A long time reader asked for my final, definitive opinion of the Leica Q2. Here you go:

HRC. UT Austin Campus.

I bought a Leica Q2 late last year with no real intention or project in mind. I'd just heard and read so many good things about the handling, the image quality and the build quality of the camera that I wanted to see for myself if I could use it to more easily make great photos while out and around. I thought it would make an especially good camera for travel. We're still waiting to see on that last point but there is no reason it should not work well. The Q2 was not my first Leica digital camera investment. I had previously purchased and used six other Leicas and of the six five exceeded my expectations. The one outlier was the APS-C format TL2 which was....difficult. 

I call the TL2 difficult not because the files from the camera lacked any of the Leica color science and not because the build quality of the camera was lacking but it was obvious to me that the interface design; the menus and the way a user interacted with them, were absolutely foreign to all my previous Leica experiences. And since I did not have the opportunity to learn smart phone interfaces in the crib I found the way the settings worked trendy, murky and confusing. That camera was expelled from the fold with extreme prejudice. 

But my experiences with the CL, the SL and the SL2 models were, where the menus are involved, like coming home. In almost all paid work situations I like nothing better than using the SL and SL2 cameras. While they are very sturdy they are also a bit heavy for other casual uses. Carrying around a couple of these full frame cameras and a complement of lenses for a day is a chore. In the commercial photography workplace they are just another bit of gear on the cart, chasing around after cases of lights, stands, sandbags, tripods and cables. But walking the streets of Austin the bigger cameras and lenses are noticeable and, after a time, weighty. Especially if you would try doing a full day of street shooting with the SL2 and the enormously dense 24-90mm f2.8-4.0 zoom lens. The combination will give you pause. 

I added the Leica CLs to the mix pretty much as an alternative to the burden of the bigger cameras. I figured they would accept the same lens mount, fit better into a street shooting modality and they very much reminded me of my very first foray into Leica-dom, the camera was a Red Dial Leica IIIf that I bought for a song, along with a clean 50mm f4.0 collapsible Elmar lens, from the Camera Exchange in San Antonio, Texas. 

And, by most logical measures I should have stopped and been happy with the combination of small and large Leica digital cameras but this is not the way of the ancient photographer (been watching too many episodes of The Mandalorian...). Kaizen pushes me to constantly experiment with new ways of doing stuff with the goal of somehow improving my photography --- even though I know the improvements really need to come from me and not my gear.

But the lure (and the marketing) of the Q2 is compelling. The Force is currently strong with Leica. 

But enough about my Leica origin story. How do I like the camera now that I've had the chance to use it for a few months and shoot thousands of frames with it? It's an easy answer if you don't bring economics into the discussion. The camera itself is mostly well designed but I have a few niggles about its hand-hold-ability and I'll get to that below. When it comes to image quality I have no reservations whatsoever. 

When I use the camera in either the raw format or the Jpeg format I get clean, sharp files that match up well (or slightly better) than the lovely files I can get from the Leica SL2. The files are well corrected for vignetting and geometric distortions added by the lens. This all happens under the hood so we never see evidence of any compromise where the lens is concerned. I wasn't sure I'd get along well with the "crop" mode as Leica has implemented it but I find it very transparent to use now. I mostly frame and shoot at 28mm but I don't hesitate to use the crop mode for 35mm and 50mm images, I'm a bit leery about going all the way out to 75mm but I have done it, posted images from that crop and don't notice, at web res, any telltale loss of quality vis-a-vis the full frame images. 

I should explain the crop mode. If you shoot in Jpeg you can shoot at the native 28mm and crop on your own in post. But you have the option to push a button near the top of the camera (on the back) that will show you bright, solid frame lines for 35mm. Push the button again to see the same kind of frame lines for 50mm. Push the button a third time to see those frame lines for 75mm. If you select, say the 35mm frame crop in Jpeg and trip the shutter the file is captured at that crop and the review instantly shows the cropped image. When you open the Jpeg file in post it opens in that crop and you don't have an option to revert back to a full frame image. 

When you are shooting in the raw file (DNG) format and you push the crop button to engage 35mm you'll see the frameline for the crop you've selected overlayed on your fill frame 28mm image but once you take the shot the post shot review will still only show you the full 28mm frame with the 35mm crop marks overlayed. If you open that file in Adobe Lightroom you will see only the 35mm crop. But here's the real difference, if you click the cropping tool from the menu you can see the full 28mm frame residing in a darker window with the 35mm frame in the center. Should you decide you'd like to "uncrop" the image you can do so with the crop tools and get back all the way to the full 28mm frame. So, with raw, as usual, nothing is permanently baked in. You can revert to the default. 

