The Leica Q: A six month field test
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it was quiet, well built, had good lenses and was reliable. (it had a fabric shutter, or something similar, which means it didn't click. This allowed people to be "in the moment")
In the digital world, I just don't understand the point of them. Sure yes its a full frame with a decent lens in a similar body size as the old compact rangefinders.
But.
the image quality just isn't worth the $4K. Thats top end SLR price. Under its all its just a panasonic lumix. If it was a separate entity, I could sorta see the point. You are paying for the name, and thats it.
What I'd really like is a leica/fujion style body, but with a nikon sensor and lens adaptor. (Although I suspect that its not really possible because the focal point is much too deep.)
But as the owner of a 5D Mk III and several L lenses, -and- a Lumix DMC-LX100... the Leica is not a Lumix.
This isn't even the best article for image quality (though there are certainly many very good shots). But where the Leica excels is razor sharp images that don't have any hint of "is that sharpened in Photoshop?" (for example: http://i1.wp.com/www.stevehuffphoto.com/wp-content/uploads/2... )
No, it really isn't. While Leica has rebadged Panasonic cameras in the past, and let Panasonic use the Leica brand on some of its lenses, they've always kept their own camera factories and production going and this is a 'real' Leica.
I strongly doubt that they even design their own CMOS sensors.
New technology leads to better core function at a fraction of the cost (quartz watches and electric cars), but there's some artistry to the old mechanical way of doing things. Precise analog machines can be cool even with their faults (or because of them) - I think that's the point.
one was the viewfinder position, and the other was the silent shutter (I've never used one so I can't comment)
The pentax 67 is a medium format monster, with a solenoid actuator. I have used it and its a wonderful beast.
There was/is a cheap Leica digital that was a rebadged Lumix, but that isn't true of these full frame digitals.
Though that one’s still 75% of the price of the Leica. Also, newer and as such in many ways an unknown quantity.
> Earlier in 2015 I used the Fuji x100t for three weeks but wasn’t impressed enough to write about it.
FYI -- I'm totally in love with the X100T.
I can't recommend the camera enough. If the form factor is too big for you, go with the newly released X70.
They are comparable, in that they are both fairly compact, fixed prime lens cameras that offer high quality (camera build and image).
They are not comparable,as the Leica has a better/faster autofocus system. In theory it has better optics as well, though I haven't seen a side-by-side.
A good friend is a professional photographer. His carry-around fun camera is the X100T. I think his professional-grade stuff is Nikon. I'm sure he'd love the Leica, but it's a lot of money for what is unlikely to be used professionally (at least not by him).
Is that really the case though? The fixed prime is small and compact, and still frees a photographer from carrying a bulkier lens.
That you can crop/digital zoom in a pinch is freeing, provided you've got enough resolution to do so.
m43 cameras in general are a good compromise on image quality and size. GX1's and GF1's in particular are not especially expensive used.
That's it. I love his writing style.
I see Leica as of a kind with other multi thousand dollar cameras...it's not as if a Nikon or a Cannon is any more or less reasonable.
Until I Bing'd the price...
But as the owner of a Voigtländer R4A coupled with a Nokton 35mm f/1.4 (bought for a total of $1200, which was quite the investment for me) I can't help but be amazed by how much it would have cost me to buy the Leica equivalent (5 times that amount). It's quite obvious looking at the results that Leica does not offer that superior a result for that hefty price (and even though I know that it's a tad simplistic to reason in those terms, it certainly wouldn't have bought me 5 times the quality).
Leica reminds me of Apple, it's all about status and perceived value. Hats off to them for reaching that lucrative niche market.
For me Apple stands for high quality products that really work. Just recently I sold a 7 year old Macbook for 250 euro. Back then it was the cheapest aluminium Macbook for about 1200 euro. The aluminium body was as new. I don't know any other laptop that looks like new after seven years of heavy use. Let alone that you can get 20% of the value back.
Take a look at the built quality: the body, keyboard, touchpad, power connector - this is design that works. It works for me at least, and I can't imagine that all these people I see nowadays with their really expensive laptops and iphones, that they still buy if for status.
Take my iPods. The first one, first generation touch, is still working as music player. The second broke after five years of living in my jeans with heat and cold, sweat and rain. I've used my first Mac, a G4 desktop, for 9 years.
All these were relatively expensive products, but totally worth the money.
Then you have never heard of Thinkpads.
> Take my iPods. The first one, first generation touch, is still working as music player.
Lucky if the battery is not dead. If it is, you need to bring it to an Apple Store to replace it. Perfect design.
1. Their digital bodies are garbage (that's how they're different from Apple). I owned an M9 and between its crappy sensor and faux leather peeling off, I was not impressed at all. The only good thing about that camera was the rangefinder.
2. Their lenses, on the other hand, really have no equal in the industry, and as the very best they rightfully command a steep premium. I had two: 50mm and 35mm Summiluxes. They really put everything else to shame, and they most certainly do offer a superior result. What other f/1.4 lenses do you know of that can be actually used at f/1.4 without significant resolution loss or veiling? OK, nowadays there's Zeiss Otus at 55mm, but it's also not cheap and it's three times the size. Add to that also that Leica lenses are extremely well made and compact, and you'll see why people are willing to part with large quantities of cash to own them.
