Leica Q3 Monochrom Review | Photography Blog

Ease of Use

Side by side with the Q3 and Q3 43 models, the Q3 Monochrom has a much more stealthy appearance, with an all-black leatherette coating on the front of its body and the perhaps surprising complete omission of the usual red Leica logo in the front top-right corner.

In addition the Leica Q3 and Monochrom engravings on the top-plate are also completely black, rather than white or grey as on the Q3 / Q3 43, and some of the lens markings have been changed from yellow to grey. Otherwise the three Q3 models are completely identical in terms of their external design, operation and control layout.

The Leica Q3 Monochrom has the same 60 megapixel full-frame BSI (BackSide-Illuminated) CMOS sensor that was initially developed especially for the flagship M11 Monochrom rangefinder camera, which offers a 21% increase on the resolution offered by 2020’s 47.3 megapixel Q2 Monochrom model.

In conjunction with the Maestro IV image processor, this allows the Q3 Monochrom to output 14-bit raw files with a claimed dynamic range of up to 14 stops, provide an extensive ISO range of 100-200,000, and shoot 60 megapixel images at 4fps with continuous AF/AE.

Whilst 60 megapixels will undoubtedly be a big draw for potential owners of this camera, Leica have also sensibly provided two smaller 36 and 18 megapixel modes which help avoid some of the processing and storage challenges of the the 60 megapixel mode while also boosting the burst shooting buffer times.

So the Q3M can be set to record 60, 36 or 18 megapixels DNG Raw images with 14-stop dynamic range using the full sensor area, something that Leica are calling “Triple Resolution Technology”.

The Leica Q3 Monochrom has a fixed, as opposed to removable, lens. The 28mm focal length provided is all-encompassing and makes this camera particularly suitable for landscape and travelogue photography.

A straightforward and clearly marked macro setting on the lens barrel allows subjects as close as 17cm to be captured, while otherwise the minimum focusing distance is a regular 30cm. The manually selectable aperture range extends from f/1.7 up to f/16 with an automatic setting provided too.

This is coupled with a bright/fast f/1.7 aperture to allow for lower light shooting hand-held. As the lens is fairly wide the user is naturally prompted to get quite close to their subjects if they want them to fill the frame, or the majority of it, to really make the most of the ‘bokeh’ opportunities offered by that maximum aperture.

Leica has additionally provided a screw-on/screw off lens hood, should you wish to use it as an additional aid to preventing lens flare, or avoid unwanted artifacts in brighter conditions. There’s also a thread on the front for traditional 49mm glass filters.

Impressively the lens is optically stabilized, a surprising feature given the wide-angle, full-frame nature of the lens, which coupled with the impressive noise performance at high ISOs makes it very easy to hand-hold the Q3 Monochro in less than perfect lighting conditions and still achieve pin-sharp results.

In addition to the 28mm optical focal length, the Q3 provides four different crop modes that simulate longer focal lengths.

At the press of the small unmarked button next to the rear thumbgrip on the rear of the camera, you can switch to 35mm, 50mm, 75mm and a brand new 90mm crop mode, with a rectangular overlay displayed to help with composition.

The 35mm equivalent crop provides 39 megapixels resolution, the 50mm crop 19 megapixels, the 75mm crop 8 megapixels and the 95mm crop 6 megapixels.

These digital crops are only applied to the JPEG files, with a full-size 60 megapixel DNG Raw file also recorded at the same time.

As the camera is cropping into the full-size image, rather than interpolating up a la most digital zooms, there’s no degradation of the image quality, just a reduction in the megapixel count.

You could of course apply similar crops yourself during post-processing, but providing them in-camera has the main added benefit of making composition much easier and more intuitive whilst also saving on memory card space.

The 35mm and 50mm crop modes proved to be genuinely useful, effectively giving you a 28-50mm focal range that’s easy to use whilst still offering enough resolution.

The 75mm and 90mm modes are harder to use due to the tiny are of the frame that’s made available for composition – the camera really needs to provide higher magnification when using these modes – and also the sub-10 megapixel resolution images that are recorded.

There is no built-in flash provided on the Leica Q3 Monochrom, although there is a provided hotshoe for the addition of flash, should that be required.

As you’d probably expect of a Leica camera, manual focusing on the Q3 Monochrom is a veritable joy, although the means of switching between AF and MF is quite subtle and initially well hidden.

Switching to manual focus occurs via a fingernail press of the so tiny you’ll miss it lever on the lens itself, that in turn allows the lens ring to move (it’s ‘stuck’ in place in auto mode) and manual distance markings on said barrel to be selected, whereby the camera provides the user with an enlarged portion of the subject on-screen, allowing focus to be more critically determined.

