The quirks of the Leica Q3 43 - a year later.

I am quite harsh towards photography gear with a very short term perspective of its appeal. That isn't always fair to the gear but it's my blog so I get to write whatever I want. This post is all about the quirks of the Leica Q3 43. After a year of use, I am still conflicted about this camera. Is it good? Is it small? Is it actually big? I honestly don't know anymore. I think that says more about me than about the product created by the lovely people in Wetzlar, Germany.

I know that readers of this blog appreciate gear related blog posts more than other musings about photography. And you know what? I agree. It is part of the hobby, to wonder why this constellation of plastic, glass, and chips works so well, and this other one not so much. All with a limited shelf-life of course. But I digress, let's talk about the Q3 43.

The Leica Q3 43 is pretty big for a small camera. I keep forgetting that. Every time I pick it up, every single time, I am surprised buy its bigness. It somehow manages to look small without actually being small. It's bigger than an M of course, another thing I keep forgetting. Does this matter? Well, kind of. Part of the design principles for this camera is to be that 'everyday carry' camera. Now, this is a very subjective topic, of course. Coming from a Mamiya RB, the Q3 43 is incredibly small. But putting it next to a Fujifilm X-T5, or X-E5, or a Sony A7C or a Sigma BF, etc., the Q3 43 is not that small. It's actually pretty big. That does make it nice to hold, I must say. But it is not small.

Small or big, what is clear is that the Q3 43 is slow. I am not talking about the autofocus which is.... fine. It's nothing to write home about but it is perfectly reasonable. No, the slowness has to do with the startup time. And shutdown time but that is less relevant because that does not make you miss any shots. The startup time certainly does make you miss shots. Now, I can already hear people saying "just keep it on and let it wake" but I just don't understand why this is necessary. Pretty much every other camera I use is significantly faster to turn on. And again, when you ask the kind of prices that Leica asks for their products, I think you should at least meet the average startup time. The Leica Q3 43 certainly does not.

The lens is phenomenally sharp. And I love how it renders the fall-off. But there is something about the colors. I think this has to do with the sensor and the Leica software as the problem seems to be present in the M11 as well. The issue is a slight magenta undertone, particularly in skin-color. It's big enough to be annoying and require work in Capture One or whatever you use. I thought it was a mismatch in Capture One profiles so I also tested this in DxO Photolab 9 and it shows the same magenta undertone in RAW files. I think a firmware update should have resolved this but I still see it. Pretty annoying.

And then there is the screen. Yes, it is a tilt screen but it the way it has been designed makes it hard to actually flip it up or down. There is a indented area that runs across the screen above and below it which is what you are supposed to use to flip the screen but in reality it takes some work to get it out. Now, how important is this really? Well, it adds to the lack of speed and when you are not out with the sole intent of capturing magical photographic images at a slow pace, but simply want to capture life around you, you are always too late. This in combination with the startup time is pretty annoying.

I know Leica is a special brand. In the sense that no rational argument can be made for using it, and that is part of it's appeal. But there is a minimum bar of functionality it should hit. And for my use case, it barely does. But I still love the camera. Humans are weird.