If you are looking for a street camera and wondering how’s Leica Q2 street photography, here’s everything you need to know to make the best out of this full frame shooter. Includes sample images and settings, let’s dig right in.
Introduction
There’s no two ways about the Leica Q2 is a beast. It’s good for anything from macro to travel (click here for review), but what about THE reason to won a Leica anyways, street photography? Surprising no one it’s a total win.
Leica Q2 street photography
Being an avid streetshooter, here’s what you need to know about Leica Q2 street photography
One the large side
One of the best street photography cameras ever is the Ricoh GR III. It looks like a point and shoot camera, can slip in your pocket and it’s also a 28mm camera. But of course it’s not a full frame camera but an APSC shooter.
Compared to the Q2 the Ricoh is Lilliputian. That’s because full frame cameras are bigger and require bigger lenses, especially if they are fast. So that’s probably the only strike against the Leica Q2 for street photography, the size.
This is not a problem if you are used to Leica rangefinders or DSLRs to shoot street but if you like your small cameras for the task, the Q2 is relatively big. But spoiler alert: It’s oh so worth it.
Focal length matters
If there is one focal length street photographers love, it’s the 28mm. It’s wide and can take plenty of the streetscape. The Q2 is of course natively 28mm and with a fast lens, it’s great for low light street photography too.
While many would go for the RX1R if they are 35mm lovers, the Leica Q2, as long as you do not mind that it will only be a JPG (but you will have the full 28mm raw if you shoot RAW+JPG) can shoot at 35mm quite well.
Granted this will not be a 100% true 35mm but you will still have a huge 30 megapixel file and about an estimated f2.8 look in terms of Bokeh. This is great because something like the RX1R cannot do 28mm while this can natively and it can shoot all the way to 75mm in crop mode.
This is more than a gimmick because the images are crisp and stellar even at 75mm, where you would have about a 7 megapixel file left.
Street portraits
The Leica Q2 is excellent for street portraits for multiple reasons. First of all the Bokeh is excellent even at f1.7 @ 28mm, and if you do not mind the crop mode, the portraits are even better. There’s a face detection mode in the camera that makes it easy to nail your portraits while passing by (A tried and true street photography tradition!) and the camera focuses really fast.
With the handy stabilization, you can nail some really nice portraits even if you are walking a bit fast.
Great on auto or manual
The camera is great no matter how you like your street photography. The autofocus is snappy and accurate so if you like to shoot on autofocus this camera excels. But street photographers like to pre-focus their camera before shooting and this camera is made for this.
This is not news to you if you used Leica rangefinders but there’s many modern cameras that omit focus markers on their lenses! The Q2 has them and makes zone focusing a breeze. Simply choose a small aperture (see Leica Q2 street photography settings below) and line up the markers on the lens, the feet are in yellow and the meters are in white and you are done!
That Leica glow
There’s something special about Leica Q2 street photography and it’s probably the specific look that the shots have. It’s probably the mix of sharp Summilux lens, full frame sensor and Mestro processor that makes some of these images pop.
You see it most with street portraits, the subjects just pop out. There’s two kinds of street photographers, those who like their images gritty and dirty and those whole like them clean and “high definition”, the Q2 is really a camera for the later group, the images are simply outstanding.
This goes both for color images AND black and white images. The Q2 is one of those rare cameras that give me colors that I like out of the box.
Leica Q2 street photography settings
Here’s the Leica Q2 street photography settings that are most recommended.
| Setting | Value | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Mode | Aperture priority | Fixed depth of field |
| Aperture | f8 | Large D.O.F. |
| Distance | 2 meters | Large focus area |
| ISO | Auto | Sudden changes in light |
To each their own. If you like Manual operations completely, have at it! Do consider leaving it at auto ISO for when the light suddenly changes, it allows you to have a chances of making a shot that works if you do not have time to change your ISO settings.
With these settings all you need to do is put your camera at f8 and look at the lens, but the left f8 marker and line it up to 1 meter. Everything from 1.25 meter to 5 meters will be in focus. Simply go an focus on shooting!
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed this article about Leica Q2 street photography. While the only downside might be the size, the versatility, image quality and street friendliness makes this without a doubt one of the best Leicas for street photography bar none. Check for the best price here.