Q2 highlights

[setuporg]

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Q2 clearly blows out the highlights.  It does have the Leica look elsewhere.  What are we going to do about it?

[stuny]

Adjust the exposure with the thumb wheel while composing

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[Jared]

“What are we going to do about it?” What would you propose?  Obviously, one can add some EV compensation as a semi-permanent adjustment if one doesn’t like the camera’s choices.  Were you looking for something more than that?  A “correct” exposure is always a balancing act since many daylight scenes exceed a camera’s dynamic range for a single image.  Would you prefer blocked up shadows or blown highlights?  There’s no “right” answer to that, and I haven’t noticed that the Q2 meters significantly differently than the Q (though I haven’t checked for this issue in particular).

[Leica Guy]

1 hour ago, setuporg said:

Q2 clearly blows out the highlights.  It does have the Leica look elsewhere.  What are we going to do about it?

I have not experienced this with the Q2 except when I have the camera exposure somehow misadjusted. In high dynamic range situations, I often will bracket the photo and later either choose the exposure I most prefer or combine in HDR. 

The Q2 is not any different than my Canon 5D3 in this respect. I use exposure compensation pretty often. Underexposing  1/2-2/3 stop can help too. 

[sturkel]

+1 as well in fact with my Sony a7iii I always kept it set at -2/3 just for this reason. The Q2 seems to be good for most part as I have not felt the need to have a constant off set 

[mike3996]

17 hours ago, setuporg said:

Q2 clearly blows out the highlights.  It does have the Leica look elsewhere.  What are we going to do about it?

But blown highlights *is* the Leica look

[antigallican]

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meter for highlights and buy a copy of Lightroom?

[Leica Guy]

1 minute ago, antigallican said:

meter for highlights and buy a copy of Lightroom?

+1

[nicci78]

Rules are made to be broken. You can blown your highlights if you want. Nothing wrong with it. If it serves a purpose ! 

Raising shadows, can be quite bad. Your main subject will lack contrast and can be noisy. 

Use flash whenever needed. Post-production is last resort. Not first intention 

[bags27]

I think you can comfortably raise shadows. Blown highlights are usually harder to fix. For me, the very best and easiest things to do in Photoshop are:

1. In Camera Raw, fix the first 6 adjustments by hand, from Exposure through Blacks. The final four you can get a precise read by Shift +double click on touch pad on a Mac, or even better, hold down the option key and move the slider. It will give you maximum separation values. Tone Curve in CR is also good.

2. In Photoshop, use the Levels and Curves layers for fine tuning. They allow for awesomely effective separation. Of course, there are a zillion ways to do everything in PS, but Levels and Curves I find the best.

this is very good:

 

[ralphh]

I actually find the meter on my Q2 under exposes more often than not - it certainly doesn't seem to prioritise the exposure at the focal point the way many other cameras do and I find myself adding a lot more explore comp than I'm used to when there are bright light sources in tbe frame. I'm regularly showing at +2 exp comp if there's a window in the shot. Not moaning - it's fairly predictable, it's just different. 

[antigallican]

On 7/18/2019 at 9:07 PM, bags27 said:

I think you can comfortably raise shadows. Blown highlights are usually harder to fix. For me, the very best and easiest things to do in Photoshop are:

1. In Camera Raw, fix the first 6 adjustments by hand, from Exposure through Blacks. The final four you can get a precise read by Shift +double click on touch pad on a Mac, or even better, hold down the option key and move the slider. It will give you maximum separation values. Tone Curve in CR is also good.

2. In Photoshop, use the Levels and Curves layers for fine tuning. They allow for awesomely effective separation. Of course, there are a zillion ways to do everything in PS, but Levels and Curves I find the best.

this is very good:

 

It's excellent. Great way to improve a single photo.  If only there were a way to do it to a batch of pictures!

