Leica Q3 Review From a Canon Photographer

Kyoto, Japan – © David H. Enzel, 2023

Emmanuel Nataf writing on PetaPixel discussing his hit rate on the Leica Q3 compared with the Canon R5:

Going back to my “hit rate,” I simply can’t get anywhere near my R5. Part of it is due to the ergonomics of the Q3: a typical Leica without joystick to move the focus and poorly placed dials (the worst one being for exposure, placed on the outer part of the body and hard to reach with your thumb). With the temperatures dropping in the past few weeks, I used the Q3 with gloves and missed countless street shots by pushing the Play button instead of the arrows, definitely killing my shots. You may wonder why I’m not using subject tracking: because switching between subjects rapidly with the Q3’s buttons is completely unreliable.

The second reason for the low hit rate is the autofocus: average in poor lighting conditions and terrible in motion. With the Q3, I’ve had to stop shooting while walking. I have to stop, compose my image and shoot when the right subject comes into the frame — a much less spontaneous experience than what I’m used to.

Lastly, the camera is painfully slow to wake up. It should be on within a few milliseconds, but it takes the Q3 a second or two to start… far too long when trying to capture an instant.

Hakone, Japan – © David H. Enzel, 2023

I too own both a Canon R5 and a Leica Q3. The R5 is my main camera. I love it but it is big and heavy compared to the Q3. The Q3 is small, a pleasure to hold and the image quality is great, maybe even a little better than the R5.

  • I agree that the Q3 is slow to start. But I just leave it on and then it starts pretty fast. Sure it drains the battery but the batteries aren’t big or heavy. It’s easy to carry extra batteries.
  • I adjust exposure using the camera dial and find that works well for me. The camera can be adjusted almost infinitely. You just have to experiment and see what works for you.
  • I agree that the R5’s autofocus is better than the Q3 but find that I can shoot on the fly with the Q3. I feel I’ve gotten some nice street photos with the Q3. The eye detection on the Q3 works very well.

I made the photos in this post with the Q3 while on a trip to Japan in 2023.

In my opinion, when it comes to small, light weight full-frame cameras, Leica has the market all to itself. Would I love to see more competition in this category? Sure. But I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

I am happy to have the Q3 in my bag along with the Canon R5.

Takayama, Japan – © David H. Enzel, 2023

Update: April, 2024: On a recent trip to Europe my Q3 malfunctioned. The SD card would not click in the slot. After returning home, I took the camera back to the Leica Store in Washington DC. They returned the camera to Leica Repair in New Jersey. On April 30, 2024 I received the following email message:

4/30
Your equipment has been inspected by our technician. Your repair has been processed and placed in queue. No action is required.

Error description

strong traces of use adjust/replace printed circuit SD card slot faulty

I don’t yet know how long the repair will take. I miss the camera. I really like it. I will continue to update.

Update: May 21, 2024:

Dear Leica Customer,

During the repair of your Leica product, the technician found that a
part required to fully repair your equipment to Leica standards is
currently out of stock.

Our colleagues and worldwide suppliers are working together to resolve
this issue as quickly as possible. However, this will most likely delay
the completion of the repair.

We apologize for the inconvenience and sincerely appreciate your
patience.  If you have any further questions or concerns, please do not
hesitate to contact Customer Care at 201-995-0051 ext. 9930 or email
repair@leicacamerausa.com

Sincerely,

Your Leica Team

Leica Camera USA INC.
Customer Care

I am thinking of buying a Leica M11-P but this experience with the Q3 gives me pause. Still one Leica does not feel like it’s enough for me.

Update: May 24, 2024

I called Leica Repair today to see how long the repair will take. They answered the phone right away and explained the part I need (the SD card holder) must be manufactured and shipped from Germany. The wait will probably be a couple of months. They offered me a Q3 loaner for the duration of the repair, which sounds great to me. They will send me the loaner next week. When my camera is repaired they will notify me. I will then return the loaner and they will then ship my camera to me. I am glad I called.

I added that I’m thinking about buying an M11-P and asked how long repairs generally take. The reply was 60 days – and longer if the camera has to go back to Germany. Analogue repairs take much longer – nine months or longer.