Auto-focusing on this new Q-series camera incorporates a contrast-based AF system that does not include phase detection as well as contrast detection pixels, as on the colour versions.

In practice, auto-focusing wasn’t noticeably that much slower than on the PDAF-equipped Q3 and Q3 43. Interestingly, it additionally employs Panasonic’s depth from defocus system to build up a depth map of the scene to further enhance the AF.

The Q3 Monochrom also benefits greatly from the addition of intelligent subject recognition. It’s a pretty simple system by modern standards that only recognises the eyes, faces and bodies of people plus animals, with two rather confusing options buried at the bottom of the AF Mode menu – the first option is Eye/face/Body Detection and the second is Eye/Face/Body + Animal Detection (why isn’t animal detection separate?) – but at least it works well enough in practice.

Leica camera have never been particularly renowned for their blistering continuous shooting rates, and the Q3 Monochrom is certainly no exception to that rule.

While on paper it offers up to 15fps bursts, the reality is that the focus and exposure are locked at the first frame until you drop down to a rather more pedestrian 4fps. The buffer is at least 63 shots in RAW, though, so you can at least shoot for a long time at 4fps before that rate slows down.

Some photographers may also argue that 4fps is more than fast enough for a street camera with a standard focal length lens, especially as the excellent autofocus system can be employed at the same time.

The Q3 Monochrom has both a mechanical shutter that provides speeds between 120sec to 1/2000sec and an electronic shutter that runs from 1sec to 1/16000sec, with a Hybrid option also available that automatically switches between them. Flash synchronization is up to 1/200sec.

This isn’t just a camera for stills, as Leica have included DCI 8K video recording. DCI 8K which is supported at up to 30p with 4:2:0 10-bit color when recording internally or at 8-bit when recording externally via the micro-HDMI port.

If you only need 4K recording, that’s provided at up to 60p with 4:2:2 10-bit color internally or externally, while Full HD runs up to 120p for slow motion playback.

Other key video features include ProRes recording at 1080/60p, Leica’s L-log profile, and LUT compatibility. The Q3 Monochrom doesn’t have a microphone socket, though, instead relying on its USB-C port to allow an audio input.

This port can also be used to charge the camera via a powerbank, useful for extending the battery life when out and about. Talking of which, the Q3 Monochrom uses a battery, the BP-SCL6, which has a CIPA-rated lifespan of 350 shots per charge. The Q3 Monochrom is also still compatible with the BP-SCL4 battery that was used in the Q2M.

The electronic viewfinder that sits in the corner of the camera has also received a significant upgrade, with the resolution being bumped up from 3.68 megapixels on the Q2M to 5.76 on the Q3 Monochrom. It has a 0.79x magnification and either a battery-conserving 60fps or a smooth 120fps refresh rate for more realistic motion rendering.

The tilting 3-inch, 1.84M dot LCD touchscreen can be moved both upwards and downwards to suit working from a variety of shooting positions, rather than fixed in place as on the previous Q models, which makes waist-level and overhead shooting much easier.

The screen does rather spoil the aesthetics of the Q3 Monochrom, however, as it juts out slightly from the rear of the camera, interrupting the smooth lines. Still, this is first and foremost a photographic tool, rather than an expensive ornament, so we can overlook this slight faux pas on Leica’s part.

It has also necessitated a restructuring of the controls on the rear of the camera compared to the Q2M. Instead of the vertical row of three buttons to the left of the LCD screen, the Play and Menu buttons have been moved to above and below the D-pad respectively, with the customisable Function button moving alongside the Photo/Video button. The shutter button is threaded to accept a mechanical cable release.

The Q3 Monochrom supports the HG-DC1 Wireless Charging Handgrip, an optional accessory that when fitted facilitates wireless battery charging via Qi-compatible charging mats, such as the Drop XL Wireless Charger that Native Union has made especially for Leica.

For the first time ever in the Q camera series, the Q3M supports Content Credentials, a technology by the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) which adds a digital signature to images to help verify their origins and any post-processing which made its debut in the SL3-S model.

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this review were taken using the 60 megapixel Large setting, which produces an average image size of around 35Mb for JPEGs and 90Mb for RAW files.

The Leica Q3 Monochrom recorded still images of outstanding quality during the review period.

This camera produces noise-free JPEG images at ISO 100 up to ISO 6400, with some noise starting to appear at ISO 12500. The faster settings of ISO 2500 through to 100000 are still very usable, although we’d suggest avoiding the fastest ISO 200000 setting if at all possible. The corresponding Raw files have much less obvious artifacts but are noticeably less sharp than their JPEG equivalents.

Noise

ISO sensitivity can be set between ISO 100 and ISO 200,000 in full-stop increments. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting, with JPEG on the left and RAW on the right.