How minimum shutter speed works with the Leica Q3
I've received a lot of questions about this. Most ask why the Q3, in certain situations, uses a lower shutter speed than the minimal one set in the menu. As I have too many questions like this in my inbox, I thought it would be easier to clear this up here on the blog, and it may help others understand this function better.
Minimum shutter settings
Many love to shoot in aperture priority mode, especially in street photography, it is a great practice as this makes our life much easier. When we use this mode, the ISO is usually on auto, or we can set it to a predetermined value. Then in the settings, we tell the system what is the minimal shutter speed we'd like to use. After this we only care about the aperture, the rest of the settings are taken care of by the camera.
In the Q3's menu, we can find the settings for this on the 2nd page of the main menu: Auto ISO Settings. In this submenu, we can set the Maximum ISO and set Shutter Speed Limit. In my case for street photography, this is usually 1/500. Of course, choose a number you think works best for the type of shots you want to achieve. If you photograph fast-moving subjects, 1/500 might be too slow for example.
Why does the Q3 go under the predetermined settings?
Now we know how to set it up, let's see why the camera might ignore our set rules in some situations. It's all because of the exposure triangle: ISO/Shutter speed/Aperture. We need to understand that the camera is always trying to get the proper exposure regardless of the scene. As we have a fixed ISO ceiling, the aperture is fixed (we control it in aperture priority mode), the only variable can be the shutter speed.
The camera tries to keep the shutter speed at the determined minimum (1/500 in my case), but if the exposure requires it, it will go under that value in order to get a properly exposed photograph.
So, the minimum shutter speed setting means: that the set value will remain the minimum shutter speed as long as it is enough to get a proper exposure.
Hope this clears up the confusion. This is not a bug, this is how the camera works properly.