I Bought an $8,000 Point-and-Shoot Camera and Don’t Regret It. Here’s Why

Back in November, I spent £6,000 (about $8,100) of my own money on a Leica Q3 43. Over the last six months, it’s been with me on multiple travels across Europe, and I’ve shot over 25,000 photos with it, including everything from street photography, travel, landscapes and even major editorial features. I’ve got some thoughts on these kinds of premium compacts and hopefully some solid shopping advice for any of you, whether you’re considering this camera or another compact like the ever-popular Fuji X100VI. 

Let’s dive in. 

I bought the Leica Q3 43 with my own money at full retail value, which at the time was just shy of £6,000 — well, just over, including the second battery I also ordered. That’s a huge amount of money, especially at a time when the purse strings are tightening and making big purchases — especially non-essential ones like this — are difficult to justify.

So, why did I want it? 

Well, a number of reasons, and I’m hoping that any photographers out there will understand these, Leica fans or not. In recent years, I’ve found myself being a bit over-encumbered with gear that I’ve acquired in my 13 years taking photos professionally. Too many bags, tripods, lenses, lens adapters — whatever — and I increasingly wanted to take a more stripped-back approach to much of my photography. 

For years, I’ve used the Sony RX1R as a compact, “take anywhere” camera when I don’t want to take a bag full of kit. It’s a stunning little full-frame premium compact that takes beautiful photos with its fixed 35mm lens. But it’s 12 years old now, and it’s showing its age, with slow, unreliable autofocus, relatively low resolution, and crucially, there’s no viewfinder, so you have to shoot using the main screen and you look like a tourist. I’ve spent years fruitlessly hoping that Sony would replace it, but where Sony left a gap, Leica filled it. 

The Q3 43 is, in some ways, its spiritual successor. It has a gorgeous full-frame sensor with an extremely high-quality fixed lens. It takes stunning images, and I can carry it with me pretty much all the time, keeping it slung around my neck, ready to shoot whenever I see an opportunity. 

It helps that it’s simple to operate. I shoot mostly in aperture priority, twisting the dedicated aperture ring on the lens when I want to adjust the depth of field. I keep it mostly at ISO 400, and the camera is always pretty good at giving me the correct shutter speed for whatever scene I’m capturing. 

At night, I have to crank that ISO hard, especially since the camera doesn’t have a stabilized image sensor like my R5. In fact, on a technical level, the Q3 43 doesn’t shape up super well, with both its burst rate and autofocus system being slower than rivals. Its subject detection is also best described as “hit or miss.” 

In fact, I now shoot most of my photos in JPEG and use them with almost no post-processing. That’s in stark contrast to my way of working with the R5 — I only ever shoot in raw on that camera, and all my images go through some level of work in Lightroom. Do I wish Leica offered options to tailor these profiles further in camera? Absolutely.

I treat the Q3 43 as a classic point-and-shoot compact camera. I use basic settings to shoot quickly and creatively, leaning on in-camera colors to minimize my time stuck editing. It’s offered me a different way of working, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every moment I’ve spent with this camera so far. 

It may have been a lot of money to spend on a camera, especially one that I strictly speaking didn’t need. It helped that Leica in the UK offers interest-free credit, so I actually spread the cost over 12 months, rather than dropping the cash all at once. But it’s money I was — and still am — happy to spend. 

It’s given my photography a boost I didn’t even know I needed. In the six months I’ve had it, I feel I’ve evolved more as a photographer, and I’ve taken images I’m incredibly proud of. I can’t wait to see what the next six months with it will bring.