Gadgetory

for a variety of reasons I've never been a big like a fan I only put that out there so that you have context when I say that the Leica q is the first like I have ever wanted at $4,300 I'll never own one but this full-frame fixed lens compact incorporates all of likers traditional quality and aesthetics but doesn't leave out the modern features that many of us want like contrast autofocus optical image stabilization a touchscreen and Wi-Fi I'm Laurie grinning for CNET and this is the like a Q the Q combines alike the 24 megapixel full-frame CMOS sensor and a 28 millimeter f17 lens in a mid-sized body the way is almost a pound and a half thanks to its aluminum top and magnesium alloy housing the lens's aperture and focus rings as well as a macro focus ring which changes the distance scale there's a switch to rotate the focus ring to the autofocus position you can put the camera in auto shutter or aperture priority mode by rotating the relevant dials to a the lens rings feel great not too loose not too tight the electronic viewfinder and LCD auto switch and the EVF is big and bright like a created an indentation rather than a protrusion for the thumb rest which is just right for one-handed shooting the touchscreen has limited uses on the Q you can only use it for touch focus touch shutter and scrolling through photos aside from the lack of a grip my only big complaints about the design the location of the SD card slot in the battery compartment and that it's not dust in weather sealed I'm not crazy about the back navigation switch given the amount of space it seems awfully small the Q comes with lens hood and a lens cap that can fit over it note that it doesn't have a flash the camera doesn't have a huge shooting feature set but it has what it needs there's manual focus peaking autofocus during video and 35 millimeter and 50 millimeter crop modes with the full frame information preserved in the DNG file there even seen program exposure modes if you want them it can shoot 1086 TP and 30 p video but not 24 p photo quality is lovely with accurate but saturated color and an excellent tonal range images are insanely sharp with beautiful out-of-focus areas and great edge to edge sharpness the video looks really nice as well like us chosen to perform only color noise reduction in JPEG processing and there's absolutely no luminance processing there are a couple potential issues though first the photos above ISO 12500 have noticeable horizontal striations and the images that I couldn't retouch out second it's quite prone to moiré a the performance is quite good for both single shot and continuous shooting it can burst unlimited JPEGs at 4.7 frames per second with autofocus though the tracking autofocus doesn't work terribly well and the continuous autofocus is far too easily distracted when shooting video and it pulses when it's not distracted the like a queue is a pleasure to shoot with and provides equal delight when you get home and look at your photos and videos