5 Thoughts about the Leica Q2
As some may know, I’m a big fan of compact cameras. I already own the fuji x100v and I’m totally happy with it. But I also always wanted to try the Leica q2. So I made myself an early Christmas present and got myself one used for an awesome price. Over the last weeks, I used it on a couple of different occasions and now I wanna share some thoughts about the pros and cons of this cam with you. Little Disclaimer: This is not a review, there are already plenty out there, this is more about how work & feel is with this camera and I’m not paid to do this.
Design
- Well, you can call me stupid, but one of the main reasons I bought this camera is purely about aesthetics. The sleek minimalistic design brought into a beautiful magnesium-alloy body is just beyond beautiful to look at. Also, the weather and dust resistance with an IP52 rating is great. It’s the same feeling I get from my Fujis, it just brings so much joy to work with such a beautiful device. The grip is okayish on the camera, there is this little add-on for the thumb which you can put into the hot shoe, which I would assume is a nice addition. Since we have winter conditions right now in Austria, the alloy body gets extremely cold, so using it without gloves in a few minus degrees is pretty hard. But overall, it’s amazing, the only thing I wanted to see on a Q3 would be ISO Dial. The fixed display looks great in the body, but a tilt screen would make shooting more enjoyable from low angles. So this is where I’m a little torn apart.
Lens
- The 28mm f1.7 is brutal. It’s sharp, it’s wide, has good contrast, beautiful bokeh, and minimal distortion. For my style of shooting, I would rather prefer a fixed 35mm lens, but due to the crop modes of the 47-megapixel sensor it’s not that of a bummer. A nice addition is a macro mode, which lets you get pretty close to your objects. Changing the aperture on the lens is great, but the ring could be thicker. Especially with gloves on, I have a hard time finding the aperture ring fast enough.
Image Quality
- The Image Quality of the RAW Shots from this camera is great, you get good-looking pictures with a nice dynamic range and great detail. You can shoot as low as ISO 50 and get great colors out of this camera. The crop modes also come in very handy, so you can additionally shoot in 35, 50, and even 75mm. You expect nothing less from a Leica. But the RAW Files with around 80 MB per photo are rather big and if you have a slow SD Card it takes a while to write them onto the card.
Auto Focus Performance
- I only use single AF Points for my work so far and for this, the AF is snappy and does its job very well. Face detection is a bit slow though and if a person turns their face away from the camera it may lose the subject. If you wanna switch to manual focusing, you get a nice linear focus ring with focus peaking which works very well. I haven’t tried the AF in the video, for me, this camera is stills only.
Some other small things…
- The Battery is okay, I get around 300 shots from one fully charged battery. I wish it had two SD Card slots, would make me feel better if know I can shoot back-up.
After all, this is a great camera for its purpose of a street-style compact camera. The combination of a good sensor and a stellar lens means that the Image quality is amazing. The autofocus isn’t up with the greatest sports cameras but it’s more than sufficient for a photographer’s wide-angle compact. The Q2 is beautifully built, fits nicely in the hand, looks sensational, and takes good photos. It’s an all-in-one package to get started in the LEICA System. The price is high and hard to justify for a compact camera, but sometimes it’s hard to put a price on joy. ;)
