Leica Q3 43 review

89%

Overall score

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Key specifications

• 43mm F2 image stabilized lens
• 60MP BSI CMOS full-frame sensor
• Options to crop in to 60, 75, 90, 120 or 150mm equiv focal lengths
• 5.76M dot OLED EVF with 0.79x magnification
• 3″ tilt touchscreen LCD with 1.8 million dots
• Native ISO range of 100-100,000 (ISO 50 manually selectable)
• Hybrid autofocus (PDAF + contrast AF with DFD)
• Continuous shooting up to 15fps (7fps with AF-C)
• 8K video capture in UHD or DCI ratios up to 30p (H.265)
• Apple ProRes 422HQ support for 1080p video capture up to 60p
• AI-assisted perspective control and dynamic range tools for JPEG mode
• IP52-rated dust and water resistant
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth with connection to Leica Fotos app
• Wireless charging via optional hand grip add-on

The Leica Q3 43 will be available from today at a recommended price of $6895, nearly $900 (15%) more than the existing Q3 was at launch, though that price has risen by $300 in the meantime. An optional accessory grip, giving a more pronounced hand-hold and adding Arca-compatible flanges for tripod mounting, will cost $250.

Index:

• What’s new
• How it compares
• Body & handling
• Image quality
• Autofocus
• Video
• Conclusion
• Sample gallery
• Specifications
• Press Release

What’s new

In terms of what’s new, the answer is a paradoxical middle ground between: ‘very little’ and ‘everything.’

The only major feature change present in the Q3 43 is the focal length of its lens and, consequently, the equivalent focal lengths of its crop modes. It’s a completely new design comprising 11 lenses in 8 groups, including 7 aspherics [per a design patented by Panasonic]. It wears Leica’s ‘APO’ branding, indicating an apochromatic design that should optimize sharpness and minimize longitudinal chromatic aberration.

The focal length may sound unusual, to those more used to 28, 35 or 50mm options, but there’s a logic to the use of 43mm. 43mm is the length of the diagonal of a full-frame sensor, which means a 43mm lens is neither slightly wide-angle, as a 35mm would be, nor slightly telephoto, as a 50mm is.

The result is a camera that’s more flexible than a fixed 50mm would be, and more distinct from the existing 28mm Q3 than a 35mm would be. As someone who frequently uses the 35mm focal length, I found myself missing the slightly wide view I’d become familiar with, but quickly settled into the perfect normal view of the world the 43 gave me.

Anyone who’s used Panasonic’s 20mm F1.7 on Micro Four Thirds, Nikon’s 40mm F2 on Z-mount, a 28mm lens on APS-C or Pentax’s 43mm F1.9 Limited will instantly be at home. I’m not going to make claims that it matches the human field of view, because we don’t see a single field of view all at the same time, with the same acuity across the scene (our eyes don’t work like cameras), but it does intuitively feel like it captures ‘the world in front of me.’

You don’t really need to use the camera to know whether the Q3 or Q3 43 is right for you, as it’s simple a question of whether you prefer to capture a wide view including a lot of the scene, or if you want to be able to be a bit more selective. It’s really that simple.

‘Macro’ capabilities

Rotate the ring nearest the camera (on the right of this image) and a new distance scale slides forward from the barrel of the lens, showing the close focus range of the lens.

As with the previous Q cameras, the 43mm lens has been designed with a close-up option. This is engaged by turning the ring nearest the camera to the ‘Macro’ position. As you do so, a distance scale for closer focusing pushes forward, replacing the standard scale and indicating the closer focus range.

In its standard setting the distance scale indicates the range from 0.6m (23.6″) to infinity. Switching to the Macro position shortens this minimum focus distance down to 0.27m (10.6″), now maxing out at 0.6m.

Triple resolution and crop modes

The Q3 makes the most of its high-resolution sensor, offering 60, 75, 90 120 and 150mm equivalent crops of its sensor of approximately 31, 21, 14, 8, and 5MP, respectively. Of course, cropping in not only reduces the available resolution but also uses an increasingly small region of the sensor, with the expected reduction in image quality and low light performance as a consequence. The pixel-level IQ will look the same, but when blown up or viewed at a common size, the smaller sensor images will look worse. By 150mm equiv, you’re well into compact camera territory, so it’s probably worth only using in good light.