This leads to the question I pondered most before melting down a credit card as a sacrifice to Leica for their work on the Q2. To wit, just how good do the files look when they've been cropped? 

First you have to know that Leica uses a sensor that's perfectly paired with the built-in lens. The edges and the center are extremely sharp and the resolution of the integrated system of lens and sensor is outstanding. So you are starting out with 47+ megapixel images unmarred by aggressive anti-aliasing filters in the mix. And with a lens that's perfectly matched to the sensor. The crop to 35mms gets you a bit over 30 megapixels of detail. Switching to 50mms gets you about 15 megapixels of detail. And it's sharp detail. If I know I'll want to print an image large I try to stick to 28mm and 35mm but I have no real fears of reaching all the way to 50mm to get the image I want. All my experiments with the cropping in camera have been very successful with the caveat that I've steered away from relying on the 75mm crop just out of years of training that pokes me in the ribs and tells me "it just can't be good enough at 7 megapixels!!!" But we all know that for web work it would be fine. Just fine. 

So, in addition, the camera is weather sealed to an IP 52 rating which means I don't mind getting it out in mellow rain. Hours of hard, driving rain would be a different story. I'm not a believer that any camera can hold out against eventual intrusion of water forever. I did have worries about dust intrusion. I'd read that this could be a problem, over time, with the original Q camera. Dust could settle on the sensor or in the lens. Presumed to be fixed in the Q2.

To prevent this dust issue knowledgeable Q users pointed to the top mounted microphone ports as potential problem areas for dust and routinely cover those with tape. I rarely use "protection" filters on my lenses but added a B+W filter to the Q2 just as an overprotective move meant to enhance internal systems protections from the elements. Probably nothing but paranoia on my part. With these small mods in place I am confident in using the camera almost anywhere and under any conditions. 

One plus for users who are currently using the SL cameras is the fact that the Q2 shares the same battery model as those bigger cameras. It also has the same easy insertion protocol as those cameras. It's cool that there is no battery door to break off in the heat of a fast battery change out.  That cross camera battery use is a decided plus when you consider that replacement/back up batteries are currently USD $285 each and are sometimes annoyingly out of stock. I am always just a bit frustrated when I look at current Panasonic batteries for the S5 and the S5II and see that the shape and contact configuration of those batteries is so, so similar to the Leica SL batteries. And I can pick up generics of the Panasonic batteries all day long for as little as $25 or $30 each. $65 for Panasonic branded ones. It would be nice to have five or ten inexpensive batteries for the Q2. Not that it goes through batteries quickly (it actually is much more power efficient than your average SL2) but that one could go on an extended vacation without needing to nurse batteries every night...

At this point in my "review" I have to say that the camera is nicely sized and has great, great image quality. Plus you get an extra boost if 28mm is one of your most preferred focal lengths to use. The low light performance is on par with high resolution competitors and the DNG files are actually almost thrilling to edit. They look good and respond well to post production manipulation. Added to this is the quiet, stealthy shutter and one feature that doesn't get enough oxygen.... A leaf shutter that can sync with flash all the way up to 1/2,000th of a second. It's a wonderful plus if you just need a "puff" of light to fill in quick portraits in chancy light. 

Now. Here are my two gripes: First, the area on which your right hand thumb is supposed to sit isn't well positioned for my average sized hands. Consider that I am "only" five feet eight inches tall and weigh "only" 155 pounds. If you are one of the new generations of Americans raised on hormone laden beef, chicken and pork, as well as bountiful and regular doses of sugar you may have mutated to some enormous size of six and a half or seven feet tall. Your hands may totally eclipse the camera. And your thumb will end up somewhere different than mine on the back of the camera. For either of us, whether your reach needs to be truncated or mine extended, the surface area of the spot intended to constitute the back part of your overall right hand grip is smoothly painted and doesn't give enough assured purchase to inspire "one-handed handling" confidence. You will want a Leica or an aftermarket thumb grip that fits into the hot shoe and provides a secure place to rest your thumb. I'm cheap. I'm using a JJC thumb grip and it works fine. It's five or ten times cheaper than the Leica thumb grip...

In the same vein, the front of the camera is rounded and the leatherette covering there is also fine grained which means that unless you are differently configured, hand-wise, than me and countless others, you will have trouble adequately gripping the camera with your right hand. I added a Hoage front grip to the camera (attaches to the bottom via tripod mount socket) which neatly solves the problem. Whether you get the cheap Hoage branded grip or the luxe Leica front grip you will still have to remove the grip to access the memory card. Both allow for ready access to the battery while they are on the camera. Those two issues are my only real complaints with the Q2. If you want to use the camera in its rawest form, meaning no added grips on the front or the back I would counsel you to use a hand strap or make secure use of the included neck strap to prevent an unwanted disconnection of the camera and your hand at an inopportune moment ---- which would be just about any moment. 

