Leica Q2 Battery Life

 

 

While I am still in the honeymoon phase of the Leica Q2 Monochrom, I am enjoying the hell out of my time with the camera. I can’t remember a time when I was so enamored by a camera. Even in bad weather, I want to go out shooting now. I love the files this camera is giving me as well. The images I am creating out of this camera are very similar to the images I would get out of my Nikon F2. It is incredible how similar the black and white files look compared to my old film shots.

 

 

 

 

But,  the battery life. How many times have you heard those words when talking about mirrorless cameras. The Leica Q2 Monochrome does not have good battery life. My first run through the camera’s battery took 3 days and I shot a total of 210 pictures. That is not too bad considering that I played with the camera a lot, looking through the EVF for fun, adjusted settings in the menus, shot some test video clips and updated the firmware. But my second run through the battery didn’t do much better. I only got around 250 images.

 

 

The number of shots that I got out of the Leica Q2 Monochrom is completely different from what I read on the internet. I read some posts online about how the Leica Q2 was getting over a thousand shots per battery. But this was my first run-in with Leica fanboys online and how full of shit they are. If you thought the Sony fanboys were toxic, the Leica digital fanboys are way worse.(But only the digital shooters, I found that the Leica film users to be very helpful and friendly.)

 

 

I was worried that maybe something was wrong with the first battery that I received with my Leica Q2 Monchrom so I ordered a second battery for the camera. Leica batteries are not cheap. There is no way I would carry more than one backup battery.

 

 

The second battery only gave me around 260 shots, so it is roughly the same result as the first battery. This is not great. I would say that the battery life is on par with the Fujifilm XE3 and the Ricoh iii. Those cameras are notorious for poor battery life performance and I usually travel around with two or three extra batteries for those cameras. Compared to the battery life of the Nikon Z6, then it looks even worse. Luckily I am not a spray and pray shooter who walks around the street and comes back with 1000 pictures at the end of the day. I tend to shoot very selectively these days. Something I have learned from shooting film I guess.

 

 

Now does this mean the Leica Q2 Monochrom is a terrible camera? Hell no. I am loving my time with this camera but what it does mean is that you need to buy this camera with the realization that you will need a second battery if you plan to shoot more than 250 – 300 photos a day. Once again I would say that Leica is most likely one or two generations behind on battery technology compared to the other camera manufacturers. I would imagine that the Leica M cameras would have amazing battery life as they have no EVF to power, just the shutter, sensor, and light meter so there was no need to invest in developing great batteries but the Q lineup of cameras will use a lot more power compared to an M body so their battery tech is just not good enough. I have read about similar complaints about the Leica SL2 which uses the same battery.

 

 

. But as it stands right now, the Leica Q2 Monochrom really does not have the greatest battery life but this is not a big deal for me. This is a camera that I will use for personal work, so I will seldom shoot more than 50 to 100 photos a day. I have never run the battery down to zero in a single day.  But if you are a prolific shooter, then you need to keep that in mind before you buy one of these beautiful machines.

 

 

Shaun