Leica Q Digital Camera Review

But just when you think you have an idea of where the barriers are, something like the Leica Q (MSRP $4,250) comes along and flips that logic on its head. While it won’t do anything for people without a laughable amount of disposable income, it’s a near-pocketable camera that has a fantastic full-frame image sensor, a gorgeous 28mm f/1.7 Summilux lens, and thoroughly modern features like 10fps burst speed, autofocus, 1080/60p video, and WiFi.

At over $4,000 it’s not for everyone, but it’s a halo product—something for everyday photographers to lust after and other camera makers to aspire to. For Leica, in particular, it’s something of a milestone, marrying the company’s storied attention to craftsmanship and build quality with the kind of convenience and alacrity that Leica has typically failed to deliver with its newer digital cameras. {{amazon name="Leica Q (Typ 116), black anodized", asin="B00ZRS5UXM", align="right"}}

It’s not the first of its kind, and it’s certainly not perfect, but it distills everything that makes a Leica a Leica and condenses it into an approachable, compact package. It may only ever wind up being a big fish in an ever-shrinking pond, but damn if it doesn’t deserve to make a splash.

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Design & Handling

All the charm of Leica's heavy hitters, just smaller.

Ever walk into an IKEA and see one of those carefully tailored, 180 square foot apartments, where every inch is accounted for? They’re not impressive because of the amount of stuff the designers squeezed in the room—I have closets packed full of more junk—but because the rooms still feel airy and light; there’s still room to stretch out.

That’s the feeling I get when I pick up the Leica Q. Though the body isn’t as compact as its spiritual predecessor, the Sony Cyber-shot RX1, it’s still relatively small, looking like a shrunken version of Leica’s flagship M-series cameras. Despite this, the body still feels practically barren compared to most cameras on the market, even with a 3-inch LCD, an EVF, a hot shoe, control dials for aperture/shutter speed/exposure compensation, a d-pad, and an AE/AF lock button.

Along the left side of the LCD you’ll also find all the rest of the buttons for accessing the full menu, ISO speed settings, a customizable function button, and playback. Like Leica’s M-series cameras, the control scheme is designed to give you everything you need and nothing you don’t, letting you worry about the basics: compose, focus, shoot.

It’s worth noting here that, unlike the M-series, this camera also integrates both autofocus and autoexposure, like any other point-and-shoot. Though past Leica-branded point-and-shoots—and last year’s Leica T—offered autofocus, it’s usually come at the expense of the fine manual control that Leica M owners desire. Not so with the Leica Q.

Lens

As sharp and well-designed as a finely tailored suit

The credit for that goes almost entirely to the beautiful 28mm f/1.7 Summilux lens that is permanently paired with the Q. I say “paired” because, like with a DSLR, the lens feels like an equal partner here. Unlike most point-and-shoots where the lens is merely one small piece of the puzzle, the Q’s lens is, without question, the star of the show.

From a design perspective, it looks like any other Leica lens. It’s expertly crafted, offering supreme build quality and attention to detail. It has three main control rings, one for aperture, one for focus, and one for focus range, with an adjustable focus scale between the focus/focus range dials. Unlike most Leica M lenses, the aperture and focus controls here are “by-wire,” meaning they don’t physically alter aperture or focus directly, but send commands to the camera. So when you turn the aperture ring while the camera’s off, nothing happens.

That may feel like a disappointment, as “by-wire” is usually a watchword for “low quality” lens design—especially when it comes to focus rings. But Leica’s done a simply incredible job of designing a focus motor that is so precise that the focus ring feels as smooth and responsive as any mechanically coupled focus ring that we’ve used. It’s like driving a sportscar with power steering; it makes the experience feel effortless, to the point you don’t even know it’s there.

That’s essential, because though the Q offers a fast and accurate autofocus (even in dim light), it’s designed with manual focus shooters (such as Leica M owners) in mind. Activating autofocus is relatively easy—just hold a button and turn the dial all the way to one side—but it’s shuffled off to one side, practically inviting you to simply do it yourself.

Features

The Q is far more modern than we ever thought we'd see.

For most Leica M-series cameras, listing the features doesn’t take all that long; they usually don’t have many. For the M-inspired Leica Q, however, there are tons. In addition to the physical hardware—the 3-inch LCD, the 3m-dot EVF, and the 28mm f/1.7 lens with its macro/normal focus range switch—there are lots of digital features worth discussing.

