p.13 #1 · Considering a Leica Q3 43 but used to Sony
A7RIVa with Sony 40G is a great alternative if anybody want different focal length option, with Sony 28 f2 also got Q3.
Q3 or Q3 43 has slightly superior optical performance over Sony option, but you got the two focal length or even more a lot cheaper. A7RVa is the closest to Q3 body, slim tilting screen, excellent EVF, also has joystick and full mechanical shutter. AF is may better than Leica.
p.13 #2 · Considering a Leica Q3 43 but used to Sony
my opinion is that price wise a Leica is not worth it compared to the RX1R III (35mm lens), but the most "worth it" option is either a used A7RIV with a nicer 35 or 40 or 50 lens, if you want medium format GFX100S's are pretty cheap and you can use the 50 or 55mm (still cheaper than Q3 43)
p.13 #3 · Considering a Leica Q3 43 but used to Sony
Some, like me, really don't like Sony. To find equipment that fits the way one sees and works; priceless. A camera you enjoy picking up every time you use it
p.13 #4 · Considering a Leica Q3 43 but used to Sony
step56 wrote:
my opinion is that price wise a Leica is not worth it compared to the RX1R III (35mm lens), but the most "worth it" option is either a used A7RIV with a nicer 35 or 40 or 50 lens, if you want medium format GFX100S's are pretty cheap and you can use the 50 or 55mm (still cheaper than Q3 43)
The options you mentioned are optically inferior to the Leica Q3 43mm or are much bigger or just outdated. You get what you pay for if you want compact with high image quality and modern capabilities .
p.13 #5 · Considering a Leica Q3 43 but used to Sony
chiron wrote:
So, I took the leap. When I woke up too early this morning, I looked in the buy-sell and found a Q3 43 in pristine condition with a very low shutter count and pristine body from an outstanding seller. It also came with a ton of accessories, including every one I would have bought or wanted to buy myself--Leica usb c power pack with extra battery, the small rig grip, which is the one I wanted, b&w filter, lcd cover, a choice (!) of thumb grips and a range of hoods, including the polar pro flip hood, etc., etc.
So after a second cup of coffee to make sure I wasn't being impulsive, I took the leap. Great seller. Good price. Everything there from the original sale from an authorized dealer. Plus more.
I am sure I will have fun with this, one way or another. The question, I believe, will be how it is a different or the same experience as the A7C R. I think it could go either way, and there is no pre-experiential right answer. I assume some things will be better or worse on each camera, and the shooting experience is what will matter. It's still under warranty.
It arrives in a couple of days. I'll see how it is as a family documentary camera and for scenes that are just pleasing (think Bernard Plossu, whose work I just discovered, for my aspirations) by the weekend.
And I'll compare to my A7C R and also to my old, beloved, right-sized A9 with either the small Sigma 45/2.8 or the adapted Canon EF 50mm f1.2L
...Show more →
And sold again after less than two weeks? That was a short honeymoon.😳
p.13 #6 · Considering a Leica Q3 43 but used to Sony
tzhang4284 wrote:
The options you mentioned are optically inferior to the Leica Q3 43mm or are much bigger or just outdated. You get what you pay for if you want compact with high image quality and modern capabilities .
Fixed lens compacts are usually always optically poor because they are size-wise forced to drop some required corrective lens elements that normal wide lenses demand, the Q3 43 is better at this by virtue of not really being a wide angle lens, the Q2 (28) had pretty bad distortion.
p.13 #9 · Considering a Leica Q3 43 but used to Sony
old-gregg wrote:
@chiron@ what happened? We demand to know!
I have been planning to update the group, and the thing that I will miss the most is the generous fellowship of the Lecia owners and other interested parties. It is a great group to have a connection to.
I got the Q3 43 and the many accessories a couple of weeks ago. It was all in excellent condition and as described. The seller was great. It was a beautiful camera to hold and look at, exquisitely made. And the lens was fabulous! Leica glass is outstanding!
So, why did I decide not to keep it?
