No posts for ten days - and yet not on holiday? What have I been doing instead?
Well, all the routine household stuff has got done. My garden, front and rear, looks very presentable. Inside my home all is clean and tidy. At this very moment the only thing left to do today is to take my statin tablet with my late-afternoon mug of tea. I'm on top of things. I've even done my packing list for the upcoming caravan holiday in the West Country.
Nor have I neglected my social life. Something else has consumed my time and attention. The Leica Q2 camera.
No, I haven't bought one - but I very nearly did. I had to ponder the pros and cons for at least a week before finally concluding that for now I would be making a silly mistake to commit funds to its purchase.
I did something very similar before, in 2008, when I bought a top-flight full-frame Nikon D700 camera, plus an extraordinary Nikon zoom lens to go with it, plus other Nikon accessories and a very nice backpack-style camera bag. At the time, and for a while afterwards, it seemed such a good idea. At last: a photographic kit to be proud of, that would take my photography to new places. But a colossal amount spent! And in less than a year I'd fallen out of love with my still-new equipment. Why? It was just too heavy and bulky. The weight was beginning to hurt my back. The bulk made me leave it at home on too many social occasions. I hankered after a smaller and lighter camera that I could carry at all times. That's why I bought my Leica D-Lux 4 camera in 2009. So handy was the little Leica, and so good its pictures, that it eclipsed the technically superior Nikon, and I hardly used the Nikon and its lenses again. I kept my Nikon kit 'for best', but in truth it was redundant, and I didn't mourn our parting when I sold it all in 2011. The only thing that survived of that adventure was the excellent Nikon software, which came free with the D700. I still use it today.
That episode taught me a valuable lesson about throwing away thousands of pounds on a camera.
You'd think that I would be incapable of repeating the same mistake. But no: when I began to focus on the Leica Q2 recently, I ignored the flashing red lights in my head.
I'm sure I don't have a 'split personality' but it seems I have a sensible side and a daft side. The sensible side is normally in charge. But occasionally the daft side takes over for a while. I am glad to report that my sensible side is once more in the ascendant. But it was touch and go. I was so taken with the Leica Q2. There were days recently when I was on the verge of taking that easy drive over to Park Cameras in Burgess Hill, and buying the thing. Even now, I'm wistful.
My intense interest in this admittedly most desirable camera must have begun two weeks ago. Then I made a bad error. I dropped into Park Cameras to take a close look at the Q2. Oh, they took me seriously. They unlocked the Leica display. I held it in my hands. I carefully assessed its weight (at least twice as heavy as the D-Lux 4, but less than half what the D700 had been: so perhaps no problem). I looked through the electronic viewfinder with my glasses kept on (a revelation: what a nice view, and despite the glasses I could see it all. I marvelled at the 'best focus' highlighting when in manual-focus mode). I had one or two technical questions to ask, and these were answered. It was all very satisfactory. The thing looked gorgeous, and felt gorgeous in my hands. But this was just a quick try-out, testing the water so to speak, to see whether we might get on. I wasn't going to buy on that occasion. I'd need to save up for it.
But I was hooked. I'd already read the obvious online reviews, which was why I already knew a lot about its technical capabilities and how the controls worked. Once home, I spent hours seeking out more. And in the days that followed, until yesterday, I read and re-read these online articles, watched videos on YouTube, and studied the all the sample photos taken with this camera, in order to decide whether this was my ideal next camera.
Here's a list (with links) of the online articles I found especially worth reading. Taken together, they really gave a good idea what to expect:
https://www.overgaard.dk/Leica-Q2-digital-rangefinder-Page-2.html
https://www.slack.co.uk/leica-q2.html
https://www.kenrockwell.com/leica/q2.htm
https://casualphotophile.com/2019/07/19/leica-q2-camera-review/
https://www.ephotozine.com/article/leica-q2-full-review-33343
https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/leica-q2-review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71IigfMcTx0 (Ken Rockwell unpacking a brand new Q2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLN8HM45kAY (Ken Rockwell's actual Q2 review)
I remained smitten. But my sensible side was getting its grip back. I had to admit there were - from my personal point of view - two reasons not to buy the Q2.
One reason was the staggering price. OK, one was buying supreme quality optics and a sensational build. And that famous red Leica dot on the front. But even so...£4,500 for just the camera? More like £5,000, after adding a spare battery, a suitable leather case, two high-capacity, high-speed SD cards, and new software for the laptop. Taking inflation into account, I'd be committing about the same amount of money that I ploughed into the Nikon D700 kit in 2008.
Gosh, what a big hole in my savings a £5,000 spend would make! Surely it was unaffordable?
But I worked out that I could finance the purchase more sensibly by raiding my savings for only £2,500, and taking out a bank loan for the remainder, repayable over 18 months at £150 per month. Which meant no extra actual expense, just lower monthly savings for a year and a half. After that, my monthly savings would rise again to their previous level.
I'd still be spending £5,000 plus some loan interest. That was money that wouldn't get saved, and its loss would probably rule out buying that all-electric car in 2025. I'd have to put the car purchase back by a year. But then perhaps the worldwide coronavirus pandemic had delayed Volvo's research and development? In which case, the car I wanted wouldn't be available in 2025 and I would, anyway, need to wait to 2026.
So nothing lost - except, forever, £5,000.
The daft side of me was however still willing to purchase the Q2. But when I looked into the other reason for not buying, my sensible side reasserted itself.
Cameras can certainly be 'objects of desire', and nothing makes one drool more than a German-made Leica, put together in Leica's mountain fastness by master-craftsmen Niebelungs insanely dedicated to their task. But the photographs are what really matter. I shoot JPEGs. That's because I take an awful lot of photographs. My JPEG workflow with the little D-Lux 4 is easily manageable. That's because JPEG file sizes are small, and they are quick to transfer to my laptop for processing, and quick to tweak to my liking. Nor do they take up an unreasonable amount of storage space.
So I would want to use JPEGs on the Q2. The JPEG file sizes would be larger - say 20MB instead of 4MB - so transferring them from camera to laptop would take four or five times what it does now: a minute, maybe two minutes, rather than seconds. The processing might be just as swift, however. Meaning correction of tilt, cropping, and small tweaks to shadow detail, highlights and sharpness. Yes, the end result would need extra storage space, but that wouldn't be a problem for a while at least.
Would I use JPEGs on the Q2? No. Leica's in-camera JPEG processing is poor. The JPEGs all look too pale and too yellow. I think what is wrong with them could be fixed with a firmware update, but it hasn't happened yet, and Leica seem to want Q2 users to shoot RAW instead, using DNG files. But that means huge file sizes - 87MB per picture, which in turn means waiting forever for a batch of shots to come off the camera, and obliging me to invest in special RAW conversion and editing software.
Extra expense! And extra time spent dealing with the workload! Unless, of course, I shot fewer pictures. But I don't want that - half the fun when shooting in a great location is blasting away to my heart's content.
It's this JPEG problem that has stopped me in my tracks. More so than the money. It's the chief reason why I won't be buying the Q2, nor any camera like it.
And do you know, I'm glad. The faithful D-Lux 4 deserves my ongoing commitment. It's delivering some cracking shots just now. I am so looking forward to unleashing it on the West Country for four weeks. Yes, it will do me proud. I have in fact just bought two new 8GB SDHC cards for it, and may treat it to a posh hand-stitched black leather case if I can find one online (no doubt Etsy will provide).
I don't know how long the little Leica will last. Maybe for years yet. So be it. The sensible side of me knows a good thing when it sees it.
But what a problem I might have if Leica issue another firmware update on the Q2, and the JPEG problem is fixed! I almost hope they don't.