The first is definitely the WiFi integration. Like several recent Leica cameras, the Q comes packed with WiFi and NFC. This lets you use your smartphone as a remote viewfinder and control, while also allowing you to shuttle photos right from the camera to your phone and on to services like Flickr and Facebook.

The Q also comes replete with a full suite of video controls, letting you make adjustments on the fly while recording video in 1080p at 24 or 60 frames per second. It’s not on par with similarly priced video options, of course, but it’s a nice extra. It even has optical stabilization that’s active during both stills and video.

My favorite features, by far, are reserved for shooting stills, though. Manual focus, especially, has been given some nice enhancements in the form of focus peaking and magnification, putting the razor-sharp EVF to good use. The aforementioned focus range ring enhances this even further, letting you reduce the minimum focus distance from 0.3m down to just 0.17m by rotating the ring. Rotating this ring even causes the actual focus scale to shift up and down, revealing the adjusted distances.

For more fast-moving subjects you can also swap to autofocus. The system is entirely contrast-based, so it slows down a bit in low light, but it’s highly accurate. It’s the main thing that separates the Q from the Sony RX1, which was plagued with slow, imprecise autofocus. The Q even offers 10fps maximum burst speed, letting you snap off a torrent of photos when necessary.

Performance

It's hard to beat a full-frame sensor.

The Leica Q excelled in nearly every performance test we threw at it. The combination of a tack-sharp 28mm f/1.7 lens, a 24-megapixel full-frame image sensor, and the Maestro VII processor is a potent one, shredding through most typical shooting situations with ease.

In our still image tests the Leica Q showed expansive dynamic range approaching a full 13 stops at the base ISO of 100—nearly on par with the Nikon D810. The images offered the kind of warm look that you expect from Leica glass, though it still managed to offer clinical color accuracy in most shooting environments. This is in large part due to the exceptionally accurate white balance system, which nailed the color temperature of the scene in all but the warmest tungsten lighting.

The Q impressed us still further with its 10fps continuos burst speed, even when capturing RAW and JPEG shots together. Capacity wasn’t infinite, but it was enough to capture short bursts of action with ease—something helped along by the snappy and accurate autofocus system.

In video the Q didn’t do quite as well as some of the newer cameras we’ve tested. it had predictable success in our low light sensitivity test (able to capture usably bright images with just 5 lux of light) but the maximum resolution of 1080p limited peak resolution to right around 650 line pairs per picture height—about half as sharp as 4K-capable cameras. The video looks nice and smooth when shooting 1080/60p, though you can achieve a slightly more cinematic look by shooting in 1080/24p if that’s what you’re after.

Add it up and you have a camera that offers image quality that is the equal of many of the best full-frame DSLRs, but in a package that’s still smaller than the best point-and-shoots. The lack of 4K video means it isn’t quite as future-proof as other options in this part of the market, but we seriously doubt people are buying the Leica Q for its video chops anyway.

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Conclusion

It isn't for everyone, but the Q is the Leica we've been waiting for.

When I first picked up the Leica Q, pretty much the first words out of my mouth made me look like an idiot. I asked aloud, to a conference room full of several Leica people, how they managed to create a lens with such quick, quiet autofocus that also offered such a well-done, physically coupled focus ring.

When the Leica people assured me that it was actually a by-wire system, they admitted that they’d almost all made the same mistake. I mean, seriously, what kind of sorcery is this? After years of reviewing cameras, it’s rare for a camera to hoodwink me so completely. The ring felt so smooth, so exact, that it simply had to be an entirely manual focus ring.

Once I got the Q back into our imaging test labs, it continued to impress and surprise me. The lens is incredibly sharp, the bokeh is beautiful, and sensor offers expansive dynamic range on par with some of the best cameras on the market. And the 10fps burst speed? It's light years ahead of what I typically expect from a Leica.

The rest of the package is equally impressive: the EVF is big, bright, and very sharp; the focus peaking and magnification work wonderfully with the lens; and the video quality is (again) much better than I was expecting from Leica. There are a few hitches—the 28mm focal length isn’t my favorite and the color accuracy is hit or miss—but generally speaking this is a world-class point-and-shoot that blows past the RX1 in almost every way.

Of course, it’s also about twice as expensive as the RX1, and several times more expensive than any other point-and-shoot on the market. As is always the rub with Leica, the price is far beyond what would typically be a “sane” budget for a single camera—even one this good. It's everyone we love about the Leica M shrunken down, with all the annoying bits sanded down. It's so good we're no longer wondering if Leica can make a Mini M—now we want to know if they can make a bigger Q.