If you don’t find yourself needing 60MP files all the time, the Q3 43 can also output or 36 or 18MP files from its full sensor. These are downsampled from the original capture, so should be more detailed than actually using a 36 or 18MP camera. You can select the output size for JPEGs and Raw independently, so can opt for small JPEGs and full-sized Raws or, lower-res Raws with full-sized JPEGs, if you can come up with a rationale for doing so.

Leica Looks

In addition to the ‘Film Style’ color modes that come pre-installed on the camera, the Q3 43 lets you download up to six ‘Leica Looks’ via the Leica Fotos app. The distinction is that you can adjust settings such as contrast, saturation and sharpening for Film Styles, whereas Leica Looks are fixed, uneditable presets.

The latest version of the Fotos app adds a Leica Chrome option, bringing the choice of Leica Looks to seven. This can be installed on either of the Q3 cameras or the SL3. Unlike the SL3, though, you can’t edit the quick settings page, so you can’t put Leica Looks into that menu, if you use them rather than the Film Styles.

Perspective correction

It’s a mode perhaps better suited to the original Q3’s wide-angle lens, but the intelligent perspective correction mode does a good job of delivering an straightened image, out-of-camera. Click here to see an un-corrected version. Leica Q3 43 | F7.1 | 1/500 sec | ISO 100 Photo: Richard Butler

The Q3 43 has Leica’s perspective correction function. When switched on, this analyses the scene, looking for converging lines it thinks should be parallel, then calculates the necessary corrections based on this. The corrections are only applied to the JPEG image but the uncorrected Raw can be saved alongside. The JPEG is scaled back up to whatever resolution you’re currently operating the camera at.

How it compares

There are no other prime-lens compacts offering a 43mm (or equiv) field of view. The most obvious peer is the Ricoh GR IIIx, which has a 40mm equivalent prime lens built in. Its 24MP APS-C sensor can’t match the image quality and resolution of the Leica but also allows it to be much, much smaller and less expensive. The Ricoh’s lens is a stop slower in absolute terms, before you consider the impact on depth-of-field and whole-image light capture of its smaller sensor.

Fujifilm’s X100 VI has a wider, 35mm equiv lens – though we found it much easier to adapt to the 43mm field of view from 35mm equiv than we do switching back and forth between 35 and 28mm – and the cameras themselves are fairly different. The Fujifilm offers an interesting optical/electronic hybrid viewfinder and an APS-C sensor, whereas the Leica is full-frame and uses a conventional EVF.

Sony’s long out-of-production RX1 series would also be a meaningful comparison, thanks to its similarly-sized sensor and 35mm F2 lens, but sadly it’s a line that appears to have been abandoned.

As with most fixed-lens cameras, all four are built around in-lens ‘leaf’ shutters. These can’t reach the 1/8000 sec exposures often offered by high-end focal-plane curtain shutters but can sync with flashes all the way across their mechanical shutter speed ranges.

Body & handling

The Q3 43’s body is essentially identical to that of the Q3, which itself was a relatively gentle refresh of the design of the Q2. The principle difference being that the 43 version comes in a grey leatherette finish, and has the numbers 43 both on its lens and milled into its hotshoe.

It’s a design that takes its styling cues from Leica’s history, particularly with the rounded edges to the body, without directly mimicking the company’s flagship M rangefinder series. But, while there’s little risk of it being mistaken for an M, the overall design and use of typography is unmistakably Leica, even if you were to cover up the red dot logo on the front.

The controls are pretty minimal, with a dedicated shutter speed dial and aperture ring, both of which have ‘A’ positions, to pass their control over to the camera. Other than this, there’s a command dial on the rear shoulder that contains a customizable button at its center. It’s a system that helps focus all your attention on the fundamental settings of photography.

The command dial, in its default Auto setting, takes on a different role, depending on your exposure mode.