I think there were three things:
When I had it configured, it did not feel all that different from shooting with an A7CR. @flash@ and @Fred Miranda@ had discussed this a bit. I think they both were right. As Flash said, it did have some lovely features that made it better than the A7CR when shot back-to-back as Flash sometimes does--for example and notably, the EVF. But at the same time, as Fred had suggested might be the case, the shooting experience did not feel so different for me from the A7CR. And, as some of the Leica owners had said, the Q3 in any case was not the real expression of the Leica ideal.
Which brings me to the second thing:
I have a number of excellent Sony cameras that I have used extensively for years, and the Q3 43 has a different way of working, requires different quick responses, and elicits different muscle memories to operate it quickly and fluently. Being able to handle a camera quickly is a major consideration for me, given what I like to shoot, and this is what makes a zone-focused M have a lot of appeal to me. But the differences between managing the Q3 43 and managing the Sony bodies was slowing me down and making handling the cameras more difficult. It well might have ameliorated in time, but ultimately I decided that I didn't want to have a third (I also have a Fuji GFX 100S II) camera system to learn how to use well and to develop automatic responses for. Automaticity of shooting looms large for me, and a third camera system was going to impede that automaticity.
Finally--and this may sound minor but was significant for me--I could not configure the small rig grip so that I could use a hand-strap (hand strap, not a wrist strap) with it and still easily reach the controls with my fingers. I use a hand strap with every camera I own and it is how I carry a camera when I am walking through a city or field or when I am with my family. I don't trust myself not to drop a camera if I don't have a hand strap, and I think that would be especially true of the Q3 43. So, I could not carry and use the camera in a way that feels safe and quickly accessible for me.
Given all of the above, I decided to catch-and-release it. I sold it to a very good and knowledgeable buyer who had owned a Q3 before and who snapped it up within 6 hours of my listing (and I had lot of other interest while that sale was taking place). I sold it for exactly to the penny what I had paid for it, so I was just out the cost of shipping and insuring the heavy (8 lbs.!) and valuable box cross-country, which was a small price to pay for the experience.
As I said, given the lovely and generous reception I got in this thread from Leica owners, I regret and will very much miss being part of the fellowship. I still love the ideal of the Leica as a small, quick, and simple photographer's camera, and I love the thousands of wonderful photographs that have been made with Leica in the imaging style of that camera series.
p.13 #12 · Considering a Leica Q3 43 but used to Sony
step56 wrote:
Fixed lens compacts are usually always optically poor because they are size-wise forced to drop some required corrective lens elements that normal wide lenses demand, the Q3 43 is better at this by virtue of not really being a wide angle lens, the Q2 (28) had pretty bad distortion.
I did some IRL testing of the RX1R III and the GFX100RF. The latter has some moderate distortion that you can see at close ranges, the former, not as much. These are usually corrected by post, but that means losing image space and doing interpolation. I just need to get my hands on a Q3 43 now
p.13 #13 · Considering a Leica Q3 43 but used to Sony
The RX1riii lens has about a 32mm focal length, which is a big difference from the Q3 43. So, if you want that tighter more “normal” FOV, I don’t see the RX1riii as a good alternative to the Q3 43.
p.13 #14 · Considering a Leica Q3 43 but used to Sony
chiron wrote:
Hi Allen.
Thank you for this. You and a number of others have been very informative and helpful, and I have read carefully, usually several times, what people have written. I am very seriously considering the 43, and I am going to find a way to handle one. I live outside of NYC, so I can go in to the Soho store to try one. I do think I would enjoy having one.
@Fred Miranda@@ gave me some pause when he wrote that I might not find the 43 to be that different from my A7C R because both are still mirrorless cameras. @flash@@ pretty strongly disagreed that they are similar in their shooting experience. So I am weighing that also. I am also aware of your point that the M is the real Leica shooting experience, but as I previously said I know that the M is not for me. Trying out a Q3 43 is the good next solution. Although I am thinking about all this now, I am also likely to delay an actual buying decision until I see what May's announcement of the A7RVI brings.
I do very much appreciate the well-informed advice that I have been getting. There is a lot of good discussion in this thread.
