Leica Q3 Hands-on Street Photography Test - Who Needs an M?

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This video is sponsored by Squarespace the place  to go to if you want to set up your own slick   looking website or online store. I feel bad for  anybody who's just bought a Leica Q2 because this   Q3 is a much better camera in almost every respect. I say almost because in the looks department not   too much has changed. Lok: it's the same um...huge it's  really huge. A lot of time I thought this is a   compact camera then it is really huge. Kai: that's a  fast lens it's a Summilux - it's not that big for   a Summilux. Lok: you can't change the lens it's just.  Kai: the body is smaller than the M and the Q   is a popular body, it's great for people who don't  really want to faff about with the manual focusing   of the M - you know, you have to use a rangefinder,  old world-style focusing - this is just your point   and shoot; full frame point and shoot. Lok: but okay it  sounds better when you say it's a smaller M. Kai: Yeah   that's not quite what I said, the Q is a posh  fixed fast lens full frame point and shoe which   looks pretty gorgeous not something they really  needs to change too much. It's funny when they first   showed a leaked photo on Leica rumors and people  were going like "oh the grip texture is different" "the bottom plate is slightly thinner" When they  put the Q2 and the Q3 right next to each other   it's like what is the actual difference? But what  they didn't show is the back of the camera because   this is all new. Before you ask no it doesn't  flip vlogging style - how dare you even think that?  So it just does that for low down shooting and  that for kind of top down. It's a three inch screen   slightly higher resolution than before. And one thing  before it's got a nice clean round shape here, you   know just look at this side for example. Lok: Yeah, nice.  Kai: it's nice, Leica-like. It's like   the M but it's kind of...well the screen doesn't fit  flush with the camera, you can see it. You look on   the bottom, yeah, it sticks out a bit. I mean if  you look at this that's a nice touch isn't it.   That's your diopter adjustment. Lok: oh so it pops  out? Kai: Yeah then you adjust the diopter. It's kind of   surprising that they didn't make a screen flush  isn't it? Even though most people are going to hold   it like this, you know just in case you want to do  the whole tourist hold, if you do hold it on this side   these hard edges are not as comfortable as before.   Kind of that corner kind of digs into your palm,  most likely won't be a problem for most people   besides the positives far outweighs the negative.  I mean it introduces a new way of shooting   because this is not just for your serious Street  photographers. Street photographers are going to   gravitate towards the M. This is for people who like  taking lifestyle photos so that is handy to have   the tilt screen. It does have a nice solid  clunk to it when you tilt it, it just kind   of snaps into place nicely. German engineered tilt  screens. Literally like minutes of fun doing that.  And if you're a bit partial to photography on the  street, the waist level view is a neat alternative   to taking photos and you still have the evf to  turn to, which has also been tweaked with the Q3.   Anyway they have also put all of the buttons  that were on the left hand side before onto the   right hand side so you can have just have  a one-handed operation which kind of makes   sense with this kind of camera. And there's not  many buttons on the side I mean they've actually   got rid of a button on this side. Before they  had an FN button, Play and Menu as well   as this Directional Pad but now they've  just got Play and Menu so essentially one   of the buttons has just gone up there. Those  two are customisable buttons and then they've   got a customisable button in the middle of the  d-pad here and then customisable button here They make it nice and easy to customise the button  rather than go through the menu system you just   press and hold the button. Lok: that makes so much sense. Kai: and then you just choose whatever it is you   like - that's the great thing about the Leica design  is that it looks pretty simple, there's not many   buttons, it looks like oh it's such a basic camera  but it's the thoughtfulness of making it work with   those few buttons so that you don't really have  to faff about with all these different buttons and   dials, thinking about which which one should I press - I  just want to take photos! Less boring stuff is put   in the way of you and the picture taking process  and there's no camera more conducive to getting   that shot than the one right here. I think as  I'm getting older I find myself liking this more   before it was all about yeah I want to use the  M it's the purer camera with a manual   focus and stuff like that. You can manually focus  on this it's got