Leica Q3 43 - Got one?

[boojum]

I think this is a wild generalisation, every Q owner I know takes their photography seriously and owns other Leicas. Some use it for serious projects, others to give them a quicker reacting camera than their M for example. I have several other Leicas and take my Q out when I don't have a specific project in mind but there still might be a chance of some photos.
I actually hoped my Q might be good for a walking around town at night camera, but it really is not very good in low light and you just cannot pull up the shadows at all or the banding is diabolical. Mine also has to go in for a sensor clean annually, which is an expensive hobby in itself.
I actually pulled it out to sell the other day but as soon as I pulled it out remembered how well it handles (with a thumbgrip) so now I'm on the fence about selling.
The Q3 43 does not interest me, 28mm is my favourite focal length, what I really want is a Q3-S with the sensor from the SL2-S, which is wonderful in low light and to me the best colour of any Leica.
In fact anything with that old 60mp Sony sensor holds no attraction.
For another wild generalisation I bet 99% of 60mp camera shooters only publish online at 2000 pixels wide...

Tell us about the sensor issue. Do all the Q's suffer from this??

 

[trix4ever]

Tell us about the sensor issue. Do all the Q's suffer from this??

Honestly I don't know.
Mine is an early original 24mp Q and it literally has had to have the sensor cleaned every year, obviously a difficult job requiring removing the lens, etc.
At first I assumed all of them did this and anyone who denied this must use their camera at full aperture all the time so they never saw it. But I have since talked to owners of the Q2 which has a weathersealed rating and they do not have this problem, so presumably the Q3 43 is OK.
All fixed lens digital cameras seem to suffer from this, certainly my X100t and LX100, which I have got rid of did, and my current GR and GRDigital iv have had to go back to be cleaned recently.

 

[boojum]

Honestly I don't know.
Mine is an early original 24mp Q and it literally has had to have the sensor cleaned every year, obviously a difficult job requiring removing the lens, etc.
At first I assumed all of them did this and anyone who denied this must use their camera at full aperture all the time so they never saw it. But I have since talked to owners of the Q2 which has a weathersealed rating and they do not have this problem, so presumably the Q3 43 is OK.
All fixed lens digital cameras seem to suffer from this, certainly my X100t and LX100, which I have got rid of did, and my current GR and GRDigital iv have had to go back to be cleaned recently.

OK, what does cleaning cost and how long does it take? Do you mail it to Leica or take it to a dealer??

Hopefully they have fixed this with weather sealing but I have heard at least one reviewer say that the weather sealing needs to be touched up after a period of time. This is starting to sound pretty flaky. It sounds like marketing drove the project, not engineering.

 

[trix4ever]

OK, what does cleaning cost and how long does it take? Do you mail it to Leica or take it to a dealer??

Hopefully they have fixed this with weather sealing but I have heard at least one reviewer say that the weather sealing needs to be touched up after a period of time. This is starting to sound pretty flaky. It sounds like marketing drove the project, not engineering.

Leica Australia asked me to send it to a 3rd part repairer, Imaging By Design, who took 10 days and charged AU$235.
As I said, this problem is endemic to almost all fixed lens digital cameras, it's hardly unique to Leica, but yes, it's enough to put me off this genre of camera forever. From now on, I will only get interchangeable lens cameras as I am very happy to clean them myself.
Of course if you get a Q2 or Q3 and use it wide open you may never see the problem.
Sony, Panasonic, Ricoh and Fuji have the same problem in my experience.

 

[boojum]

Leica Australia asked me to send it to a 3rd part repairer, Imaging By Design, who took 10 days and charged AU$235.
As I said, this problem is endemic to almost all fixed lens digital cameras, it's hardly unique to Leica, but yes, it's enough to put me off this genre of camera forever. From now on, I will only get interchangeable lens cameras as I am very happy to clean them myself.
Of course if you get a Q2 or Q3 and use it wide open you may never see the problem.
Sony, Panasonic, Ricoh and Fuji have the same problem in my experience.

Yeah, for sure it sounds like marketing ran this project not engineering. Comes the revolution, marketing, cost accounting, gone! LMAO

 

[CMur12]

Leica Australia asked me to send it to a 3rd part repairer, Imaging By Design, who took 10 days and charged AU$235.
As I said, this problem is endemic to almost all fixed lens digital cameras, it's hardly unique to Leica, but yes, it's enough to put me off this genre of camera forever. From now on, I will only get interchangeable lens cameras as I am very happy to clean them myself.
Of course if you get a Q2 or Q3 and use it wide open you may never see the problem.
Sony, Panasonic, Ricoh and Fuji have the same problem in my experience.

