Leica Q2: Did I Make A Mistake?
The 28mm isn’t actually a 28mm. The black bar showing your exposure settings that pops up is annoying, the digitial zoom and crop features are a bit gimmicky and the auto white balance hasn’t got a clue what it’s doing, erm yeah Let’s talk about it.
I bought the Leica Q2 about 3 months ago so I thought I’d share my experience with it so far as the honeymoon phase is over and i’ll try explain my thoughts in this blog as if we’re sat in a coffee shop just chatting about it.
Image Quality
The image quality is outstanding. On 3 separate occasions when showing people a photo on the back of the camera they would react “woah, that’s so sharp” and verbally express their surprise in some way. These are by far some of the best files I’ve ever worked with. Bringing the photos up on a big screen, editing them in lightroom, the files are beautiful.
The 2 things contributing to that quality is no1. the sensor, obviously, and no.2 the lens. I’ve heard many of times from people saying the Q2 is entirely worth it just for the 28mm summilux lens. If you wanted a summilux 28mm equivalent it would cost around 5k so it’s funny that you can get the lens at f1.7 for cheaper but it’s attached to the Q2 body.
The 28mm is probably the best 28mm lens I’ll ever use and combined with the 47mp sensor, that is what carries this camera even with many other faults.
The Leica Look?
Talking of beautiful optics, what about that ‘Leica Look’ I don’t think anyone really knows exactly what it is. Peter Mckinnon referred to it as a “vibe”, which isn’t very detailed. I was in the Leica store recently and even spoke to one of the employees about the ‘Leica look’ and he couldn’t even give me a explanation for it either.
But after looking into it a bit it sounds like the leica look is about the colours, the deep blacks and the shallow depth of field, Bare in mind the 28mm isn’t going to cause much compression or subject isolation like a longer focal length would do but that does mean when shooting anything at f1.7/f2/f2.8 there’s just this subtle focus fall off which looks stunning, in a kind of dreamy way that gives it character. Because it looks so good I’ve started taking more casual snapshots of the little details around me as well.
It’s not a 28mm?
The 28mm focal length is a lie. I’ve heard many of times from people that the 28mm feels wider, that this summilux 28mm feels more like a 24 or 26mm. My opinion on that is that I don’t really have one. I still use the 28mm for 28mm purposes. Whether it’s a wide environmental shot or a hectic close up street scene where I’m trying to fill the frame. Whatever label you want to give the measurement. I think it looks amazing either way.
Im not saying all the people claiming it feels wider than a 28 are lying, they’re obviously noticing something and it’s a recurring theme if multiple people are mentioning it but this only becomes a probably if you actually don’t like the results. If you use a 28mm on something else and it looks like it should do, then you use the Q2 and it doesn’t feel right, that would be annoying I get that, But for me, the photos look great so I don’t mind, you still have to take into consideration the lens distortion, like you would with any wide angle lens but the distortion on this 24mm or 26mm or 28mm whatever you label it as.. it’s fine. I like how the images look.
Digital Cropping
The digital cropping feature feels a bit useless. For those that don’t know you can bring up 35, 50 and 75mm frame lines and the camera will deliver you a cropped version of your file. But it’s still take on a 28mm so it has none of the compression or characteristics of an actual 35, 50 or 75. But I’m not really complaining because you buy this camera knowing it’s a fixed lens so I don’t care to shoot any other focal length. If I want to crop an image in post I’ll do it according to that photograph, every image is different and requires it’s own edit but bringing up a pretend 35mm frameline just seems odd. But they’ve done it for a reason and I’m sure there’s people out there who like it.
Auto White Balance
The auto white balance is actually awful. It changes so much and so quickly which is surprising. I could have it facing in 1 direction and it goes cold and blue just for me to move a little bit in another direction and it completely switches its mood and goes warm… it’s unpredictable that’s what it is. When I go out to shoot, I just set it to cloudy or a custom kelvin whatever looks best for that situation and get on with it. It’s definitely a first world problem but worth mentioning as this camera is very expensive.
The Black Bar… why?
There’s a black Bar that comes up when you half press the shutter… it’s annoying. Fortunately I use the viewfinder most the time and it isn’t a problem that way. But surely this can be fixed with a software update?