With the grips in place the camera handles very well. And the only other consideration is the value for the price. And that depends so much on what else you have on hand already. I like the Q2 and won't get rid of it now. It's perfect as a carry everywhere camera and the files outclass and out deliver compared to the files from my CLs. And nearly every other camera I've owned. It's good compromise on most fronts when compared to the bigger cameras. 

But if I was just entering the market for modern digital Leicas fresh and clean of all encumberances and wanted a more "all around" pro and hobbyist camera I'd probably choose an SL2-S and the Leica/Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 as a better starter camera into the system. I obviously was already both feet in and when I had some extra cash rolling around it was an easy choice to make. 

Mr. Biro, I hope this is a useful review for you. I presume you know all the specs and features from investigating the Q2 on the Leica site and from reviews. Here's my final assessment: If I decided to retire entirely from the field of commercial photography I would divest every scrape of gear from every cabinet and closet and keep only the Q2 and the SL2, along with the big zoom and one more convenient and much smaller 50mm lens for the SL2. I'd sell off all the other cameras but would sell them sans batteries (making that very, very clear to the buyers....) and I'd be set for a long while until Leica came out with something new and even more tantalizing. 

All the photos here were taken yesterday afternoon during a walk around the UT Austin campus with the Q2. I spent many years there as a student and then on the faculty as a "Specialist Lecturer" in the College of Fine Arts. To my knowledge, at age 24, I was the youngest faculty hire at the time at UT. Fun, nostalgic walk around old stomping grounds. Lots of memories. UT also has better swimming pools now... Maybe I should go back... pursue a degree in something practical....like  philosophy or art history.

Last image is from off campus. Right across the street.

 

Yet another 50-ish millimeter lens. The Voigtlander Nokton 58mm f1.4 SL II. Nicer than most of the reviews would have you believe...

I'm sure you know by now that I find 50mm lenses, and lenses in the ballpark of 45-65mm to be the natural companion to my way of seeing things; photographically.  And I'm sure you can see in my writing that I am curious to try as many different 50mm-ish lenses as I can, natively and via adapters, on my L mount cameras. A couple of weeks ago I got a Carl Zeiss 50mm f1.4 ZF.2 lens in a Nikon mount and adapted it to my cameras to play around with. Unlike modern "super" 50's it has what some like to call "character" or "personality." When people say this they mean that certain flaws are inherent in the lens and that they like the way those flaws affect the overall image. 

Typically, fast 50mm lenses designed before the age of "super" lenses (circa 2008-2010 and later) have certain "issues" that are endemic to the basic optical design. One such "issue" is that most fast 50's of a certain design (fewer elements and fewer optical groups) tend to exhibit fairly pronounced vignetting when used at their two or three biggest apertures. The lenses are also sharper in the middle than on the edges until they are stopped down from f1.4 to something like f4.0 or f5.6. The final "flaw" in the mix is the tendency of the previous generation of lenses to have more field curvature which is part of the reason why they must be stopped down to bring the edges and corners to a satisfactory level of sharpness across the frame...

But while these classic 50mm lenses have common compromises they also have their own unique optical characteristics (guilty of calling a fault "character") and that's what makes them so interesting. So collectible. I've owned lenses such as the Sigma 50mm f1.4 Art lens and I've played around recently with a Leica 50mm f2.0 SL APO Summicron; both of which are highly corrected. Same with the Panasonic 50mm f1.4 S-Pro lens which I owned way back in 2021. They are wonderful lenses from an objective point of view but to my mind they are too good. Too clinical, and because of their giant size and freakish weight they have lost a huge measure of handling comfort and easy agility which makes them a daunting choice for a "walk around" and "have fun" lens.

Knowing that I have these prejudices about modern versus previous generation lens design, and knowing how much I enjoy a good, eccentric 50-60mm fast lens, my friend Paul couldn't help himself and brought along a small package when we last met for coffee. Wrapped in a black, cloth pouch was a wonderful lens that I had never tried before and have always been curious about. "Try this one. You might like it..." He said. 

Inside the pouch was an essentially brand new copy of the Nikon mount Voigtlander Nokton 58mm f1.4 SL II. The exterior design mimics almost perfectly the design of Nikon manual focus lenses from the 1960s and early 1970s. Complete with a large knurled metal focusing ring. A well implemented aperture ring near the rear of the lens and even the little "rabbit ears" that allowed Nikon lenses to be backwardly compatible, as far as metering is concerned, with cameras made previous to AI and Ais Nikon cameras. 