a tab here let's press that   and then you rotate it to manual  focus because otherwise it's locked   it doesn't move. Lok: but yeah I mean it's not another button it's just the tab itself Kai: a nice smooth move. Smooth certainly and the  focusing tab makes for nice manual focusing if   a little stiff when new. But arguably you buy  a camera like this to let it focus for you   because they've improved autofocus on this it's got  phase detection autofocus, hybrid so it's   got contrast detection to make it snappier,  quicker. Why hybrid? Well because contrast detection   is still good especially in lower light if  you want it to be a bit more reliable so it   combines the reliability of contrast detection in  certain lights with the speed of phase detection   sometimes contrast detection is good when your  scene is contrasty and just picks up on that and   do make it focus but then phase detection you can't  beat the speed of that so this is actually faster   than Q2 to focusing kind of goes without saying  the Q3 does a great job of focusing on subjects   coming towards you - way to go Joe! So yeah not only  does it have phase detection they've got face, eye, animal   etc etc and it uses a depth from defocus DFD  it sounds a bit like Panasonic and actually   if you look at the screen it looks  very much like a Panasonic you know   all those boxes. Lok: isn't it look exactly like  the one I'm holding right now.   Kai: it's uncanny isn't it they didn't specifically  say it's from Panasonic but who knows Lok: pretty sure it's from Panasonic. Kai: but it works nice and quick it  detects all the bodies in from the back it's   a bit like Panasonic isn't it and you can you  can use the directional pad to choose between   the subjects. Look it doesn't matter when the AF system  comes from all right what matters is that the Q3 auto   focus is better than before in terms of speed  and is smarter with this subject detection   let's stop mentioning Panasonic okay. It's not  like Panasonic has just slapped the innards of   one of their cameras into this, it is different  it's a newer processor than the Q2 processor it's   got faster focusing it's got a faster burst  rate it's got 15 FPS burst weight but also   60 megapixels. I don't think there's a Panasonic  camera that does 60 megapixels that's high   resolution power right there lots of detail and  that's good because this is a 28 millimeter lens   if you want a different focal length well  you can't but you can crop it. You can crop   it inside the camera and it's got cool frame  lines so when you press the digital   zoom you can still see what it's like at 28.  just like the Leica M yeah and then this is 50 now when I say 60 megapixels you can choose  between large medium or small DNGs: 60, 36 or   18 megapixels so you don't have to have the full  60 megapixel DNGs, which is nice is that there's a benefit to using each it's not just a matter  of small medium large. The large for maximum   details, medium actually has a little bit more  dynamic range and even a smaller 18 megapixels   gives good enough resolution for a reduced raw  file size. DNG is quite handy, you just chuck it straight   into Adobe, don't have to wait for Aperture to update. I can't emphasise enough how cool DNG raw files  are, I shot raw here just put it straight into   current Adobe software and boom here we are. You  also have to remember that when you go from 28   millimeters through the different digital zoom,  digital crops, that it does lower the resolution.   um let's put a table here because  at 75 millimeters you get   eight megapixel image down to three  and then for 90 millimeters is six megapixels   maximum. The increased resolution has allowed the  addition of the 90 millimeter crop. There is plenty   of megapixels to play with up until 50 millimeter  with 18 megapixels. 75 and 90 are mostly fine for   viewing on screens but not great for printing  big. The 60.3 megapixel backside illuminated CMOS   sensor, most likely the same one as the one from  the M11, along with the newer than M11 processor   is a great combo. I'm pleasantly surprised that with  low light shots you can still get usable results   up to ISO 25000 after that chroma noise really  creeps in to poop on the party. And then you've   got features like perspective control from the M11, so really maybe it's not so bad to call   it a baby M11 after al,l but that won't be doing  the Q3 Justice because the monster performance   makes this a camera that you can rely on to get you  the shots you want to and with the addition of   the tilt screen it brings in a new dimension  for slick and stealthy street photography it   feels like a more complete camera and we're  not even done with the new features another thing is it's got 8K video that's  mad that's a total shock for me   8K video! I know right 8K so it's  not just something inherited from a   current Panasonic hybrid camera. That  button toggles