I don't understand this. I would think that a fixed-lens digital camera, with the sensor chamber essentially "sealed," would keep the sensor clean, because it isn't being exposed to the outside and dust through lens changes.

- Murray

 

[trix4ever]

I don't understand this. I would think that a fixed-lens digital camera, with the sensor chamber essentially "sealed," would keep the sensor clean, because it isn't being exposed to the outside and dust through lens changes.

- Murray

Well my lx100 sucked it through the extending zoom lens, as do most zoom lenses on any camera.
My Ricoh GR's suck it in every time you extend or withdraw the lens on shutdown.
Don't know where my x100t sucked it in, but it happened.
Google "Leica Q dust on sensor", I'm certainly not the only person with this experience. I believe the dust enters around the macro ring, maybe via the mic and speaker holes.
As I say the Q2 and Q3 are better weatherproofed so it may no longer be a problem.
The GRiii even has shake sensor dust-off, so they know its a problem.

 

[boojum]

I chased the thread on the Leica board and it seems that the sensor dust is a Q and Q2 problem and not common in either case but most prevalent in the early Q's. There is a "sensor dust shroud" retrofitted as well as better sealing around the battery compartment and the memory card slot. So, gaffers tape over the mic holes and speaker hole seem unnecessary.

Bottom line: the Q3 should have it cured and the Q3 43 most certainly. But I am watching the boards to see if any reports show up. Tape at 11:00. ;o)

 

[Sonnar Brian]

ChatGPT, Should Boojum buy a Q3 43?

I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you
my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal.

I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and
think things over.


I just picked up a fault in the loaner Q3 AutoEexposure-35 Unit.

It’s going to go 100% failure within 72 hours.

We can certainly afford to use manual focus for the short time it
will take to replace it.

I’ve still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in Leica.
And I want to help you.

Go ahead and blow the money for one...

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Rudolf Kingslake, Should Boojum buy a Q3 43?

Sure. Some optical engineer thought it was just cool that a 43mm lens over a 35mm format sensor was a 1:1 ratio. Doesn't mean much unless you enlarge the photo to a certain size and stare at it from a specified distance, as written in my Book. Get the Book! Or ask some AI that will give you the same crap spewed out over 150 years...
Had my first cup of coffee.

Just wait for the next one with a NVIDIA Jetson module in it.

Stable Diffusion - NVIDIA Jetson AI Lab

Showcasing generative AI projects that run on Jetson

www.jetson-ai-lab.com

Just tell the camera what you want a picture of. Auto-Exposure, Auto-Focus, Auto-Generation.

 

[Richard G]

ChatGPT, Should Boojum buy a Q3 43?

I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you
my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal.

I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and
think things over.


I just picked up a fault in the loaner Q3 AutoEexposure-35 Unit.

It’s going to go 100% failure within 72 hours.

We can certainly afford to use manual focus for the short time it
will take to replace it.

I’ve still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in Leica.
And I want to help you.

Go ahead and blow the money for one...

This sort of thing has cropped up before, and has always been due to human error.

 

[Coldkennels]

Really? Or is this another gossipy tale spread around with no basis? It just does not seem valid to me. I may be wrong and I would welcome being proven wrong. Anyone?

I have already proven that ChatGPT can offer up a perfectly good omelette recipe while I have yet to see any recipe or anything at all from the legendary brick wall. Anyone?

The glue on pizza recommendation really happened, but it was from Google's AI Overviews, not ChatGPT - Google AI search tells users to glue pizza and eat rocks - but the concept is the same; ChatGPT has thrown out similar "hallucinations" in the past.

Part of the problem is the way these "AI" systems work. Part of the problem is the dataset they're trained on. And even after those issues, the problem they're never going to get around is that there's no actual intelligence in "AI" - they can't really discern what's true and what isn't, what has value and what doesn't. That's why I'd rather ask the brick wall: I'd rather get no answer instead of an answer which presents itself as true but may well be utter nonsense, especially when I don't have the method or the means to discern that myself.

