Leica cameras are not for everyone.
This is not just because of their price - which is considerable. It is also because they may not be the exact tool for the job that you intend to do. If you are hanging out the side of a helicopter taking survey pictures of a forest you might be using a Hasselblad. If you are photographing polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba you may not want to do it with a wideangle lens from two metres...If you are doing technical architectural illustration you may want swings, tilts, shifts, a Bex, and a good lie down...
But.
If you want the ultimate travel/tourist/photojournalist/street/life camera the Leica company very likely has the best one that you will ever own somewhere in its range. For the person who wants to do it all pretty close by and on one package, the Leica Q is really the answer.
It contains one lens, one sensor, one screen, and one viewfinder - which is not that unusual for digital cameras. Unlike some of the other Leica offerings, however, the lens on the Q does not come off. It also does not zoom in the conventional way...but nevertheless contains three focal lengths. and it is a macro lens.
Your own vision of what you want to take pictures of resides in your head - but on the Leica Q it is shared between the LCD screen on the back and the electronic viewfinder. No tilting screen - the whole thing is rock solid.
The lens looks at the world with the angle of view of a 28mm focal length all the time, but the viewfinder image is changed by a ring around the lens to show an internal cropping for either a 28mm, 35mm, or 50mm field of view. You can rest assured that the Leica lens and processor will deliver the resolution, contrast, and freedom from distortion that you expect at all those settings.
You also get a detented switch that will let the camera lens go down to an extremely close macro setting. So you are carrying four things in one - and you are carrying a closed system that will never need the repeated attention of a camera technician for screen cleaning and dust removal. You just go out there and shoot.
Now look at the heading image again ( Thank you to the Leica Club visitor who acted as an unwitting hand model. ). The controls are disposed on the camera exactly where you expect them to be. Aperture ring up the front - and you can take it off the click-detent automatic position through the manual aperture from f:1.7 to f:22. Shutter speed Automatic and then 1 - 1/2000 second. Manual or automatic focus - you choice.
That titanium finish is unique - you can also get it black. Plus a number of imaginative cases.
If you ever wanted to own one Leica - just one - and did not want to take extra lenses or accessories with you, this is the one. And I'll contradict myelf instantly by recommending that you also invest in a Leica flash as well...but that is because I am a flash shooter and know how useful the things are - purists can disagree.
