In November 2024, I spent a whopping £6,000 (about $8,100) of my hard-earned cash on a Leica Q3 43 compact camera. Since then, it's been my sidekick all over the UK and Europe, from the wild heart of Scotland to the brutal cold of the Arctic. 

I've shot over 40,000 photos with it, from street photography and travel to weddings and landscapes, and even major editorial features. I've found it to be a superb photographic companion. It was an easy decision to award it a prestigious CNET Editors' Choice award. 

After spending so much time with the camera -- and even turning it pink -- I've got some thoughts on these kinds of premium compacts and can offer some helpful shopping advice, whether you're considering this camera in particular or another compact like the ever-popular Fuji X100VI. 

Leica Q3 43

Like

• Stunning image quality
• Compact size
• Superb build quality

Don't like

• High price

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. In the US, the camera retails for $7,380. 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 a bit overburdened with gear I've acquired over my 13 years of professional photography. 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 over 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 spent years hoping that Sony would replace it, and while it eventually did, I'd already bought and fallen in love with my new Leica. Sorry, Sony, you snooze, you lose.

The Q3 43 is, in some ways, my RX1R's 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 has a fixed 43mm lens, which may not suit everyone, but it's ideal for most of my work. I usually flit between 35mm and 50mm focal lengths, so 43mm is an ideal sweet spot between the two that I've never found limiting in the many photos I've captured with it. I tried the 28mm version of the camera and didn't get on with its wide-angle view.

I recently wrote about the three types of cameras photographers need: a workhorse, an everyday carry and a more artistic option. While the Q3 43 has absolutely been all three for me, it's the second point that's had the biggest impact. It's not a camera that I have had to make any allowances for when carrying it around. I don't need a big photography backpack, just a small sling or messenger bag. Sometimes I've even gone out with it slung around my neck with no bag at all. 

I absolutely love having a camera with me at all times. It's true that the best camera is the one you have with you, but it's doubly true if the camera you always have with you is actually the best. Fine, it's not as small as my Sony RX1R, but it's smaller than my Canon R5 and way smaller than Hasselblad's recent X2D II, and it's been a great companion on photowalks around Stockholm, Edinburgh and Barcelona. It's a joy to quickly lift it and fire away. 

It helps that it's simple to operate. I shoot mostly in aperture-priority mode, twisting the dedicated aperture ring on the lens 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 the ISO up high, 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 so well, with both its burst rate and autofocus system slower than rivals'. Its subject detection is also best described as "hit or miss." 

But that's why I like this camera. I don't have to dive into the infinite abyss of the settings menu to figure out different autofocus options. I just keep this camera set to single-point focusing, half-press the shutter to focus on whatever I want, then recompose to take the shot. Or I'll focus manually. It's a more basic shooting experience that encourages me to think more about the shot I'm taking and less about the settings I'm using to get it. 

Then there are the built-in color profiles Leica offers, which I absolutely adore. I shoot almost everything using Leica's Chrome look, which does things to colors and contrast that I'm obsessed with. I mostly pair this with a warm white balance and, more recently, a PolarPro Gold Mist filter, which gives my images a warm, filmic vibe that I love. This filter almost never leaves my camera and is, for me, a must-have.

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 further tailor these profiles 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. In fact, I've had various photos from the Q3 43 shortlisted in major awards, including in four different categories in the British Photography Awards.  

To be fair, it's not just the Leica Q3 43 that could give you this. Fujifilm's X100VI remains a social media darling thanks to its compact size and customizable film emulation modes, while the Ricoh GR III is lauded by street and travel photographers for its blend of quality and pocketability. I did consider buying the X100VI instead of the Leica, but I'll be honest: there is another element I'm perhaps less proud to admit.

I wanted a Leica. 

I don't like to think of myself as a status symbol sort of person, and while I have no desire for a Rolex, a yacht or a Lambo in my drive (OK, maybe a bit), I have always daydreamed about finally owning a camera that sports that iconic red dot on the front. I worried that it'd be a novelty that would quickly wear off, but it hasn't -- I still find myself excited to pick it up and take it somewhere. It also helps that the solid metal construction of the Q3 43 makes it feel infinitely more premium than the X100VI's lightweight, arguably quite plasticky feel. 

It gives me a creative buzz that I don't really get from my Canon R5. To lean on an analogy I've used before, the R5 is a worker's van; practical, it ticks the boxes for what they need to do a job. A professional tool for getting things done. But it's not the vehicle they fantasize about driving down the coast. The Leica is the fantasy car. A classic Ferrari, perhaps. It technically does most of the same things, but it does it in a very different way that makes you feel notably different when you use it. 

It may have been a lot of money to spend on a camera, especially one I didn't strictly 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. I've had it almost a year now and I feel I've evolved more as a photographer in that time and taken a wide variety of images I'm incredibly proud of. I can't wait to see what the next years with it will bring.