I think we call can agree that the a7CR and the Q3 fill similar purposes and can be used in very similar ways, even if the shooting experience is rather different. But what about pure image quality? Take e.g. the Q3 43 vs the R with a 40/2.5 lens - how do the RAW files differ when you work with them in Lightroom? Has anyone does a direct comparison between the files in terms of colors, sharpness, micro-contrast, fall-off, bokeh, etc? Is the difference obvious?
(Let's set aside the fact that the Sony combo above comes in at $3800 at B&H while the Leica is $8000)
p.13 #15 · Considering a Leica Q3 43 but used to Sony
patotts wrote:
I think we call can agree that the a7CR and the Q3 fill similar purposes and can be used in very similar ways, even if the shooting experience is rather different. But what about pure image quality? Take e.g. the Q3 43 vs the R with a 40/2.5 lens - how do the RAW files differ when you work with them in Lightroom? Has anyone does a direct comparison between the files in terms of colors, sharpness, micro-contrast, fall-off, bokeh, etc? Is the difference obvious?
(Let's set aside the fact that the Sony combo above comes in at $3800 at B&H while the Leica is $8000)...Show more →
I've owned the Sony 40mm f2.5 and Q3 43mm a few different times but never at the same time. The q3 43mm image quality is clearly better in every respect if you enjoy shooting at f2. It's basically perfect starting at wide open and has great colors, subject separation and sharpness.
The 40mm f2.5 is decent but it's not comparable to the Q3 43mm and probably shouldn't be given cost differential. If you're looking for mainly good enough images, the 40m mf2.5 is good enough. However, I would pay the premium for the Q3 43mm APO over the Sony 40mm f2.5 + Sony A7CR any day if you can afford it.
With all that said, I ended up selling the Q3 43mm and just sticking to my Leica M11 as my main travel camera. I brought only a Q3 43mm on a work trip this summer and took good photos during my time but missed my M11 and the flexibility of my lenses while bringing the Q3 43mm + a bunch of other camera gear felt like too much stuff.
p.13 #17 · Considering a Leica Q3 43 but used to Sony
patotts wrote:
I think we call can agree that the a7CR and the Q3 fill similar purposes and can be used in very similar ways, even if the shooting experience is rather different. But what about pure image quality? Take e.g. the Q3 43 vs the R with a 40/2.5 lens - how do the RAW files differ when you work with them in Lightroom? Has anyone does a direct comparison between the files in terms of colors, sharpness, micro-contrast, fall-off, bokeh, etc? Is the difference obvious?
(Let's set aside the fact that the Sony combo above comes in at $3800 at B&H while the Leica is $8000)...Show more →
For me the obvious difference is the bokeh on the 40G is definitely not as smooth and creamy as the Q3 43, even with both at 2.5. Definitely a little busier on the Sony, though I’m one of those who also kind of likes the look of the OOF areas on the 40G so that’s not totally a bad thing.
I actually find the RAWs from the Sony to have more contrast and color compared to the Q3, which was not what I was expecting. In terms of just those to factors I actually prefer the look of the Sony. Sharpness on both has been more or less identical. The only other slight difference is that I actually get a tiny bit more color fringing on the Q3 43 in certain lighting.
In terms of processing in Lightroom, my work flow for both is the same and I haven’t really noticed any difference there. I’ll try and get some comparison pics between the two later today to post if I have a second.
p.13 #18 · Considering a Leica Q3 43 but used to Sony
The one I just took for granted and never gave much though when shooting Sony for years is that I don't like the JPEG output, and the RAW are never according to my taste straight out of box. I cull and select which photos are worth processing, and then proceed. I always took the post-processing as a given part of photography in the digital age.
I'm somewhat jealous of those people that are happy with their e.g. Fujifilm profiles and just shoots JPEG and be there :-)
p.13 #19 · Considering a Leica Q3 43 but used to Sony
Ok, did my best to get some comparisons of the A7CR+40G against the Q3 43. These were all shot at F2.5, ISO100, matching SS, WB set to 5500K. Imported all into Lightroom with the Adobe Default profile, then export at 4K to make file sizes more manageable. I'll provide a link to the RAW files here shortly for those that prefer that.
The Q3 43 images are the first ones of each pair, then the A7CR. Sorry for not more color options, I live in high desert Central Oregon so all we have is dull brown and dull green right now
