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Archive 2016 · Leica Q vs Sony RX1rII - My in depth impressions

  
 
serhan_
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p.4 #1 · p.4 #1 · Leica Q vs Sony RX1rII - My in depth impressions


+1. Thanks for the great comparison. Leica Q af sounds like Panasonic cameras...

Fuji is also releasing a 28mm fixed camera:
http://www.fujirumors.com/fujifilm-x70-coming-january-15-with-external-viewfinder-option-and-18-5mm-f2-8-lens/
16MP APS-C X-Trans II sensor + 18.5mmF2.8 lens (28mm equiv.)
In addition to the touch & flip screen, you’ll also be able to attach an external viewfinder to the Fujifilm X70. Announcement January 15.

karlfoto wrote:
Thanx for a well written comparison.

I used to have a GR, and only sold it because of its lack of viewfinder. I wish that Ricoh would come up with a camera like the Q which would make it at least affordable!

Karl



Jan 06, 2016 at 12:02 AM
robgo2
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p.4 #2 · p.4 #2 · Leica Q vs Sony RX1rII - My in depth impressions


millsart wrote:
I always find it odd how many people think that just because we buy some camera's, enjoy photography, and spend a lot of times on photograph forums we somehow think that means we'd know the first thing about running a global camera company. Its a bit like saying just because I eat 3 meals a day and enjoy dining out that I'd be qualified to run a huge restaurant chain.

I would simply say, try finding a Q in stock for the past 6 months; its seeming selling quite well.

Leica appears to know their market, and thus their business pretty well.

Heck,
...Show more

Well, if you think that global companies always make the best possible decisions, then you are sadly mistaken. Even Leica can falter. It was not so many years ago that the company was on the brink of bankruptcy and had to receive large cash infusions from outside investors. Fortunately, Leica survived those hard times and finally seems to have figured out how to make a digital camera that is not technologically one or two generations behind the competition.

And even though the Q seems to be selling well, I maintain that it would sell even better with a 40mm lens. I can't prove a counterfactual, but that is my opinion.

Rob



Jan 06, 2016 at 12:39 AM
robgo2
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p.4 #3 · p.4 #3 · Leica Q vs Sony RX1rII - My in depth impressions




Spyro P. wrote:
This is precisely the quintessential kind of street shooting that I've been trying to describe to people and explain why 9 out of 10 modern cameras are unsuitable for street shooting. You just can't do what he does with AF, and you can't do it without a lens with a marked focus ring. Doesn't matter if your camera has a touchscreen, a joystick, 5000 selectable focus points and nuclear powered autofocus, it just can't do what GW was doing in the video with a 50 year old camera. And you could do it with pretty much any 50yo camera,
...Show more

Of course, we also learn from the video that Winogrand didn't care much about sharpness, which is a legitimate aesthetic choice. Zone focusing and releasing the shutter without even steadying the camera is, indeed, a very fast method of shooting, but it is also imprecise. You don't need a fancy, high MP camera or a super sharp lens for that photographic style.

Rob



Jan 06, 2016 at 01:10 AM
Zony_user
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p.4 #4 · p.4 #4 · Leica Q vs Sony RX1rII - My in depth impressions


With the Q you get 28mm shooting through the EVF and close to 35mm using the LCD (with touch focus) That's what makes it more versatile than 28mm lenses on film cameras, Ricoh GR's or iPhone's which only allows one shooting style (viewfinder or LCD) And the Q even gives you an awesome 15MP crop option.

28mm is the new 35mm imo



Jan 06, 2016 at 05:30 AM
Spyro P.
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p.4 #5 · p.4 #5 · Leica Q vs Sony RX1rII - My in depth impressions


robgo2 wrote:
Of course, we also learn from the video that Winogrand didn't care much about sharpness, which is a legitimate aesthetic choice.

Yep, but we knew that before the video, remember we are equipment fanatics here
I remember a review site that did a comparison of modern and legacy 28mm RF lenses, and Winogrand's favourite lens (a Canon/Serenar 28/2.8) was by far the worst.



Jan 06, 2016 at 05:43 AM
Viramati
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p.4 #6 · p.4 #6 · Leica Q vs Sony RX1rII - My in depth impressions


I have always liked the 28mm lens and it was my main lens on my Leica M's. What actually amazes is the with the Q's AF is how often it will hit the mark when using AF and shooting from the hip. I have mine set to continuous AF and face detect (which is multi area when it doesn't detect a face), I can shoot at 1/500sec and f2,8 and nearly all the time it will hit the focus on what I want it to. The beauty of the Q is that it is so quick to change from AF to MF and alter shutter and aperture settings.



Jan 06, 2016 at 08:16 AM
millsart
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p.4 #7 · p.4 #7 · Leica Q vs Sony RX1rII - My in depth impressions


Zony_user wrote:
With the Q you get 28mm shooting through the EVF and close to 35mm using the LCD (with touch focus) That's what makes it more versatile than 28mm lenses on film cameras, Ricoh GR's or iPhone's which only allows one shooting style (viewfinder or LCD) And the Q even gives you an awesome 15MP crop option.