I guess Leica is a small company and this is the price of admission.

Update: May 29, 2024

My Q3 loaner arrived today. Once I held the camera in my hands, I realized just how much I missed it. Luckily, I saved my profile settings on my Mac so I only had to transfer them to an SD card and load them into my loaner.

Update: August 7, 2024

Leica notified me a few days ago that my Q3 has been repaired. Leica sent me a prepaid shipping label and I returned the Q3 loaner. Today, my Q3 arrived well-packaged and working just fine. The entire process took about 100 days. With the loaner, I am happy with Leica service.

Film: ‘Ida’

Anna, a young woman training to be a nun in 1960s Poland is on the verge of taking her vows when she meets her only living relative for the first time and learns that she is Jewish and that her real name is Ida Lebenstein. Together they discover what happened to Anna/Ida’s family.

This jewel is only 82 minutes long and every moment makes good use of the viewer’s time. The story is one example of the decimation of Poland’s Jews during World War II. But in the end, this is not a film about Poland or the Holocaust – but about life.

The film, which came out in 2013, is in black and white. The places photographed are ordinary yet the cinematography is stunning. Each scene looks like a black and white photograph made by a Magnum photographer using a Leica camera. Łukasz Żal is a superb, young cinemaphotographer born in Koszalin, Poland.

Ida is played by Agata Trzebuchowska. Her character is sweet, innocent and beautiful. Her aunt Wanda – Agata Kulesza – is also a fine actress.

Pawel Pawlikowski directed the film. He was born in Warsaw in 1957. At the age of 14, Pawlikowski left Poland to live in Germany and Italy, before settling in Britain. In 2004, he directed My Summer of Love with Emily Blunt and Natalie Press.

This film touched me deeply and left me thinking for a long time about what’s important and what’s not. It is among the best films I have seen.

Friedrich Kellner’s Wartime Diaries: Seeing Through Nazi Propaganda

The second and final volume of German historian Volker Ullrich’s biography of Adolf Hitler, Hitler: Downfall 1939–1945, opens with high praise for the wartime diaries of Friedrich Kellner.

Kellner, a court official in the small town of Laubach, had no special access to inside information. Yet he was repulsed by the Nazi regime and began keeping a detailed diary, recording what he read in the German press and what he heard from those around him. He hoped his writings would serve as a warning to future generations against blind faith and dictatorship.

Ullrich explains that Kellner’s diaries “show that it was entirely possible for normal people in small-town Germany to see through the lies of Nazi propaganda and learn of things like the ‘euthanasia’ murders of patients in psychiatric institutions and the mass executions carried out in occupied parts of eastern Europe.”

The Kellner diaries were first published in German in 2011 and are now available in English. They are also the subject of a moving 2007 television documentary created by Kellner’s American grandson.

Photographers Worth Exploring

This is a list of photographers who inspire me, in no particular order. I hope readers will suggest other photographers in the comments.

Last updated: December 8, 2025

Tracing Quotations

Quote Investigator is a website that fact-checks the reported origins of widely circulated quotations. According to Wikipedia, the website was started in 2010 by Gregory F. Sullivan, a former Johns Hopkins University computer scientist who runs the site under the pseudonym Garson O’Toole. Many of the quotes examined on the site are emailed to him by readers.

O’Toole is also the author of a book entitled Hemingway Didn’t Say That: The Truth Behind Familiar Quotations. The New York Times reviewed the book in 2017 and confirmed that Gregory F. Sullivan is indeed the author of the website.

Sullivan “tries to track down correct information about the provenance of sayings by utilizing the massive text databases that are being constructed right now along with other quotation history resources.”

The site reports that it had more than 4.2 million visitors between June 1, 2021 and May 31, 2022. It’s a free site.

The Library of Congress also hosts a list of quotation reference websites. However, many of these websites, unlike Quote Investigator, do not cite an original source. Even so, it is a good resource.

SF’s ‘Bay Bridge Lights’ to Go Dark

San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge – © David H. Enzel, 2019

I made this photograph of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge in 2019. This was only possible because of the beautiful lights on the span. The lights have been on the bridge since 2013 when a public art installation called “The Bay Lights” was activated on the bridge.

