Leica Q Unveiled: A Compact Camera With Full-Frame Sensor

Leica has announced its new Leica Q camera, a digital shooter that is hailed as offering the fastest lens in its class. The new Q is a hybrid of sorts, sporting a compact design and easy to use interface alongside the image quality you get with the maker's "M" lineup, including a full-frame sensor and optical image stabilization. Joining this is a new feature called "digital frame selector", which allows the photographer to display the focal lengths (35 and 50mm) by pressing a button. The camera was made in Germany.

The Leica Q features a 24 megapixel resolution and a full frame 36 x 24mm CMOS sensor. There's a Leica Maestro II processor, a 3.68 megapixel viewfinder (electronic), and a maximum image resolution of 6000 x 4000 pixels (they go as low as 896 x 600). ISO, meanwhile, ranges from 100 to 50,000, and there are five white balance presets.

Images can be saved in DNG and JPEG file formats, as well as RAW, and are likely to be crisp thanks to included OIS. There's only 1x optical zoom, and max aperture is F1.7. A bunch of auto focus options are available, however, including Center, Contrast Detector, Multi-area, Live View, Continuous, Touch, Face Detection, and more. There's also an auto focus assist lamp.

Around back is a 3-inch LCD TFT display with 100-percent viewfinder coverage. It is fixed in place. Scene modes and exposure modes round out the software offerings. Those who need a flash can use one via a hot shoe. Video, meanwhile, can be recorded at up to 1080p/60. Storage is via SD cards.

The Leica Q is available now for $4,250 USD.