By the Numbers

Given that this point-and-shoot packs a full-frame image sensor, it's not surprising that the level of performance you'll get with the Q far outshines any of the other point and shoot cameras on the market. Just about the only camera that's come close is the Sony RX1, but given that the Leica Q is significantly newer, packs a better lens, and has much faster autofocus, it's really no contest. Is it perfect? No, but our lab tests reveal an extraordinarily powerful compact camera.

Color and White Balance

With a ∆C00 (saturation-corrected) error of 2.26 and an overall saturation of 108% in daylight, the Leica Q will offer you about as good color performance as you could want. While it's not quite perceptually perfect, you're not going to notice any glaring issues with your shots as far as color is concerned.

White balance is a similar story. While not perfect, at worst you can expect color deviations of about 600 kelvin in incandescent light—_at worst_. This, combined with the ability to simply shoot in RAW will leave you with accurate snaps whenever you need them, and photos that take on a slightly warm hue for times when you rely on JPEG alone.

Best results are found in scenes lit by natural daylight, but the camera can handle fluorescent light very well too. Both types of light will result in color temperature errors of of around 100 kelvins each, so you have nothing to fear in changing light.

Sharpness

To put it bluntly, you're not going to find a sharper point and shoot on the market. Not only does this 24-megapixel monster use a full-frame lens to collect lots of light, but it also has an insanely sharp lens to boot. Consequently, pictures taken with the Leica Q will rival high-end pro cameras for sheer detail.

Even at f/1.7—the widest possible aperture—you can expect lens sharpness to kiss 3,100 line widths per picture height. That's incredible, as even some of the best lenses we've tested aren't that good.

For best results, stopping down to f/4 will make your shots appear marginally sharper, but you're unlikely to notice a huge bump in performance here. It's almost purely academic at this point, but rest assured: this is a lens that Leica should be proud of.

Noise

Without noise reduction, the Leica Q takes fairly junk-free shots. That full-frame sensor collects a lot of light, so this isn't much of a surprise; whatever noise there is winds up looking minimal at worst, even in times when you need to push the ISO sensitivity.

However, the waters muddy a bit here. As far as full-frame sensors go, this one actually doesn't do so hot compared to top-of-the-line options like the Nikon D810. However, compared to other point and shoots, it's exceptionally good.

The Leica Q doesn't cross the 2% noise threshold until ISO 6400, which is fairly standard for a camera in this price range. Above that shots are usable, but for best results shoot in RAW and process the images manually. This will ensure you leave the detail where it belongs while still being able to reduce noise effectively.

Video

Video performance with the Q is perfectly acceptable, with natural motion and little frequency interference. Though it doesn't offer things like 4K, the 1080p video at 60 fps is sharp, smooth, and appealing. It's about half the detail you'd expect to see when recording 4K, but it's on par with even the best non-4K DSLRs.

In our tests, the Q can resolve 650 line pairs per picture height in bright light—not bad, all things considered. In order to maintain a 50 IRE image, you'll need to have lighting of 4 lux or higher, as the Q can't produce a usably bright image with less light. That's still a very respectable number, bested only by cameras that allow for insanely high ISO sensitivities while recording video.

Dynamic Range

To test dynamic range, we make use of the Xyla-21 from DSC Labs. This backlit chart provides us with up to 20 stops of dynamic range in a single scene—far beyond the capabilities of even the best cameras on the market. To arrive at our results we measure from peak white to the point where a patch no longer reaches a certain light level, or it becomes overwhelmed with noise.

If you're worried about dynamic range, don't be: the Leica Q's shots taken at base ISO (100) have 7.91 stops of high-quality DR (the point where hte signal to noise ratio drops below 10:1). That's not the best we've ever seen, but it's more than enough to push your exposures in post-processing a couple stops to get the right look. From there, dynamic range tails off the higher ISO speed you use. High-quality DR drops below 7 stops after ISO 400, and doesn't hit 0 until ISO 12,500. That's great for any camera on the market, particularly because the dynamic range stays so high up until ISO 800.

When we lower our quality threshold and count to the point where signal-to-noise ratio falls below 1:1, then the Q manages an impressive 12.3 stops at ISO 100. Again, that's not the best that we've seen, but it's about on par with esteemed full-frame DSLRs like the Canon 5D Mark III.