There are two more custom buttons along the top rear edge of the camera with the option to customize the central button of the four-way controller, which is primarily used for navigating the menus and positioning the AF point. Any of these buttons can be customized by holding them down. You can narrow-down the list of parameters available to be assigned to the buttons (on a per-button basis), so if you want to switch their function regularly, you can get straight to the options you want to select from.

There’s a focus tab on the lower right of the lens that includes a small button. This button needs to be pressed to move the focus ring out of the ‘Auto’ position, to engage manual focus.

Interface

The Q3 43 has the most recent version of the interface Leica has been evolving for the past few years. As on the Q3 and SL3, pressing the menu button brings up a quick settings screen showing the exposure settings at the top and an array of other camera settings below. This display is touch-sensitive and swiping left brings up a similar quick settings menu but for video settings, taking you into video mode.

Pressing the Menu button again takes you to Page 1 of the menu proper, and pressing it again starts to toggle through the menu tabs. As with the D-Lux8 this raises the odd prospect of pressing left to jump one page to the left but having to press Menu to do the opposite (pressing right on the four-way controller adjusts the current setting or enters a sub-menu). It’s a little quirk that doesn’t take too long to adjust to, especially as there aren’t many reasons to visit the main menu.

The Q3 43’s interface resembles that of the original Q3 so doesn’t yet include the updates made for the SL3, such as red color-coding for stills and yellow for video, or the ability to customize the quick settings menu. Instead you can save your prefered menu options in a ‘Favorites’ tab that appears as the first page of the main menus.

Viewfinder

The Q3 43 has the same 5.76M dot (1600 x 1200px) viewfinder as the existing Q3 model and the same 1.8M dot (560 x 640px) touchscreen that can be tilted up and down.

On the side of the camera is a small rubber door, behind which you’ll find a Micro HDMI port and a USB-C socket. Video footage can be output over the HDMI port but precisely what resolution and codec is used depends on whether you’re shooting L-Log, HLG or standard DR footage and whether you’re simultaneously recording internally.

The USB port is a 3.1 Gen 2 interface, meaning it can transfer data at up to 10Gb/s. This can be used for tethering to the Leica Fotos app, if you use an iPhone.

Battery

The Q3 43 uses the same battery as the wide-angle Q3, the 16Wh BP-SCL6. The battery life is rated at 350 shots per charge, using the CIPA methodology, which we find can regularly mean getting twice this figure. 350 is a very decent rating for a camera you’re likely to want to shoot with over the course of a few days.

The camera can be charged over its USB-C port, even while the camera is being operated. There’s also the option at add wireless charging. If you add an optional handgrip, the camera gains the ability to charge using standard Qi wireless chargers.

Image quality

Our test scene is designed to simulate a variety of textures, colors and detail types you’ll encounter in the real world. It also has two illumination modes to see the effect of different lighting conditions.

Because the Leica Q3 43 has so few direct peers and we’ve not always been able to get hold of production-spec Leicas for long enough to shoot our test scene, it’s a little difficult to know what to compare it to. So we’re primarily going to see how it looks alongside the Sony a7R V, with which it shares a sensor.

The detail levels are fractionally lower than with the Sony 85mm F1.4 GM lens, especially in the far corners, but very good for a fixed-lens camera. Noise levels, if anything, appear lower, despite Sony appearing to apply some sort of processing/noise reduction.

The Leica’s JPEG engine isn’t pulling out quite as much detail as the Sony, despite what appears to be quite heavy sharpening, that’s causing a little bit of over-shoot at high-contrast edges. Leica’s Standard color response is also quite unusual, with very magenta pinks and slightly dark yellows. The light pink patch is very neutral, which typically gives accurate, rather than attractive caucasian skin tones.

The default noise reduction aggressively supressed chroma noise but leaves unusually high levels of luminance noise. This approach both protects detail and gives the impression of detail, but means the images have a very high noise level. There’s an argument that this luminance speckling is analogous to film grain, but it takes some getting used to.

