Less than a week after launch, the Leica Q is sold out in Britain and, I suspect, in most parts of the world. Dealers have allocated their initial orders and some could even be kicking themselves for not pre-ordering more. Some are now quoting up to eight weeks delivery on orders placed today. The reason for this is not hard to find. The Q has been universally acclaimed as a success and as a very desirable camera. Even the usual Leica haters have been pretty quiet in the face of positive reviews in magazines and on blogs throughout the world.
Today I spoke to Leica Store Manchester where David Stephens and his team are fending off enquiries and are now telling customers they could have to wait up to two months. At Park Cameras in London the enquiries are flooding in and, again, there is no chance of just walking in and carrying out a Q. It’s the same story at Richard Caplan in Pall Mall. Richard saw the potential of the Q at the pre-launch dealer introduction and placed a substantial order. All have been sold and there is now a waiting list.
Red Dot Cameras have also sold their initial supplies and are now taking back orders. Red Dot’s Brian Parkes said this afternoon, “Demand is extremely good with deposits placed – almost as good as when the M9 was first announced. The initial response is highly positive and we hope that Leica will be able to make them fast enough.”
I have had the Q in my hands for the past five days and absolutely love it. The test is underway and I hope to publish my preliminary thoughts pretty soon. This really is a milestone camera for Leica.
That’s great to hear. I’d almost certainly be using it in 35mm mode. As I understand it, you get the projected framelines for 35mm, but still see the 28mm "surrounding" view (plus the full 28mm frame in the RAW files)?
Yes, quite right. The surround is even bigger in 50mm mode as you can imagine. They’ve done this in a different way to Ricoh where the GR expands the frame to fill the viewfinder. I think Leica’s implementation is more effective; it is also suitably nostalgic for M users. If you shoot a crop in JPEG it is cropped for ever, no going back. With DNG files they open in Lightroom in crop view. You can either reset or press the crop tool so you can see the rest of the frame. The whole thing is spot on.
I’m sold and I haven’t even seen one in the flesh yet. As long as the entire EVF can be seen with spectacles, that is.
Funnily enough, I am just writing about the viewfinder as part of the test report. Yes, it works well with spectacles because the rubber surround is very shallow. I suspect non-glasses wearers might not be so happy but I can certainly see all screen edges. It’s a particularly good viewfinder, too. When those tramlines are up you could be fooled into thinking you are looking through a rangefinder.