The installation was designed by artist Leo Villareal and consists of 25,000 LED lights. This beautiful display stretches 1.8 miles across 300 cables on the western span of the Bay Bridge. Sadly, after ten years the display is worn out and and, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, will go dark on March 5, 2023. However, efforts are underway to raise $11 million to keep “Bay Lights” shining on the Bay Bridge.

I hope they succeed.

Chicago at Night

Jim Hill is a Chicago photographer worth getting to know. He became fascinated by Chicago’s nighttime alleys and back streets during the pandemic:

I submerged myself in studies of how artificial lights penetrate the darkness of an urban environment. That darkness provided me comfort and cover from the events going on around me. The artificial lights transformed what is bland and ugly in the daylight into a beautiful hidden world, which is visible to those willing to risk the unknown, the shadows. 

During the pandemic, fear and death seemed to permeate everything. Roaming forgotten places in the darkness to capture the hope of the light allowed me to confront the panic around me and gave me the strength to carry on. Ultimately, my work is about confronting fear and finding the beauty, which can emerge from the unknown, the darkness.

You can follow Jim Hill’s thought provoking photographs on Flickr and Instagram.

Progress

A Deeply Divided America

The Supreme Court surrounded by a protective fence on January 10, 2021 – © David H. Enzel, 2021

The United States is deeply divided as these images at the White House, the Supreme Court and the U.S. Capitol portray.

Jimmy Carter (1924-2024)

Life-Size Portrait of Jimmy Carter (1924-2024) by Robert Templeton, 1980, oil on canvas, seven feet, nine inches high by four feet, nine inches wide, dressed in black bunting, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC – Photo by David Enzel (January 5, 2024)

Jimmy Carter was President when I began my Federal career in 1979, marking the start of a journey through decades of public service. I retired during the Biden Administration, reflecting on the many changes and milestones I witnessed in our nation’s history.

President Carter was not only a capable leader but also a person of exceptional character. His humility, compassion, and unwavering commitment to humanitarian causes embody a kind of leadership that earns enduring respect and admiration.

As I reflect on his extraordinary life and legacy, I am both comforted and inspired by President Carter’s steadfast dedication to justice, peace, and the betterment of humanity. His example serves as a powerful reminder of what can be achieved when integrity and empathy guide our actions, leaving a profound and lasting impact on those fortunate enough to have witnessed his contributions to the nation and the world.

Neon Museum, Las Vegas

Neon Museum at Sunrise – David Enzel, 2024

The Neon Museum in Las Vegas features signs from old casinos and other businesses displayed outdoors on a 2.27 acre campus. The Neon Museum has an outdoor exhibition space known as the Neon Boneyard. Boneyard is traditionally the name for an area where items no longer in use are stored.

Efforts to establish a neon sign museum date to the late 1980s, but stalled due to a lack of resources. On September 18, 1996, the Las Vegas City Council voted to fund such a project, to be known as the Neon Museum. The organization started out by re-installing old signage in downtown Las Vegas, to attract more visitors to the area.

Young Electric Sign Company (YESCO) had manufactured many neon signs in the city, and the company had a storage site for old signs which would eventually become part of the Neon Museum collection. In 2000, as YESCO prepared to close its storage lot, the city provided the museum with land to start its own. Tours of the new site, known as the Neon Boneyard, began in 2001, by appointment only.

The lobby of the former La Concha Motel, located on the Las Vegas Strip, was donated to the museum and moved there in 2006, eventually becoming its visitor center. Construction to convert the lobby began in May 2011, and the museum officially opened to the general public on October 27, 2012, eliminating the appointment system.

Each of the more than 250 signs in the Neon Museum’s collection offers a unique story about the personalities who created it, what inspired it, where and when it was made, and the role it played in Las Vegas’ distinctive history.

Neon Museum – David Enzel, 2024

The Museum has announced plans for relocation and expansion in downtown Las Vegas’ Art District. The plan is to nearly triple the size of its current location. Currently, only 35 percent of the museum’s collection is visible to the public.

The Neon Museum is located at 770 Las Vegas Blvd. N, Las Vegas NV, 89101. You can buy tickets here.

Sources: The Neon Museum | Wikipedia