28mm is the new 35mm imo



On mine, I see 28mm FoV on both the LCD and the evf, or if I add the 35 frame lines, they show up in both the LCD and the evf. How are you able to get a cropped LCD with frame lines but keep the evf view free of them?



Jan 06, 2016 at 08:30 AM
millsart
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p.4 #8 · p.4 #8 · Leica Q vs Sony RX1rII - My in depth impressions


Rob, all we can ultimately do is vote with our wallets. I specifically chose to purchase the Q because it was 28mm. It sounds like your not buying one because it's 28mm. Perhaps you'd buy one of it was 40mm, but I don't think I would. So if you and I were the sole market, neither option seems better than the other.


Jan 06, 2016 at 08:34 AM
rattymouse
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p.4 #9 · p.4 #9 · Leica Q vs Sony RX1rII - My in depth impressions


millsart wrote:
I always find it odd how many people think that just because we buy some camera's, enjoy photography, and spend a lot of times on photograph forums we somehow think that means we'd know the first thing about running a global camera company. Its a bit like saying just because I eat 3 meals a day and enjoy dining out that I'd be qualified to run a huge restaurant chain.

I would simply say, try finding a Q in stock for the past 6 months; its seeming selling quite well.

Leica appears to know their market, and thus their business pretty well.



If Leica built 100 cameras and they sold out, sure they are selling well, but would you call it a sales success?

No one can make any judgments, both good or bad, based on product availability. It is purely a guess on your part.

On another note, this lens has by far some of THE highest distortion ratings I've ever seen. Uncorrected, the distortion is over 10%.

What exactly is the reason for the high cost of this camera then? Leica lenses are normally priced VERY high because they are optically corrected. Leica achieves this extremely high level of performance by using very complex designs as well as manufacturing techniques. This drives up costs and as a result, prices too.

Now Leica has produced a lens design that some have (correctly) labeled "unusable" without digital correction.

The only explanation that I can think of is that this camera is of a very cheap design, which is then corrected via software, allowing Leica to make very high margins due to extremely low costs of design and manufacture.

This isnt really a problem per se because the camera and lens are attached and the digital correction will always be used. However, I'm constantly wondering what exactly are people paying this very high price for? The only benefit for this approach is Leica's bottom line.

Would people be pleased with Leica if they continue to move down this path of non optically perfect lenses with the problems cleaned up in software?










Jan 06, 2016 at 08:54 AM
Gary Clennan
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p.4 #10 · p.4 #10 · Leica Q vs Sony RX1rII - My in depth impressions


Tariq Gibran wrote:
I agree that 40 is closer to how our eyes see (which I believe is actually 42mm's on the 35 format).

The scale focusing Rollei 35 is another famous classic that has a 40mm lens and was fairly popular over many decades. Stephen Shore used one:

http://erickimphotography.com/blog/2012/08/13/5-things-stephen-shore-can-teach-you-about-street-photography/

Bresson was once asked: "Why the 50-millimeter lens?"

He answered:
"It corresponds to a certain vision and at the same time has enough depth of focus, a thing you don’t have in longer lenses. I worked with a 90. It cuts much of the foreground if you take a landscape, but if people are running at you,
...Show more

There really are no rules when it comes to choosing a FL for street. For my style, I (slightly) prefer 28mm but 35mm is so close I really could go with either. Anything longer (regardless of how our eye "sees") I feel is a bit too cramped for my liking. It is the slightly wider, close range street photos that appeal to me the most. They just have more impact to my eye.... To each their own though.



Jan 06, 2016 at 10:13 AM
rscheffler
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p.4 #11 · p.4 #11 · Leica Q vs Sony RX1rII - My in depth impressions


Why the high cost? I'm sure with it being Leica there will be many opinions...

As for the lens, I would say its fairly representative of Leica design, in that it's a balance with some compromises. OK, yes, there is a lot of barrel distortion. But it's sharp, small, has fast AF and OIS with pleasing rendering. Every Leica lens I own or have used has had compromises, including decisions the lens designers made about image quality. 50 Lux ASPH for example... Fairly typical wavy plane of focus for a Leica lens, which can pose challenges for some applications. But the rendering is great, it's sharp when needed, and very small. The Sigma Art outperforms it on paper at a quarter the price.... I have zero interest in the Sigma, but not because of image quality.

What millsart's write up touches on is precisely what can't be easily determined from on-paper spec. The user experience. Sounds like the Q is a great camera that stays out of the way. For some this will be a critical consideration where compromises elsewhere are completely acceptable and will be worth the money.

Maybe this concern about lens compromises will finally go away with computational lensless photography.