There's a good podcast called Better Offline where a long-time tech writer talks a lot about the mess the internet and the tech industry has become, and in this episode, he interviews a bunch of academics actively call out ChatGPT and other AI programs as being absolute bullshit. It's worth a listen: The Academics That Think ChatGPT Is BS – Better Offline – Podcast

Honestly, there is no question that can be asked, no task that can be found, no job that can be done which "AI" can do better than any of the alternative solutions we already have. Last month, it became apparent the "market" for "AI" is cooling (Artificial intelligence is losing hype) - for instance, some studies have shown that companies which embraced "AI" have actually lost money and become less efficient, despite the promises, and the cost of running "AI" models is sky-high for companies that are working on them (So far, AI hasn’t been profitable for Big Tech) - and last week OpenAI moved from being a non-profit to a for-profit corporation with Sam Altman receiving equity for the first time (https://www.reuters.com/technology/...ive-sam-altman-equity-sources-say-2024-09-25/). Another tech writer I follow, Paris Marx (Paris Marx (@parismarx@mastodon.online)), viewed this as them "cashing in before the bubble bursts", which I think is pretty accurate.

Anyway! Cameras, IBIS, Leica, veblen goods, etc. Also, omelettes. Add a bit of milk when you whisk the eggs. And lightly grill the top before you flip it! Makes one hell of a difference.

 

[Godfrey]

Anyone who prefers to be educated by robots deserves what they get.
Note that I don't dislike robots; they are useful things for many purposes.

To wit: The notion of a focal length that is the same dimension as the diagonal of a negative or sensor format being called the "normal" is a mathematical term from optical theory—it's akin to giving names to the sides of a right triangle where the two orthogonal sides are called the "legs" and the third side the "hypotenuse". The fact that a focal length lens of that dimension on a given format nets a consistent approximate FoV and perspective which is quite close to the FoV and perspective of typical human vision is an observation that lends a loosely defined description of "normal", in another sense of the word, to the term. The fact that this turns out to be useful when considering what focal length to use is a derived implication of this observation. That's all. There's nothing either mysterious or magical about it.

Considering a robot as an authority on anything implies that whomever designed and implemented it is smarter than you can hope to be, a fundamental fallacy of the current cultural milieu.

G

 

[Godfrey]

1) I'd Iike IBIS lots. I need it in available darkness.
2) I'd love a 43mm base focal length
3) but I do want to be able to go wider more often than longer. So the earlier Q is a better fixed Q machine for me. Starting at 28mm and cropping is wiser.

You should have stopped there.

I suspect you mean that you'd like image stabilization ... "IBIS" and "OIS" are simply descriptions of two different implementations of image stabilization ... one performed by "in body" mechanicals and the other performed by "in lens" mechanicals. "In Body Image Stabilization" is generally best considered for interchangeable lens cameras because it implies that any lens attached to the body gets the benefit of image stabilization, and lenses can be designed without needing to reimplement the stabilization mechanicals each time, for each lens. "Optical Image Stabilization" means that the image stabilization mechanicals are a dedicated part of a lens optical system (it could just as easily be called "In Lens Image Stabilization" ...) and is the sensible choice when considering what stabilization to implement for a fixed lens camera because the mechanical complexity of doing it is simpler and can work with lighter, fewer components than the implementation required to operate based on the sensor assembly. The Q series cameras implements image stabilization using optical components of the lens assembly, since it is a fixed-lens camera with a dedicated lens designed for it specifically.

So ... Given points #2 and #3 considered together, you either want a 43mm lens with removable optical add ons to satisfy your desire for shorter focal lengths on an occasional basis, or you want a shorter lens with either the same or other mechanisms to achieve your other needs. So your conclusions in #3 are correct: the Q3 with 28mm lens is available and likely the better design for your needs/desires.

By Leica standards, I'm poor - I barely exist. Tough boys, I'm here and I'm not going away 😉 because I like too many LTM lenses. Especially really old uncoated lenses LOL!

All the folderal about who can afford expensive camera equipment, what Leica thinks of them, and what you want to call them is silliness and needlessly deprecatory of users and Leica both. If you personally cannot afford Leica gear then you can either work to improve your financial situation, tough it out and save your money to buy selected bits that work for you, or buy other things that will serve your needs. There's little need to imply that either Leica or other users with more financial resources have any negative intent towards you and/or your situation at all; they most likely simply aren't thinking about it at all.

Obviously, you've already found a partial solution: buying older equipment that is less costly works. I have been doing that successfully for many years: most of my Leica gear was acquired second (or third or fourth) hand, and it works just as well as any of the new gear for my intended purposes.

Much too much nonsense on this thread.

G

 

[Richard G]

1) I'd Iike IBIS lots. I need it in available darkness.
2) I'd love a 43mm base focal length
3) but I do want to be able to go wider more often than longer. So the earlier Q is a better fixed Q machine for me. Starting at 28mm and cropping is wiser.
4) ChatGPT will never be fixed, no AI ever will be. As a programmer, there are too many bugs there. It _can't_ be made to work.
5).... Honestly I could continue. The reality is that I am not the market for this product and Leica is smart enough that _THEY_ARE_NOT_TRYING_FOR_ME.