I hear the v2 rev is also very sharp compared to the original. Although I find the rendering of the original quite good enough.
Depth of Field is a function of Aperture , Focal Length and Distance to plane of focus.
The focal length drives how wide the "scatter" of the blur is, so wide angle lenses like the 35mm have a very "soft" blur as opposed to something like a 400mm F2.8 which just obliterates backgrounds. This is also driven by how close you are focusing so you can shoot a 35mm F1.4 wide open, focusing around ~15ft away and the detail of the scene is very much preserved. It lets you focus on a subject and give them a slight "pop" of focus while keeping the rest of scene coherent.
I grabbed this random image from the 35L group on Flickr, they didn't include EXIF so I can't be 100% certain they shot it at F1.4 but it looks very close to shots I have at F1.4 from that lens.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/49830238@N04/25021998886/in/po...
It’s only the focal length and aperture that contribute to DoF. With a larger sensor you are typically using longer focal lengths since you need a longer focal length to get the same FoV. That being said, you also have the option of using movements on 4x5, so subject separation can be achieved by changing the plane of focus even when using a narrow aperture. There are some very technically accomplished examples of this at http://www.p1600.com/en/portfolio/london_5x4/ (not my photos), but on balance I think that these are more of a technical tour de force than an artistic success.
There's no way to know what aperture the photo you linked to was shot at, but it doesn't look to me like it would have to be particularly wide. Honestly, I find it a bit depressing that there are flickr groups fetishizing particular lenses.
Don't see any reason why the one I picked wouldn't be shot at F1.4.
Anyway, here's another random one that does have EXIF that shows what I mean. Just because you're shooting at F1.4 doesn't mean that everything is blown away.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jasoncowellphoto/5534870906
I guess you can call if "fetishizing" a lens if you want but it's a very popular lens for a reason.
Plus, look, I know that you didn't choose the photo for it's artistic qualities, but that photo sucks, and the comments on it are like "omg you have a 35L and the photos are sharp". Who the fuck cares if the photos are bad?
The vast majority of the photos in the group either have (i) pretty much everything in the picture in acceptably sharp focus (so that even if they were shot at f1.4, they didn’t have to be) or (ii) a close subject (so that a very wide aperture was not necessary to get good separation). Is it possible to imagine scenarios where you need f1.4 to obtain the desired effect? Yeah, sure. But they’re precisely the scenarios that rarely lead to good compositions. I.e., middle ground in focus and foreground and background out of focus.
But yeah, Leica gear is out of the question for me (and most others I would guess), price-wise.
http://www.dxomark.com/Reviews/Leica-M-review-How-does-the-n...
That said, I really like the manual focus tabs on the lenses and the mechanism on the Q looks interesting. The Q is also newer so likely has a few improvements, but in general Leica has always been a bit behind the likes of Nikon, Sony, and Fuji in terms of electronics and firmware. Where they win is build quality.
Professionals are mostly likely to be more objective about what they need and are buying, if they view it as a tool (in my experience, at least).
another situation would be a serious hobbyist, that is to say taking photos is their main enjoyment away from work. They might be willing to spend a lot more even with small benefit.
Think of the price curve in, say a 50mm prime from 1.8, to 1.4, to 1.2 (and beyond). You can end up with 10x the cost, not because you are getting something objectively 10x better, but because relatively few are made. If the extra couple of stops really buy you something, or you love the optics, and you can pay the 10x, maybe you will (build quality is in there somewhere).
Though, a Canon 50mm 1.2L is ludicrously bigger than a 50mm 1.8. You might actually be paying the same per pound of glass.
(Okay, so one weighs 4oz, and the other 14oz)
Yet the author of this post taped off the lettering to make it look like a generic camera.
In other words, Leica themselves are positioning their cameras as fashion accessories. Something to show you have $$$$$$
I'm guessing most status shooters leave the face untouched to show the world that they're using a Leica.
One of the things about Lecia is that it supports it's customers and will repair their cameras. Nobody fixes Coolpix L11's.
Edit: No disrespect to dentists intended.
It doesn't have a viewfinder, but the ergonomics are superb. APS-C sensor, fixed 28mm lens (a very sharp one at that), and 16mp. Goes with me on every trip.
Ming Thein's review: http://blog.mingthein.com/2013/05/06/review-2013-ricoh-gr-di...
I wouldn't carry something costing $4000 on me anywhere I wasn't very familiar with / felt safe in.
I recall having heard that either the first or the second generation A7 has the same sensor as the Leica Q but this might be wrong.
For reasons one may want full frame, someone else may want a cropped sensor for other equally legitimate reasons.
I love my Fuji X100. Manual Focus is also overrated. As long as you have a quick phase detecting AF solution, you won't miss the tactile mechnical MF. The X100 is not there yet, but future generations will surely provide satisfactory AF speed.
Do you know the concept of non-shallow DOF and how that is beneficial in many low light/wide-open aperture circumstances?
Just saying.