The Nokton 58mm is not currently made in either a Leica M or SL mount so the Nikon F mount model becomes the easiest way to get this lens on a Leica SL or CL camera. You just need to add an inexpensive Nikon F to L mount adapter to the mix. These are "dumb" adapters that only mount the lens to the camera but don't transfer aperture information or enable any sort of auto-focus. I use them all the time and while I'm sure someone out there has tested some adapter for some camera and lens combination which ended up being "not perfect" my success rate with almost every adapter has been good. 

If you use this lens directly on a Nikon DSLR, like a D850, it does have electronic contacts (and CPU) to transfer information from the lens to the camera and will give you full exposure automation but still no AF. 

The lens "features" a classic, double Gauss optical design and a paltry seven glass elements in six groups. The parent company, Cosina, is that same entity that makes the currently Carl Zeiss branded lenses for several different lens mounts as well. If the Zeiss Milvus 50mm f1.4 ZF and the 100mm Milvus Makro lenses are any indication those folks really know how to do lens making well. 

You can pick up this lens, brand new, for around $550. There is nothing miraculous or earth-shattering about this lens. It's well built and may have some small design tweaks to the optical formula which makes it "better" but, in essence, it's a standard fast fifty. You can expect good center sharpness even wide open but at f1.4 if you are shooting flat test charts you can expect a mess of unsharpness in the corners and at the edges. Remember, there is some uncorrected lens curvature (part of the optical formula compromise) so the corners aren't exactly in the same focal plane as the very center. Stopping down helps. A lot. I got great images at f2.0 as long as I was defining "great" as being very sharp in the center third of the frame but willing to accept moderately soft corners. By f4.0 and especially f5.6 the lens performs really well. Nicely sharp and with excellent contrast almost everywhere in the frame. 

None of this is to suggest that you can't or shouldn't shoot the lens at f1.4. It gathers light well there. And if you put your subject near the center you can get great images. But never assume that a fast fifty, used wide open, is a great flat field macro lens. It's not. And it's not designed to be.

I used the lens a bunch yesterday and photographed lots of different subject matter. The lens has similar optical characteristics as the Carl Zeiss 50mm f1.4 ZF.2 but has a different color palette and a different degree of contrast and sharpness at f1.4 and f2.0. I would describe it as having higher performance than the Zeiss at those two fastest apertures; at least in the center of the frame. 

Comparing either of the lenses to current AF lenses is interesting. The build quality of both seems much better than the AF competitors which trade fast AF focusing for rugged overall build quality and joyful usability. A lens like the Lumix 50mm f1.8 (AF) certainly resolves more detail in the corners and at the edges when used at and close to wide open but it is a bit clinical and much less fun to use. The lenses built as manual focus lenses are much more engaging to use because they require your participation in a different and more immersive way. 

This lens or the Carl Zeiss 50mm f1.4 are very much fun to use and more than good enough for just about any sort of art-impelled photography you might for which you might use them. That lenses still exist that are this well made and this much fun to use makes me happy. I might even learn to use the 58mm as a newer, wider portrait lens. Change is good. 

I've posted a bunch of samples below. They are sized to 3200 pixels on the long side and I encourage you to click on them and view them large if you really want to see how the lens handles detail and sharpness. If you are just glancing at them on a phone then the words will outshine the photos for information. But then.....phone? How passé....

vignetting added in post. And here I thought "print was dead..." 

these guys were working on big infrastructure projects across the street from the Blanton Museum. 

They flagged me down and asked me to photograph them. How fun! (f4.0)

Young family soaking up art at the Blanton Museum yesterday.

The small child was more interested in watching the amazing 

technique of the professional photograph as amateur..... f1.4

You know a major university has gobs and gobs of extra cash when they can afford to 

plant thousands and thousands of beautiful tulips ..... just because....

I was at the Blanton Museum with the Voigtlander Nokton 58mm f1.4 lens

yesterday. They have a new show called, "Work" and it's all about the regular day 

jobs that some artists had to do in order to survive financially as they worked on

their art. Fun stuff from Andy Warhol, Barbara Krueger and Vivian Maier. And many others. 

There was a sign at the entry to the exhibit informing guests that the in-house photographer (see just above) would be making photographs in the main gallery and that by entering you agree that the museum can use your image. I guess that's fair since Thursday is free admission day. Fun to watch.

And then there are the classics. Good, solid models with which to test your

lens at its widest settings. From the Battle Sculpture Collection. Also at the 

Blanton Museum. 

Circling back. Would I buy this lens? Sure. It's beautifully made. The focus ring is exotically good. The images are solid and fun. Why the heck not?