2015 12:44

Geektastic - where did you preorder from? It seems only 2 resellers are now going to get Leica Q's due to some distribution changes :(

Edit: just saw you used ProGear, they are one of the 2 resellers. Apparently 2 Q's are coming soon, ProGear is getting 1 so if you are first on the list you should get it.

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