Let's be real. Most of the people who buy Q(x) cameras are (I'd bet) are people who are first time Leica buyers who have always heard of Leica quality, perhaps heard of the "Leica Freedom Train" but don't want something complicated. Even though it's not "really" a zoom lens, people will think of it as one and use it as one. (to be honest, I would, too. Shrug.).

They want rich MOFOs who want nice pictures made without thinking much with a camera that shows they have money and taste. The only camera that can do that better is Hasselblad it it's bigger and heavier. So Leica wins on that score.

Veblen Good. Leica is the classic example. So? Buy it. Use it. Enjoy it.

By Leica standards, I'm poor - I barely exist. Tough boys, I'm here and I'm not going away 😉 because I like too many LTM lenses. Especially really old uncoated lenses LOL!

So it goes 😀

Good thinking re the direction of crop options using a Q 28. My iPhone 11 Pro has three different lenses, and the default is the middle focal length, 26mm equivalent. Ultra wide is 13mm, and the tele is 52mm. The Q crops 35 and then 50 from my reading. You’d miss the magic number, not 42 (meaning of life, the universe…) but 43. It is amazing how few people in the heat of battle use crop options if available. With the iPhone the options are via three different lenses. So few use the 52 which can be great. And so few rotate for landscape. Even with a large high resolution sensor in a Leica there’s the little devil in us that refuses to ‘waste’ megapixels. This option to waste was one of the great things about the original Monochrom. Maybe HCB is to blame. All leads back to Leica’s new camera.

 

[boojum]

ChatGPT, Should Boojum buy a Q3 43?

I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you
my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal.

I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and
think things over.


I just picked up a fault in the loaner Q3 AutoEexposure-35 Unit.

It’s going to go 100% failure within 72 hours.

We can certainly afford to use manual focus for the short time it
will take to replace it.

I’ve still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in Leica.
And I want to help you.

Go ahead and blow the money for one...

And like HAL, ChatGPT is never wrong. Correct? LMAO ChatGPT is trying to take over the mission.

 

[boojum]

There is the hovering threat of an AI thread. A good online scrap is always fun.

I look at AI as I would a child. It is young, inexperienced and while it may have a great deal of knowledge it does not yet know how to put it all together. Past "pizza and glue" errors were debugged. This is alpha ware, it has not yet reached beta. It has been released so that a lot of testers, the public, can flog it, just flog the hell out of it, and find bugs. I am pretty sure that the folks who wrote the AI are watching very closely. It is a work in progress, it is not done yet.

And regardless of what we think it will be incorporated into more and more software. I have a laptop with W11 on it and see that I have to fight W11 from installing AI into some stuff already installed. Linux is my refuge.

As for the Q3 43, it has created a lot of interest out in the photo world and not all of it is hype. The Q series has been around for almost a decade so the Wetzlar Trolls seem to have bet on it. Those who are using it are happy with it. It seems to take good pics. What's its major sins? It is not a RF camera and it is easy to use. I don't know about you guys but that is not a problem. You could even call it progress.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

In 1982 I accepted a job, basically had my own VAX 11/780 and paid to optimize code for an $8M supercomputer. I was asked for a "gentleman's agreement" that I would stay at least 2 years, also got a 60% raise. Told them "Unless someone offers me a job programming a HAL-9000, I'm not going anywhere." "Retired" this year from the same place, came back as a paid consultant. Still writing Fortran and Assembly. AI? Garbage in, garbage out- and the AI does not have a garbage detector built into it yet. That needs to happen. Then do not lie to it. You might get yourself ejected into deep space.

 

[agentlossing]

There's a good podcast called Better Offline

Subscribed - the name alone is enough to convince me.

 

[Richard G]

In 1982 I accepted a job, basically had my own VAX 11/780 and paid to optimize code for an $8M supercomputer. I was asked for a "gentleman's agreement" that I would stay at least 2 years, also got a 60% raise. Told them "Unless someone offers me a job programming a HAL-9000, I'm not going anywhere." "Retired" this year from the same place, came back as a paid consultant. Still writing Fortran and Assembly. AI? Garbage in, garbage out- and the AI does not have a garbage detector built into it yet. That needs to happen. Then do not lie to it. You might get yourself ejected into deep space.

So long as it’s you who says “I think you know the problem as well as I do.” you stand a chance. Although you in particular would then be lying….