White balance

We also found the Q3 43’s Auto white balance could err on the neutral or even cool side. While, theoretically, you might expect auto white balance to try to cancel-out any tint the lighting might have, in practice most people prefer it to leave a little warmth to the scene. The above photo, shot using daylight entering from windows behind the camera, is the one that prompted me to stop using Auto white balance, as JPEGs were appearing very clinical.

ISO Invariance | Exposure Latitude

Lens performance

Our test scene isn’t supposed to be a lens test, but it’s shot from a reasonable distance, so for this focal length, it doesn’t do a bad job. The lens is very, very sharp, all the way up to its widest F2.0 setting. There’s a tiny drop-off in corner sharpness and some hint of vignetting, but these are only noticeable by comparison with stopped-down shots. Given we’re looking at pixel level at a 60MP image, it’s fair to say the lens is excellent.

These images were processed using Capture One, which enables us to use the manufacturer’s distortion correction profile but disengage correction of lateral chromatic aberrations and vignetting. The Q3 43’s lens is designed with geometric distortion corrected mathematically, so that other aberrations can be corrected optically without either increasing the size and complexity of the lens or adding to those aberrations through attempts to correct distortion.

Leica applies its ‘Summicron’ branding to the Q3 43’s lens and both our test scene and real-world shooting suggest it’s essentially free from chromatic aberration.

We don’t see any sense in assessing the performance of a lens with some of its elements removed: we’re only interested in the quality of the final image. And if the corners look this good after correction, we don’t believe it’s relevant whether that was achieved through glass or mathematics, especially if it allows the lens to be this comparatively small.

Autofocus

The Q3 43’s lens has a small focus tab, much like Leica’s M-mount lenses. There’s a small release button on the upper lip, which needs to be pressed to release the focus ring from the AF position into the manual focus range.

The Q3 43 has a series of AF modes: a basic AF spot, an AF field that can be shifted and scaled, multi-field or a large zone. There are also Eye/Face/Body detection and Eye/Face/Body + Animal detection modes that select a subject in the scene. You can then press the four-way controller to select between recognized subjects.

Autofocus on the Q3 43 is very quiet and reasonably speedy. We didn’t subject it to our standard autofocus test because we simply don’t believe that it usefully represents the sorts of autofocus challenge a camera with a 43mm lens will be subjected to. There was at least one rushed shot where the camera claimed to be in focus but wasn’t, but for the vast majority of our usage, it proved very quick for a fixed prime compact.

However, one issue we did encounter is that the Q3 43’s detection modes don’t let you specify an AF point to pre-select a subject. This is disappointing, and we found we had to turn face detection off when trying to shoot candid photos including multiple people: the camera would constantly jump from one subject to another, and find and lose people’s faces faster than it was possible to select them.

It’s been a while since we encountered a subject recognition system that doesn’t work in conjunction with a selected AF point and we found it made autofocus operation slower and more fiddly, at least in some circumstances.

This was our only real gripe about the AF, though. Generally, it’s swift and confident enough that you can rely on it without having to think too much.

Video

The Q3 43 has pretty ambitious video specifications, including up to 8K/30 capture and ProRes 422HQ footage at up to 1080/60. The camera can record video for up to 29 minutes. Leica says it’ll be possible to connect external mics via the USB socket, with options becoming available in October.

To access video capture you press the menu button then swipe left on the screen, revealing the video settings menu. You can then choose from a range of resolutions and codecs.

There are also FullHD / 1080 options at up to 120p either played back at capture speed or as slow-mo. Shooting up to FullHD/60 can be done using the ProRes 422HQ codec.

The level of detail capture in 8K is very high. UHD footage is essentially the same as DCI footage but with the edges cropped off, both in 8K and 4K modes. 4K footage up to 30p is derived from the same sensor readout as the 8K modes, and shows levels of detail comparable with the Canon EOS R5 II’s oversampled ‘HQ’ modes.

Framerates above 30p are sub-sampled (with the halved rolling shutter rate suggesting 50% line skipping). These modes are not just less detailed but exhibit prominent moiré.

