Face detection on Q2

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3 hours ago, Matsaly said:

I respectfully and vehemently disagree. If a given product purports to have a certain "feature", that feature should function properly. To implement a half baked or erratically functioning feature is negligent and borderline fraudulent. 

The "best" solution is to have a fully functioning feature which can be deactivated via software if a given user chooses not to use it.

 

 

  

With all due respect, your stated disagreement isn't about my comment/opinion, it's about your grievance with declared functionality that you feel isn't working. I don't disagree that features advertised should work. 

[Matsaly]

Indeed you are correct sir. My gripe is not with you personally regarding  whether you (or any user) find a feature useful or prefer to disable said feature. 

My point is if Leica claims to have "face detection" it should function at least to at least "workmanlike" standards. It doesn't have to be "best in class" or "reference" standard. Per an earlier post- No manufacturers "Face detect" is going to be 100% accurate , but users have every right to expect a purported feature to function 'properly".

 

 

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6 minutes ago, Matsaly said:

Per an earlier post- No manufacturers "Face detect" is going to be 100% accurate , but users have every right to expect a purported feature to function 'properly".

 

 

Agreed.

[nicci78]

compare to Q or CL. Which have perfectly usable face detect.

Q2 face detection is really flawed. It seems like a software bug. Q2 lost track (detect the face, but lost it immediately) or did not see obvious face at any distance. It is quite annoying and unpredictable. Drives me crazy. Number of out of focus photos are way higher than original Q. What's the point having 46 million of blurry pixels ?

 

[ralphh]

The thing I like least about it is the way it works differently from almost every other non-leica camera i've used; it's normally a yes/no on top of the chosen focus mode so that if it can't find a face you can still be at least be using single point focus and be fine.  The Q2 defaults to 'randomly focus on anything with high contrast' mode (I think leica call it multi-field but I don't have my camera with me right now) and I find that really unhelpful, so I don't use face detect at all as where I did use it on Fuji.  The Fuji hit-rate wasn't hugely better I don't think, but at least it didn't really matter much when it failed.

Edited July 5, 2019 by ralphh

[MCJ]

You can add me to the list of people who has mostly given up on face detection.  Doesn't work well.

[ESS]

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I have also given up on face detection with the Q2. And I agree fully with the comments by others that Leica shouldn't be offering a feature that doesn't work properly, most of the time. 

[nicci78]

Maybe it is me. But it seems to work better and better with my Q2. Is it some kind of artificial intelligence automatic learning stuff ? The more you use it, the better it gets ?

 

[ralphh]

I think it's more likely that the natural intelligence automatic learning stuff 6 inches behind the camera is getting more used to the limitations of the system

[Miltz]

I saw the same results as you and returned mine. The camera's autofocus is weak for me, and face detection is a joke. It works half of the time, unlike my Olympus which as a 99% hit rate. Unless they fix it in firmware, I won't be buy one again.

[Guest]

I own a olympus pen ep-5 from 2013 and the face detection is fast and reliable.

To me it beggars belief that leica cannot get near to that with a camera produced 5 years after the olympus.

I bought an m 262 this spring and i love it,the only thing i miss from the olympus is the face detection which is more reliable than me for set piece family group or portrait shots.

I just do not understand this failure.

[jaapv]

What is the use of face detection? With me cameras always detect the wrong face... 🙄 I prefer to keep control of the content of the image to myself, not hand it over to some goblin in the camera.

[ralphh]

Your preferences dont excuse poor work on leicas part. Would you accept a lens with a broken aperture ring just because someone else's preference is to shoot wide open all the time?

[jaapv]

My point is that I don't like the way the feature works on any camera. I have seen not too much evidence outside some user reports that Leica's is dramatically worse than others. In my book they are all similarly in need of improvement.

[ralphh]

I used the Fuji implementation professionally for 2 years; probably 100,000 images worth of experience with it - I used to shoot a lot of single-person studio portraits and having a camera that always focuses on the closest eye of your subjust is actually very useful; there really isn't anything else youd rather it was focused on so it simply saves you the time waste of moving a focus point around.

Leicas implementstion is much worse and it was instantly apparent, I can promise you that. Two reasons; a) it is much less reliable - my Fujis would find a face 90% of the time. Leica seems less than 50%. This is complex stuff though and I dont really begrudge Leica of that - they certainly dont have Fujis R&D budget, but  b) it drops back to multi field rather than single point focus when it can't find a face, making the camera uncontrollable.  I do begrudge this as it's just thoughtless

[Guest]

vor 11 Minuten schrieb ralphh:

I used the Fuji implementation professionally for 2 years; probably 100,000 images worth of experience with it - I used to shoot a lot of single-person studio portraits and having a camera that always focuses on the closest eye of your subjust is actually very useful; there really isn't anything else youd rather it was focused on so it simply saves you the time waste of moving a focus point around.

