Leica Q3 43 review

Leica’s Q3 43 builds on the success of the Q-series, adding a new 43mm F2 Apo lens to the 60 MP CMOS of the regular Leica Q3. Kevin Carter takes a look.

With Canon and Nikon concentrating on niche genres like sports and action or the ‘content creator’, it’s hardly surprising when something like the Leica Q3 arrives to fill the void. And now it has been joined by the Leica Q3 43. While expensive, with better resale prices than rival makes when the time comes to upgrade, it is perhaps the most economical way into the Leica system.

Small, light and discreet, the Leica Q3 43 shares the ergonomics and features of the wide-angle variant of the Leica Q3, including the 60 MP CMOS sensor. As the two cameras are practically identical, save for the lens and grey leather covering the front of the body, there’s no real need for me to repeat myself on certain aspects. For the most part, I’ll limit the discussion to the differences between the two.

For my review of the standard Leica Q3, please see here.

The Leica Q3 43 then is the first in the series to feature an Apo-Summicron 2/43 Asph. The 43mm focal length is an interesting choice. As I’ve mentioned previously, the 40-45mm range is mildly wide; a bit wider than a normal 50mm or 55mm, but not quite a short tele. It’s this indiscriminate nature that’s attractive. It’s a good choice for portraiture and general use.

Like its sibling, the 43mm lens even has optical image stabilisation and a leaf shutter allowing flash sync up to 1/2000sec, should you need it (probably not in the gloomy UK weather). Essentially, the Leica Q3 43 is a stills photographer’s camera, but it will also capture video at up to 8K at 30 fps and 4K video recording at up to 60 fps.

When reviewing the Leica Q3 and comparing it to the Leica Q2, I said, “Nearly everything in the Q3 has been either tweaked or reworked.” Why change a good thing? Well, for one, not everyone likes wide lenses, even for street photography. A standard or ‘normal’ focal length like this is an obvious alternative and one I’ve discussed only recently in the review of the Fujinon GF 50mm F3.5 R LM WR.

The 11-element lens has four elements with seven aspherical surfaces, meaning three are double-sided. No mention is made of any anomalous dispersion glass types used in the construction. Given the APO moniker that seems somewhat amiss.

The lens is a little longer but ergonomically similar in every way. Autofocus is the headline feature, and it works well, with face detection recognising the eyes even in low light levels that the Canon EOS R5 would have trouble with. It’s not foolproof, but it’s reassuringly effective in many instances. Light levels due to storms and constant rain during the test period while on loan were poor indeed. Be that as it may, the body’s IP52 rating was reassuring during the inclement weather provided by Storm Darragh.

Manual focus is also a highlight, should you need it. Like the 28mm variant, a small button on the metal focusing tab needs to be pressed first to unlock it. It’s small, though and best accessed with a thumb or fingernail. Manual focusing is smooth and lightly weighted, which is a bit lighter than most M lenses from new.

A ‘macro’ option with close focusing to 27cm must be engaged using a dedicated ring, not unlike that found on the 28mm. When rotating the ring, the focusing scale slides forward to reveal the shorter distance range, and it can’t be used to focus outside of that range without reverting back. The metal ring, with its milled grip, like the rest of the lens, is well-made, tactile and nicely weighted.

Focusing can be achieved either manually or with AF. Focusing is near silent and pretty fast, though not as fast as the fastest AF lenses. The lens has inner focusing (no extending barrels) and has two groups used for focusing. Typically, this is adopted to improve performance at close range, though it’s not mentioned in any of the marketing material.

While AF is excellent under a wide range of conditions, when face priority is engaged (which for me, is most of the time), the camera often switches between that and object detection as it tries to find a person to focus on, which can be distracting. You can either switch to one of the reliable Field Metering modes or switch to manual focusing, which, for me, is best in low light once focus has been achieved.

Features like the Leica Q3 43’s framing options work similarly, emulating the Leica M’s rangefinder frame lines while being able to see ‘outside’ the frame. While this is genuinely helpful while composing in, for example, a busy street scene where you can spot people or cars about to enter the frame, it is important to remember that this is digital cropping. On a Leica M camera, you’ll still be using the sensor’s full resolution.

Still, the 60mm focal length option returns around 31 MP and the 75mm around 21 MP, so they’re still capable of producing nicely detailed images. However, the longer focal length options with their correspondingly smaller frame sizes and lower resolutions, are less attractive.

But what of that lens? How good is it?

Well, like the 28mm on the Leica Q3, the Leica Q3 43 relies heavily on built-in digital lens correction. While that’s all taken care of with out-of-camera JPEGs, make sure your chosen editor is up to date when using RAW. Otherwise, you’ll see some barrel distortion, slight fringing and a little vignetting.

There are various perspectives on this issue. Some people are indifferent, while others, particularly purists, favour optical correction. Techniques like bending and stretching pixels, cropping, and then scaling back to the original resolution all have their effects. Starting with a higher pixel count is beneficial, but the solution isn’t straightforward. Ultimately, it involves making some trade-offs. As the saying goes, there’s no such thing as a ‘free lunch.’ The alternative would be a larger, even more costly lens.

Lightroom forces the corrections, and you can’t turn them off. Others, like Capture One and Nitro (the closest editor we have to Aperture), allow you to see what the sensor sees. Most modern lenses use digital correction, and while the amount of correction varies, it’s the end result that matters. This lens is a slightly better performer than the 28mm, but there isn’t that much in it. In some ways, I prefer the rendering of the 28mm, but that’s my view, and the 43mm is the better lens overall.

One of the highlights of the Leica Q3 and the Leica Q3 43 is its low-light ability. With lens-based image stabilisation and whisper-quiet, low-vibration leaf shutter, I can hand-hold the Leica Q3 43 at 1/3 sec and still get acceptably sharp images.

As for dynamic range, the sensor behaves much like the Leica M11, with a second gain at ISO 200 and lots of highlight recovery should you need it. However, JPEGs have quite noticeable (grainy-looking) luminance noise. While an odd processing choice and a little surprising, it’s easy enough to alter when using RAW files.

Leica is a small yet influential camera maker, so it’s hardly surprising that the Leica Q3 43 is a hugely compelling choice. Indeed, like the Leica Q2 and Q3, the new Leica Q3 43 is a triumph of camera design. With excellent ergonomics and great image quality, all in a compact and discrete package, the Leica Q3 43 makes you want to go out and take photographs. If you already have a Leica Q2 or Leica Q3 (28), then you’ll know just how good it is at not getting in the way.

What’s Hot

Excellent IQ from 43mm Apo lens
Low-light capabilities (OIS with Leaf shutter)
Useful 60mm and 75mm crop options
Discreet operation
Fold-out screen for low and waist-level shots

What’s Not

Comes at a hefty price* and slight premium over Leica Q3 (28)

*can be offset somewhat by high-residuals

With an RRP of £5,900 inc VAT, the Leica Q3 43 is available at the following retailers [some links are affiliates]:

Added: WEX Photo (UK)| Park Cameras (UK) | Leica Camera (UK)

Added: B&H Photo (US) | Adorama (US) | Leica Camera (US)

Disclosure: Leica UK supplied the camera for review.

Technical Data

Sample Images

Low light shot of a new Grid Serve charging station, showing before and after distortion correction applied in Capture One Pro. Handheld at 1/30sec, F5.6 at ISO1600.