Unfortunately, while detail capture is high, the rolling shutter rates are pretty significant. Most modes show over 30ms of rolling shutter, which will make them very prone to warped and distorted motion if things move quickly across the camera or if you pan.

Rolling shutter can also interact awkwardly with attempts at stabilization, as the movement to correct shake can both counter and exaggerate the distortion caused by the slow readout, leading to the so-called ‘Jello’ effect. We don’t see video as a particularly critical feature on a camera with a fixed 43mm lens and no means of monitoring audio, but the results are a little disappointing given how promising the specs look on paper.

Conclusion

By Richard Butler

The Leica Q3 43 is a beautiful piece of engineering and design, and a welcome addition to the range if you don’t see the world through the angle of view offered by the existing 28mm Q cameras.

Image quality is superb, with a lens that’s very sharp and with high cross-frame consistency even at wide apertures. The camera’s controls are also nicely focused on the fundamentals of photography, which is refreshing after the feature and icon overload that much of the industry has sleepwalked into.

The thread on the front of the lens has been cut so that the screw-in hood lines up exactly when fully tightened. It feels indicative of the attention to detail that’s gone into the camera.

The camera had a couple of quirks that felt relevant to the way it might be used. While its autofocus was swift and responsive, the autofocus interface feels a generation or so behind the competition. Its face detection mode ignoring your chosen AF point can make it almost impossible to keep the camera focusing on your preferred subject, especially when shooting candids.

The Q3 43’s Auto white balance mode can also be rather painfully literal: neutralizing any color cast in the scene and seemingly erring on the side of a rather cool rendition. This is no problem if you’re shooting Raw but a little off-putting. Most modern cameras recognize that there are times you want to preserve some of the ambience in a scene, or at least keep the colors on the flattering side of neutral. The rather hands-off approach to luminance noise also takes some getting used to.

The Leica Q3 43 didn’t magically make me a better photographer in the weeks I was shooting with it. But it did feel, as the best camera do, like something that would encourage me to keep practicing and support me as I went. Leica Q3 43 | F2.0 | 1/60 sec | ISO 160 Processed with Adobe Camera Raw Photo: Richard Butler

Overall, though, it’s an impressive photographic tool that has the build quality and attention to detail to leave no doubt that this is a distinctly premium product. That’s not going to convince everyone that it’s worth the asking price, of course, but that’s the nature of luxury goods: the exclusivity is part of the package. But, in a way that’s not always been true of Leica’s digital cameras, this does feel like a first-rate camera just as much as it’s a desirable object.

Personally, I found myself uncomfortable knowing I had something costing so many thousands of dollars slung over my shoulder (admittedly made still more acute by doing it at a time when it was both valuable and secret). And its size, even with a relatively compact lens, meant I couldn’t really pocket or conceal it.

Considerations of price and how you feel about the cultural meaning of such a product are deeply personal, and not something anyone is likely to be swayed on. But as a camera, it’s very, very good. If you want a camera that’s a Leica in every sense, but don’t want to commit the rest of your life to a quest for ever more unobtainable M-mount lenses, it’s just about everything you might hope for.

Scoring

Scoring is relative only to the other cameras in the same category. Click here to learn about what these numbers mean.

Compared to its peers

The Leica Q3 43 doesn’t really have any direct peers. The closest parallel is Ricoh’s GR IIIx, which is a much, much more compact camera but also one with a lens that’s a stop slower in absolute terms, even before you factor-in the effect of it having a much smaller sensor. The only fixed-lens camera that will give you the same image quality and photo-centric shooting experience as the Q3 43 is the existing wide-angle Q3. And the significant difference between a wide-angle and a perfect normal angle-of-view should make it obvious which makes sense to you.

The Q3 43 offers image quality and shooting experience to live up to the brand story that Leica has built around itself. You can fit a good lens to any number of mass-market full-frame mirrorless cameras can get something like the image quality, but you won’t get such an elegantly simple shooting experience (or such a small package). If the Leica brand and all it represents (including cost/exclusivity) doesn’t resonate with you, then that’s the more pragmatic route to take. But if it does, then nothing else will come close to working as a substitute.

Sample gallery

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