Leica Q2 vs Sony RX1R II vs Fujifilm X-100F | Camera Comparison

Morgan

6 years ago

Today we are going to compare these three cameras, the Leica Q2, the Sony RX1R II, and the Fujifilm X-100F. We are going to walk around and test out these unique compact cameras with a fixed lens.

The Leica Q2 has a 28mm on a full frame sensor. The Sony RX1R II is a 35mm on a full-frame camera, and the Fuji is a 23mm on an APS-C sensor. They all vary drastically in price difference, but they are all great traveling compact cameras. So let’s take a look at how they match up.

Price Comparison:

Leica Q2 – $5000

Sony RX1R II – $3300

Fujifilm X-100F – $1300

Picture Quality Test

The first thing that I realize is that they all look pretty similar from first glance despite being a couple of thousand dollars in difference. The Leica Q2 definitely has a wider angle of view because it is a 28mm lens. The color separation doesn’t look quite as good with Fuji, but the other two seem to be quite close.

What’s interesting is that if you look on her lapel they Leica and Sony seem to have a moray pattern. You don’t get that with the Fuji and I’m not sure why that is. The Fuji is the lowest resolution because it has a lower megapixel sensor. The Leica Q2 definitely seemed the sharpest out of the 3 cameras.

Dynamic Range Test

At EV 0, they are all holding up pretty well. The cameras are capturing the blue sky in the background and also the white wall on the left-hand side.

-1 EV
By one stop on a digital camera, they don’t get that much worse. You can still see the cloud and her face holding pretty well.

-2 EV
Two stops under, you will start to see some grain building on the shadow side. The grain is very pronounced on the Leica, whereas the Sony is holding up pretty well.

-3 EV
Looking at her face, the Fuji is starting to break apart here with grain on her face. Sony is still doing pretty nicely. The Leica you can definitely see grain building on her face, but it’s not as large as Fuji.

-4 EV

The Leica is shifting green a lot. The Fuji and the Sony seem to be doing a lot better in terms of the color.

+1 EV
Pushing these cameras 1 stop you can tell that Leica is already starting to clip worse than the Fuji and the Sony.

+2 EV
The Leica has already fallen off the cliff and turned grey in the background instead of having the blue sky. The Sony kind fell off as well, but her face is still holding up pretty good in all the images. Fuji is definitely performing the best out of all 3 cameras.

+3 EV
The Leica has clipped in her face first. They are all turning pretty yellow.

The Fuji has an advantage currently in the highlights and the Sony has an advantage in the shadows. The Leica didn’t really hold anywhere.

Autofocus Test

Leica Q2

So we had some trouble with this test when we tested out the Leica. When we put it on a high-speed drive, it wouldn’t focus. The camera would lock focus at the beginning and then it would lose it as the model walked toward us. So we figured out if we set the camera to medium drive then it would focus in between frames. It did pretty well after we got it to focus, and we got around 4-5 frames per second on this camera.

Fujifilm X-100F

These X-100 cameras haven’t had the best autofocus. We lost around a third to half of the shots as the model was walking toward us. These cameras aren’t really sports cameras, but this is going to be hard for street photography.

Sony RX1R II

This model didn’t have eye detect, but it does have face detect. We did lose a bunch of them surprisingly; it performed almost the same as the Fuji.

ISO Test

We started off at ISO 1600 to just jump right into it. They all have some artifacting right off the bat. Fuji and Leica seem to be a little worse than the Sony.

ISO 3200

Leica and Fuji are definitely doing worse than the Sony. The color seems to be worse in the Fuji as we go up higher. The Sony seems to have a stop advantage on the Leica.

The Sony at ISO 12800 looks a little bit better than the ISO 6400 on the Leica. Overall, Sony definitely has an edge over the other 2 cameras.

Ergonomics

The Sony RX1R II is definitely the smallest and the hardest to hold when shooting. It just has such little real estate. The lens is also pretty thick so it’s not as compact that you’d like and you can’t really put it into your pocket. The Sony also has this cute little rangefinder that allows you to see.

The Fuji X-100F has a great grip on the side, which makes it super convenient to hold onto. The use of the dials is really nice with the Fuji. It’s old school aperture, shutter, and it doesn’t need any buttons. I love how flat it is, it’s so nice to carry around. It’s perfect for traveling. There are a lot of buttons on the back so it’s hard to hold it without touching something.

The Leica Q2, on the other hand, has very few buttons on the back, which is nice. I like the simplicity of the design. My hand got tired after a while holding it thought because of the weight of the lens. There are a couple of little quirks to the structure of the camera that I don’t love, but overall it’s a really nice experience to use it. It’s like using a mac. I like the cropping factor that the Leica offers. The lens is the nicest by far because it’s a f1.7. Manual focus is great on the Leica with a beautiful punch in assist focus and peaking.