Leicas implementstion is much worse and it was instantly apparent, I can promise you that. Two reasons; a) it is much less reliable - my Fujis would find a face 90% of the time. Leica seems less than 50%. This is complex stuff though and I dont really begrudge Leica of that - they certainly dont have Fujis R&D budget, but  b) it drops back to multi field rather than single point focus when it can't find a face, making the camera uncontrollable.  I do begrudge this as it's just thoughtless

so when you sold your Leica?   It’s that simple, if you can’t use it , the Way the Features from your Leica Cam let you,  buy a Cam who makes it better .  Not one Cam on the Market is made for all Situations . Even they have some Features included like Face detection . 

 

[jaapv]

2 hours ago, ralphh said:

I used the Fuji implementation professionally for 2 years; probably 100,000 images worth of experience with it - I used to shoot a lot of single-person studio portraits and having a camera that always focuses on the closest eye of your subjust is actually very useful; there really isn't anything else youd rather it was focused on so it simply saves you the time waste of moving a focus point around.

Leicas implementstion is much worse and it was instantly apparent, I can promise you that. Two reasons; a) it is much less reliable - my Fujis would find a face 90% of the time. Leica seems less than 50%. This is complex stuff though and I dont really begrudge Leica of that - they certainly dont have Fujis R&D budget, but  b) it drops back to multi field rather than single point focus when it can't find a face, making the camera uncontrollable.  I do begrudge this as it's just thoughtless

I don't doubt your use and professional expertise, but that is a rather specialized use, and I am sure that you will choose your tools with care, not blinded by brand labels.

The Leica Q is a lot of things to many people, but as a moderately compact point-and-shoot 28 mm, it is certainly not designed to be a studio camera.

Come to think of it, the hit rate of a face-detecting AF system in general must vary with focal length as it impacts image content. It would be interesting to compare the systems in similar circumstances, i.e. with the Fuji mounted with a 28 mm (equ?) lens and  with identical subject matter.

There is a difference between the camera having to pick out a face using a single well-lit model against a backdrop, using a short tele lens, and picking out a face in the crowd in a street scene using a 28.

[ralphh]

1 hour ago, jaapv said:

Come to think of it, the hit rate of a face-detecting AF system in general must vary with focal length as it impacts image content. There is a difference between the camera having to pick out a face using a single well-lit model against a backdrop, using a short tele lens, and picking out a face in the crowd in a street scene using a 28.

That is true enough - but say rather framing than focal length as you can always get closer but yes, the bigger the face in the frame the easier it is to find i would imagine.  That said, with a longer depth of field, an out of focus face will be less out of focus and therefor perhaps easier to find.  I would imagine it would be hard to spot a face in the sea of bokeh balls that a out of focus 85mm f1.4 creates than in the gently out of focus background of a 28mm lens.

I did use the Fuji for my own family photos too, often with a 28mm equiv, but I tended to turn off face detect simply because it struggles much more when not straight on to a face, ie it is much less reliable for candid photos rather than portraits where your subject is looking right at the camera. 

I found it generally pretty reliable in a portrait situation whether indoors or out, and that's not really a specialized use.  The Leica implementation I've found much less reliable even with a face taking up a good proportion of the frame but perhaps more use would lead to better results - it was so bad i basically gave up immediately.

As I said though, my main gripe is not that it fails to find faces, it's that it renders the camera basically unusable when it does so and that was the main reason I had to give up trying with it.  If Leica changes the implantation of what the camera does when it doesn't see a face I'd probably turn it back on and see if I could learn to make it work for me.

Edited September 13, 2019 by ralphh

[wda]

 "I would imagine it would be hard to spot a face in the sea of bokeh balls that a out of focus 85mm f1.4 creates than in the gently out of focus background of a 28mm lens"

I would assume that your subject would be closer than the background and would thus be recognised by the face detection.

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[jaapv]

1 hour ago, ralphh said:

That is true enough - but say rather framing than focal length as you can always get closer but yes, the bigger the face in the frame the easier it is to find i would imagine.  That said, with a longer depth of field, an out of focus face will be less out of focus and therefor perhaps easier to find.  I would imagine it would be hard to spot a face in the sea of bokeh balls that a out of focus 85mm f1.4 creates than in the gently out of focus background of a 28mm lens.

I did use the Fuji for my own family photos too, often with a 28mm equiv, but I tended to turn off face detect simply because it struggles much more when not straight on to a face, ie it is much less reliable for candid photos rather than portraits where your subject is looking right at the camera. 

I found it generally pretty reliable in a portrait situation whether indoors or out, and that's not really a specialized use.  The Leica implementation I've found much less reliable even with a face taking up a good proportion of the frame but perhaps more use would lead to better results - it was so bad i basically gave up immediately.

As I said though, my main gripe is not that it fails to find faces, it's that it renders the camera basically unusable when it does so and that was the main reason I had to give up trying with it.  If Leica changes the implantation of what the camera does when it doesn't see a face I'd probably turn it back on and see if I could learn to make it work for me.

AFAIK it simply reverts to multi-point focus. I find it hard to see what is wrong with that.