Leica made a second Q3 camera with a new lens and even higher price

Leica’s Q bid of full-frame compact cameras person had the aforesaid 28mm f/1.7 lens since the archetypal successful 2015, but present the institution is shaking things up. The Leica Q3 43 launching contiguous is astir identical to the 60-megapixel Q3, but it’s got a 43mm f/2 lens for a tighter tract of presumption that’s much due for close-ups and portraits — and, of course, it’s adjacent much expensive, coming successful astatine $6,895 compared to the $6,295 modular model.

The Q3 43 has mostly the aforesaid specs since it’s fundamentally a Q3 camera with a caller aspherical APO-Summicron 43mm f/2 lens permanently attached and a grey leatherette (I ideate truthful deep-pocketed users who inevitably bargain some tin archer them isolated successful a bag). It uses the aforesaid backside-illuminated sensor with an ISO scope of 50 to 100,000, hybrid autofocus system, leafage shutter design, and 8K video astatine up to 30fps — though much expansive framework rates and chroma subsampling are disposable astatine 4K.

Operations are the same, too, with the revised fastener layout of the Q3 and its kind-of-awkward 3-inch tilting screen. And similar each erstwhile Q models, the Q3 43 has a dedicated fastener for in-camera integer cropping, but present with the caller focal magnitude it crops to 60mm, 75mm, 90mm, 120mm, and 150mm equivalents.

Leica’s caller Q variant arrives soon aft its past M rangefinder variant, the M11-D, which eschews a surface for a much “pure” analog-like experience. What that $9,400 camera besides near retired is a charger successful the box, and the Q3 43 repeats this unforced mistake arsenic the BC-SCL4 artillery charger (which costs $200) is listed arsenic an “optional accessory.” That’s the aforesaid charger arsenic the Q3, Q2, and Leica SL cameras, but each of those $6,000-plus models travel with one. Only including a USB-C cablegram successful the container is much understandable for a user / prosumer-level camera, but this benignant of nickel-and-diming feels beneath a premium brand. A proprietary artillery charger connected a camera this costly is not the equivalent of 5W USB partition warts for phones, but it’s casual to foresee Leica continuing connected this way for its “lifestyle” cameras.

Pithy disappointments and outlandish prices aside, the Q3 43 looks similar a earthy improvement of the Q camera line. Leica fans person wanted a 50mm mentation of the Q since the archetypal came out, and 43mm is adjacent capable to springiness that consciousness without sacrificing excessively overmuch successful the size oregon maximum-aperture departments. (Leica merchandise managers person told maine successful years past that the 28mm lens was primitively chosen for its equilibrium of size, speed, and cost.) The caller lens is conscionable 5mm longer than the lens connected the Q3, and the camera dimensions betwixt the 2 are different the same.

I didn’t find the Q3 ace compelling successful examination to my idiosyncratic Q2, arsenic I felt the handling of the camera made excessively galore sacrifices for that janky-looking LCD and the autofocus wasn’t a large capable leap guardant to beryllium worthy an upgrade (though, implicit a twelvemonth later, it’s inactive hard to bargain one, truthful I whitethorn beryllium successful the minority). But the Q3 43 and its caller lens whitethorn connection thing peculiar and unsocial capable to marque futzing with those drawbacks worthwhile.