between photo video   It crops in quite a lot. If  you're filming in 8K or 4K DC or not it incurs a   1.2 times crop. The only resolution you won't get  a crop in is 1080. And then it changes the menu   system of course. One thing is that if you've  set the shutter speed for video you'll have to   remember to change it when you switch to stills. I  forgot and ended up getting a shaky image like this. Log settings okay L-Log inside. Oh okay you can change sharpness   you can put Log profile on it. Before you  take a video if you do a digital zoom it still   shows the full 28 millimeter and then your frame  line but when you hit record it just shows the   cropped image. Remember that those different focal  lengths are digital crops, though even though that   the file sizes show the amount of pixels for  an 8K file, the cropped images have been upscaled   back to 8K. But overall the videos look great  the sound however...there's nowhere to put the microphone no 3.5 millimeter input and definitely no  headphones they do talk about adding USB-C   adapter to 3.5 millimeter a bit later  with a firmware update but for now   no mic well you just got this one built-in mic   so you can try to see what it sounds like this  is the built-in mic this is what it sounds like I mean let's see see what it sounds like here and  then we'll go out to the noisy Street in a minute   quite a different directivity setting also like  now is towards the front so it's twist B so now   I set it to the back this is towards the back  the internal mic actually sounds quite nice for   voices it's just that it will pick up a lot  of Ambient sound along with the vocals the   USB-C adapter is not 100 ideal but a decent fix for  audio especially as the Q3 puts out some excellent   quality video although it has to be said that  the continuous Focus for video while accurate it   can sometimes be a little slow to change focus and  you can't adjust the speed also there's noticeable   rolling shutter in 8K and 4K and while we're at it as  it's the same lens as before it still has noticeable pin cushion distortion but that can be easily  corrected and those little things aren't enough   to spoil this camera for me, this is a Q that can  finally stop me thinking about an M possibly it's   quicker with reliable Focus has all the focal  lengths and more that you'd ever use on an M   and it does a whole lot more than the M. Is this the  ideal one camera to carry with you everywhere to do   it all? For sure I think they're on to a winner  with the Q3. if I could change anything [Music]   the grip all the way to the back this is  nice let your thumb go that fits in there   it's just still slippery isn't it yeah  it's not light no and of course you've got   neck straps so it's gonna be around your  neck but well yeah if you want to do the   whole one-handed thing it still feels a bit  precarious that you're gonna drop the camera   you should kind of put the grip around the back  but you can get thumbs up grips now they're doing   three different colors they've got black they've  got silver and then I think they've got brass   on that yeah so I'm not a big fan of thumb  grips it's like they're trying to you know   find the whole idea of thumb grip is like it's  a film mine lever your thumb rests on something   buy something with such smooth lines like this  and you put a thumb grip on it but you know it's   up to you if you want to buy fun grip because  it know comes in three different colors and   they've got different accessories with different  color three different colorways as well because   also when you put the thumb grip I think your  thumb is kind of here the buttons are here yeah   I mean of course you can still access it but  it's just a bit why not make it easier to   equip in the first place exactly it's got a new  battery yeah the battery is the battery is cool it doesn't fall out and show a clip of the hasselblads press  it press it in but this is new the funny   thing is it does actually fit in the old  Q2 fit I think you can just fit in your   Q2 but they're not going to say it's  compatible with the Q2 in a minute but   it fits I've also they've got new hand  grip for wireless charging to attach   the wireless charging pen grip and you can  just put on any kind of wireless charger [Music] this video is sponsored by Squarespace if you want  to set up your own domain online retail space or   website it's super simple to get started and make  your next move with Squarespace with an easy to   use in Phase field with loads of templates and  backed up with 24 7 customer service you can try   it out with a 14 day free trial and get 10 off  your first order of this link and discount code
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Channel: Kai W
Views: 269,815
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Length: 15min 46sec (946 seconds)
Published: Thu May 25 2023
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