[jmc014]

I have my EV compensation set to -1/3, and it seems to work pretty well for me

[Liberta]

 

 

Hello! I was reading this and what I feel he is trying to say, is not related with exposure, it is not even related directly with Dynamic range, because the Q2 is not bad but just OK at DR. I think he is talking about "highlight roll off" that is very similar to what we understand by "latitude" in film (it is like the dr but just applied to the highlights, how many stops you have after over exposing and before clipping). To be specific "roll off" is the gradient between the last grey to the first white (blown out) highlight, some cameras have a very limited DR but a soft gradient, and some cameras have a very good DR but an extremely poor roll off, like the Q2 case. I think Q2 is similar to the Q in DR, maybe better, but the pictures from the Q, looks soft and natural. The Q2 clips immediately after over exposure. That is the problem with blown out highlights, it is not exposure, it is not DR, it is a very bad sensor, that can't grab light info. It breaks my heart to see that in my testings, every camera beats the Leica in this topic. Every fuji, nikon, canon, etc. There is no way to fix this with filters or exposure, or even post, you will always have a white harsh hole in the middle of your white clouds, in the brightest portion of the horizon, in the highlights of a glossy makeup, in the brightest parts of teeth, on the metal brights, etc. Im not talking about high contrast scenes. Leica Q2 has less than 0.5ev of roll off latitud. It is ok for high contrast BW photography, but for color photography is a total disaster. Fuji x100v has 1.5 stops of roll of and almost 2 stops highlight recovering, I know is not a leica, but we should be objectives. It is not you, it is the sensor in this case. Same with every Leica, including the m10R, M10 monochrom, but the SL and S line. (SL2, is the same clipped pain)

Some numbers:

Best overall DR: Nikon d850 (14.81ev)

Best Iso 400/DR: Lumix s1/s1h : 13.37ev

Worst iso 400/dr: Leica Q2: 11.28ev

Don't use Iso 400 with the Q2 the DR is worst than 800 (11.39ev)

Fuji x100v is 12ev at iso 3200, more than the Q2 at Iso 400. How? 

Nikon d850 at iso 800 (12.6ev) has the same DR than the Leica Q2 (12.8ev) at Iso 100 , Slightly more grainy obviously but, I can recover highlights and shadows, and also play with color. Just Dream about that with the Leica over ISO 200...

 

I can't understand how a camera made for available light, doesn't have a proper Iso 400 setting. The most important Iso range for this camera is 400-1600. Now you have 1/40.000 shutter, Iso 50 "upgrade" its a joke. 

 

I would prefer to have the base Iso at iso 200/400, now the best Iso/dr is 50 at 13.5ev, but with high contrast highlights, so you clip more than the iso 100 setting where you just have 12.8ev, but less contrast in highlight. 

 

 

This sensor doesn't make any sense. Im combining my eyes with the chart tests, every test made from raw. So Im not just talking about theory, I can see with my eyes the extremely poor behavior of this sensor in capture one and lightroom. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jaapv]

I wonder where you get your figures. If we look at reality the differences between these cameras are marginal and irrelevant for photographic use - provided the user is capable of exposing and postprocessing correctly.

 

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[jaapv]

The simple -and effective- solution: activate the histogram and watch it whilst setting exposure.

[vedivv]

On 7/17/2019 at 12:27 PM, setuporg said:

Q2 clearly blows out the highlights.  It does have the Leica look elsewhere.  What are we going to do about it?

Need to clarify the comment and question.

Does it mean Q2 not metering correctly or not having enough DR? 

If the former, it is probably the user not being used to the metering system.  Every camera blows out higlights if you overexpose.

If the latter, Q2 is definitely a little short when compared to Sony in DR, but still plenty.  I have been amazed how much highlight and shadow details you can pull back from Q2 DNG files (or pretty much all new FF sensor).  While it is helpful to understand our photographic tool, I think high DR can be a curse to photography.  I found myself tempted to stretch DR for almost every DNG file, and creating the unnatural HDR/high contrast look as a result.  But aren't we trying to capture the mood and lighting condition at the time of capture (at least some situations)?

[Leica28]

What highlights?  If you talking about a bright sky, for example, and a dark foreground you could use a soft edge 50 per cent graduated filter.  

[Sylavin]

On 7/17/2019 at 7:27 PM, setuporg said:

Q2 clearly blows out the highlights.  It does have the Leica look elsewhere.  What are we going to do about it?

I agree with you and I can compare with the Nikon Z6 II in the same conditions!

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica Q

[jaapv]

Obviously you can't. Each tool must be used to its own specification. That is called craftsmanship. If you set two cameras to the same settings in identical conditions, one may well perform better than the other. However, which one performs better depends on the settings that you chose...