The Leica Q2: Everywhere Camera
This Q2 lives in New York and has travelled on four continents. It has been carried through jungles and deserts, usually in an overstuffed bag without a case. The leatherette is smooth where its owner's thumb rests. The red dot has dulled.
“You get used to the durability pretty quickly,” its owner says. “Then you stop thinking about it altogether.”
The phone stays
An iPhone still handles the quick photographs: notes to self, a child holding a menu. The Q2 comes out when its owner is prepared to stop and compose.
The fixed 28mm lens takes in a cafe table and the person across from it. The 35, 50 and 75mm crop modes cover the occasions when it takes in too much.
Four continents
Humidity has fogged the viewfinder. Dust has reached the lens-cap thread. In desert heat, the body is warm before the first frame.
None of it has stopped the camera working.
It rides in a bag with no protective wrap: camera, strap and whatever fits around it.
Picking it up
He can get technically sharper files from a Canon, a Nikon, a Fuji. He wouldn't argue the point. None of that changes what happens when he picks the Q2 up, and it hasn't changed since the day he bought it.
Portofino. The camera doesn't stay only in his hands.
Where it shows
The bottom plate carries the deepest scratches — from being set on stone walls, restaurant tables, taxi seats. The top plate has a nick near the shutter button that came from somewhere forgotten. The strap lugs show brass where the black paint has worn through.
One battery, mostly
One battery gets him through most days. He packs a second only if he's shooting into the evening. Video is the exception — the Q2 does it well, and he's used the mode maybe twice.
The menu is functional but not intuitive. Eventually, muscle memory takes over.
The lens cap
The metal lens cap is beautiful and useless. It falls off in bags and pockets. This owner replaced it with a friction-fit cap that stays put.
Leica hasn't addressed it. It has kept the Q2's firmware current years past launch, and the support and community around the brand hold up — for anyone within reach of one of the physical stores.
Out the door
At f/1.7 it works in fading light. At 718 grams it has enough weight to settle in the hand. The aperture ring moves in distinct clicks.
One fixed lens means there is nothing to choose before leaving. The Q2 goes in the bag.