Q2 Resolution and "Equivalent" Cameras

[Jared]

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For those of you wondering...  How does the Q2 render?  In a real world situation?  Are the extra megapixels worth the upgrade from my Q?  Should I just get a CL instead--similar size, but more flexible due to interchangeable lenses?  Or is the SL worth the extra cost and bulk despite being "just" 24 megapixels?  And how does the tiny little Q2 compared to a medium format camera?  Probably few of you (none) were wondering all of these things, but you might be wondering about one or two of them...

I ran a quick check on the Q2 in my back garden just to see how the files look, get a feel for the colors and rendering, etc. and I compared it to the rest of my cameras.

Here is a single exposure from each of the cameras.  This was taken in my back garden using a real-world type of subject (not a brick wall) with some depth.  The exposure with the medium format camera was at f/5.6, and all the rest of the cameras were shot at f/4 (the "equivalent" aperture for depth of field and theoretically for signal-to-noise).  The one outlier is the CL since it needed to be shot at closer to f/2.8 to be equivalent, only my 11-23mm zoom isn't quite fast enough so it's off by a stop.  All shots were taken at base ISO on a tripod.  The slight difference in perspective are because of slightly different heights on the tripod, slightly different angles of view, and that fact that this subject was close enough that the SL needed to be opened up to 25mm just because the lens is large enough to be physically closer.  I was trying to match the field of view and perspective as much as possible.

The light was contrasty, but was within the dynamic range of all the cameras when shot at base ISO.  I underexposed all the shots enough to avoid clipping highlights, then applied the exact same Lightroom adjustments to highlights, whites, shadows, and blacks to make it an even playing field.  The exposure was adjusted to give all the images the same general brightness, though the light was somewhat variable over the half hour or so it took to take these images, so there may be a bit of a different "look" to each.  White balance was set for each using the same "gray" point on the garden wall for all images.

All images were cropped to the same aspect ratio (3x4) and all images were resized to have the same number of pixels as the X1D which was the highest resolution shot.  The same sharpening was applied to all images except the radius was 1.2 pixels on the Q2 and X1D and 1 pixel for the rest of the cameras, simply because they have lower pixel counts.

Here is the link to a gallery showing all the images at full resolution.  Feel free to download and pixel peep.

https://adobe.ly/323QMrA

Obviously, this will only tell you so much... Perspective is very close on all of them, but not absolutely identical.  There are no specular highlights to judge bokeh.  Base ISO was used for all, so there's no conclusion you can draw about low light performance.  A tripod was used, so there's no way to judge OIS performance.  Some of the lenses may perform better or worse at different apertures.  Etc., etc., etc.  It might, however, give you some ideas on how the different cameras and lenses render, as well how much additional detail you get with a ~50MP camera vs ~24MP. 

Oh, forgot to mention for all you pixel peepers... The point of focus was the near eye of the nearer pig.

- Jared

 

 

 

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Edited June 29, 2019 by Jared
Omission

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[Shuttermuse]

The Q2 and the CL looks the worst because you have shadows/detail/3D depth missing on the second pig. Was that just because of the sun moving?

[Jared]

Yup.  The light was variable, so contrast in some but not in others.  Wish the sun had been out for all of them or cloudy for all of them,  it that just wasn’t the case today.  The Q2 and CL do not have inherently lower contrast than he rest.

Edited June 30, 2019 by Jared
More info to add

[Jared]

Hmmm... It appears Lightroom web galleries are necessarily down-sampled, so you can't see the full resolution.  Try this Flickr link instead for those who want to see the full resolution files.

https://flic.kr/s/aHsmECwzW8

This one lets you download the full files.