Jan 06, 2016 at 10:20 AM
Gary Clennan
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p.4 #12 · p.4 #12 · Leica Q vs Sony RX1rII - My in depth impressions


robgo2 wrote:
And even though the Q seems to be selling well, I maintain that it would sell even better with a 40mm lens....

Rob


I honestly think they would sell far less units with a 40mm FL. It's also a bit of marketing in the fact that "standard" FL's (28/35/50) will appeal to a far greater number of potential buyers.



Jan 06, 2016 at 10:21 AM
Gary Clennan
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p.4 #13 · p.4 #13 · Leica Q vs Sony RX1rII - My in depth impressions


robgo2 wrote:
You don't need a fancy, high MP camera or a super sharp lens for that photographic style.

Rob


Most street shooters are not using high MP cameras anyway. The Q is a measly 24MP and the X100T/GR are only 16MP.



Jan 06, 2016 at 10:24 AM
JoeFriday
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p.4 #14 · p.4 #14 · Leica Q vs Sony RX1rII - My in depth impressions


philip_pj wrote:
Here is a good short promo of Winogrand, you can see how fast he reflexively pulls the camera away from people when they spot him at close range (~5m). At 6:20 one guy walks right up to a woman and sticks his camera 18 inches from her (unappreciative) face - click.





Winogrand was from another era when people weren't so litigious. And the post-9/11 atmosphere doesn't help at all. If you try his methods these days, you'll have somebody yelling for the police. I once had a guy confront me when I took a photo of the group he was standing among on a street corner. And I was about 20 feet away.

People are painfully ignorant of photographers' rights and assume they have the right to privacy no matter where they are.

Another thing about Winogrand... he shot so much film that I believe he relied more on the law of probability than photographic composition. At the time of his death, he had 2500 rolls of undeveloped film, and another 6500 rolls of processed film that he hadn't looked at.



Jan 06, 2016 at 10:40 AM
rattymouse
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p.4 #15 · p.4 #15 · Leica Q vs Sony RX1rII - My in depth impressions


JoeFriday wrote:

Another thing about Winogrand... he shot so much film that I believe he relied more on the law of probability than photographic composition. At the time of his death, he had 2500 rolls of undeveloped film, and another 6500 rolls of processed film that he hadn't looked at.


Wow...............



Jan 06, 2016 at 10:43 AM
rscheffler
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p.4 #16 · p.4 #16 · Leica Q vs Sony RX1rII - My in depth impressions




JoeFriday wrote:
... he had 2500 rolls of undeveloped film, and another 6500 rolls of processed film that he hadn't looked at.


Imagine his production if he shot digitally. Wait, I know that feeling of a mountain of backlog images, and I'm not even a good photographer...



Jan 06, 2016 at 10:55 AM
Gary Clennan
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p.4 #17 · p.4 #17 · Leica Q vs Sony RX1rII - My in depth impressions


rscheffler wrote:
...and I'm not even a good photographer...



Don't tell that to all your paying Clients!



Jan 06, 2016 at 11:12 AM
robgo2
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p.4 #18 · p.4 #18 · Leica Q vs Sony RX1rII - My in depth impressions


Gary Clennan wrote:
I honestly think they would sell far less units with a 40mm FL. It's also a bit of marketing in the fact that "standard" FL's (28/35/50) will appeal to a far greater number of potential buyers.


As I said previously, we are arguing a counterfactual, so it is simply your opinion against mine. But I believe that if you asked serious photographers to choose only one focal length to use for general photography, most would want something between 35 and 50mm. 28mm appeals strongly to a segment of street photographers, which is perfectly understandable, but they are in the minority of all photographers. It is entirely possible that this is the target group for which Leica designed the Q. If so, that was a marketing decision made with some strategic goal in mind. I think that a major consideration was how to distinguish the Q from the RX1, and 28mm does that better than 40mm.

Rob

Edited on Jan 06, 2016 at 12:26 PM · View previous versions



Jan 06, 2016 at 12:21 PM
robgo2
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p.4 #19 · p.4 #19 · Leica Q vs Sony RX1rII - My in depth impressions


Gary Clennan wrote:
Most street shooters are not using high MP cameras anyway. The Q is a measly 24MP and the X100T/GR are only 16MP.


I can only hope that you are using the word "measly" to describe the resolution of a 24MP sensor in an ironic fashion.

Rob



Jan 06, 2016 at 12:25 PM
robgo2
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p.4 #20 · p.4 #20 · Leica Q vs Sony RX1rII - My in depth impressions


millsart wrote:
Rob, all we can ultimately do is vote with our wallets. I specifically chose to purchase the Q because it was 28mm. It sounds like your not buying one because it's 28mm. Perhaps you'd buy one of it was 40mm, but I don't think I would. So if you and I were the sole market, neither option seems better than the other.


Of course, you and I are not the sole market, and I have not yet made a final decision on buying the Q.

Rob



Jan 06, 2016 at 12:40 PM
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