THE BEST TRAVEL CAMERA EVER

umph. The files just pop, zing and sing with the precision of a close harmony quartet. The colours are precise yet natural and come as close to perfection as any digital camera I’ve used. Frankly, this kind of image quality would once have only been the stuff of cheese dreams.

How I agonised as I ummed and ahhed over how to say this. Worrying whether to pull my punches, or give it to you straight? But enough of this torture. Let’s just cut to the chase. This camera is a masterpiece. Come on, a Leica with autofocus! You’ve got to get breathless. Believe me, there was once a time when I would have considered such wizardry heresy, but that was before I got my hands on the new Leica Q3. Since my love affair with Leica is now an open secret, I was ready to be impressed. Admittedly, I was unprepared for just how mind bogglingly impressive it would turn out to be.

While this is my first encounter with an autofocus Leica, the Q series project began in 2015 with the introduction of the eponymous Leica Q. The idea was simple; they would create a compact camera that would combine extraordinary full-frame image quality with an instinctive control system.

The core of this system would be Leica’s utterly mind blowing fixed Summilux 28mm f/1.7 ASPH lens. In my opinion, this is one of their finest lenses to date. Leica improved this winning combination in 2019, with the introduction of the Leica Q2 with improved usability, a higher resolution sensor, and weather sealing.

Leica has now returned the third incarnation of the Q series, the logically named Leica Q3.

Leica has taken note of everything it learnt in the creation of those previous iterations and simply built back better. What first impresses me with the Q3 is the way it feels so natural in the hand; balanced and poised, ready to capture the action.

Its second virtue is more difficult to quantify, for in some ways it’s intangible. Its indulgent luxury invokes a certain je ne sais quoi that emanates within, rather like a well-fitted bespoke suit that can make you seem ten feet taller, a boost to one’s confidence comes from simply knowing you look a million dollars. The Leica Q3 has that secret sauce in ladles. And whilst that may not make you a better photographer, it will make you want to be one. Intangibles aside, the build quality of the German-made body is simply sub- lime, and ergonomically speaking it’s a home run. The camera incorporates Leica’s new back-illuminated CMOS sensor with Triple-Resolution-Technology, providing users with three resolution options: 60, 36, or 18 megapixels, all utilising the full sensor width. Suffice it to say; the new sensor is a tri-

The user interface is child’s play, minimalist yet both intuitive and easy to fathom, and aside from the Shutterspeed dial, all achieved using just a few buttons and a toggle (directional pad). Although I tended to use that same toggle to precisely place the autofocus cross, improvements to the autofocus system include a hybrid system with phase detection for precise focus and fast object tracking. The Q3’s intelligent subject recognition detects human bodies, faces, and eyes, as well as animals for subject tracking.

Large and clear, the new 5.76 MP OLED electronic viewfinder provides a superb user experience, while the 3-inch highresolution touchscreen on the rear of the camera is equally excellent; super sharp and precise. It even tilts! Now you can use it to frame and shoot those tricky shots; lovely for low-angle images. I must also point out that the Q3 will also shoot video; not being a massive shooter of video in the day job, I’ve not really touched on these capabilities. Still, rest assured it will shoot 8K video, should you so desire.

Having said so many nice things, the time has come to bring out the blunderbuss and shoot myself in the foot.

The Leica Q3 may be a brilliant creation; but, boy is it expensive; eye-wateringly so. If you can afford one, good luck to you. But perhaps I should also underline this once more - while it is an amazing, fixed lens, it is a fixed lens camera.

All things considered – and believe me, I’ve considered them – this is probably the best travel camera ever made. What’s more, were I ever lucky enough to own one, I’m sure that its combination of peerless Summilux 28mm lens and unrivalled autofocus would make the Leica Q3 the best tool for street photography there has ever been, too.

£ £5,300, leica-camera.com

REVIEW: THIS IS THE NUMBER ONE iPHONE GAME OF 2023

Laya’s Horizon sees you take to the skies in a zen-like adventure that’s the ideal escape from a busy commute

LAYA’S HORIZON iOS, ANDROID

(VIA

NETFLIX GAMES) hhhhh | BY STEVE DINNEEN

Some games demand exacting care and utmost concentration.

Let your mind wander when you’re playing Elden Ring or Hollow Knight or Overwatch and you’re likely to receive a message telling you you’ve been killed in some horrible way.

Other games benefit from a disconnect between the player and the game, inducing a “flow state” in which your conscious mind takes a back seat and your primitive lizard brain takes the reins, a sensation not unlike meditation.

Few games have nailed this quite like 2015’s Alto’s Adventure and its sequel Alto’s Odyssey; in these mobile-first titles (they were available on other platforms but designed with an iPhone in mind) you controlled a snowboarder on an endlessly scrolling 2D adventure, tearing down mountains, grinding on strings of bunting and bouncing off balloons.

Now developer Snowman has taken this idea into the third dimension with the quasi open-world Laya’s Horizon, in which you play a wing-suited woman gliding from a mountaintop across a beautiful and diverse island.

You control her by moving your thumbs to adjust her arms, tilting left or right, pulling up or entering a joyous nosedive. Gravity means your journeys inevitably lead downwards, past cellshaded mining towns and canyons and fishing villages. Each run lasts a matter of minutes, at which point your momentum wanes and you parachute to the ground (or crash into a cliff). Exploring the skies of this surprisingly large place is both relaxing and thrilling, tapping into the same satisfying momentum as Alto’s Adventure but introducing limitless choice over your direction of travel. As you mooch about you’ll meet islanders who challenge you to beat them in races or follow them through a series of rings or chase some local wildlife, and a stream of mini-challenges (“fly close to the ground for 200m”, for instance) will reward you with new capes with special abilities or trinkets that give you a minor boost. But Laya’s Horizon is really all about the zen-like sensation of soaring through clear blue skies, making it the perfect antidote to a morning commute.