Leica has just introduced the new Q3 43, a follow-up to last year’s Q3 and a welcome addition to Leica’s Q series of premium compact cameras. The biggest difference is a newly developed 43mm fixed focal length lens – hence the 43 in its name – but that’s not the only thing that’s changed.
Since its launch in 2015, the original full-frame Leica Q and its subsequent siblings – including the Q2 Monochrom – have been turning heads not only for their handsome exteriors but also for the cutting-edge tech packed inside and the resulting level of image quality they produce.
Their handmade-in-Germany workmanship is another major selling point, but some found the 28mm fixed focal length of the preceding Q3 lens a bit limiting.
Many shooters will warmly embrace the new APO-Summicron 43 f/2 ASPH, the newest member of a family of Leica APO lenses considered to be among the best in the world. The “APO” is short for apochromatically corrected, meaning an optical design engineered to align the red, green and blue wavelengths of light entering the lens onto a single point of focus. The upshot is a sharper image without colour fringing.
Reining in the previous model’s fairly wide-angle 28mm, the new 43mm focal length also brings the perspective closer to that of a human eye and makes this camera ideal for shooting both street photography and portraits.
Among other noteworthy features, the Leica Q3 43 retains the Q3’s 60MP BSI CMOS full-frame sensor with innovative Triple Resolution Technology that allows you to choose between 60, 36 and 18MP resolutions. It also keeps the camera’s IP52 rating while sporting an elegant new grey leatherette cladding.
Another first for the Leica Q3 43 is a new Leica Look simulation called Leica Chrome, which you can apply to JPEGs directly in camera to give your images a subtle but eye-catching analogue edge.
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