The crop-frame-function, I don't get it

[Strmbrg]

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In Reviews it appears to be a good feature. "You can get the angles of several lenses with just one wide prime lens! Wow!!"
I don't understand it at all of two reasons:

1 Why should I be interested in knowing how much a fex. 50mm lens should capture of the scene? In what way is that important to know? Maybe if I could change the lens, but I cannot. Who accepts the frame and side-proportions anyway? If I were shooting for slides, there is another matter, but no one does that in digital.
2 I do the cropping/framing afterwards. There is nearly never the case that exactly and precisely the full image is what I want. Something is disturbing off center and must be cut away, or the image I want to create does not at all harmonize with the shape of my cameras sensor.

[digitalstew]

I'm guessing here, but it's probably because you aren't used to rangefinder camera, which is Leica's legacy, and where this feature comes from. A rangefinder camera's viewfinder is separate from the view through the lens and "sees" a much wider angle of view than most lenses attached to the camera. On a Leica M camera, for example, it's roughly the equivalent of a 28mm lens. The viewfinder uses framelines that are overlaid to show the effect of using lenses with a narrower field of view. These framelines on a Leica M usually represent the field of view from 28mm, 35mm, 50mm, 75mm, and 90mm lenses (sometimes 135mm).

The advantage to this, and to rangefinder cameras in general, is that it allows you to see what's outside the frame and make decision about whether to include or exclude it. If you're coming from a DSLR or other mirrorless camera (except perhaps a Fuji X100 or XPro), where you're looking through the lens itself, you would never have had this kind of experience with the viewfinder.

So the Q and the Q2 recreate this experience, but electronically. Some people find this ability useful; some don't.

(On personal note, I believe there's value in trying to capture the image you want while shooting, vs. relying on always adjusting it in post-production, but that's just me.)

Edited August 17, 2019 by digitalstew

[Jared]

As you correctly point out, any digital camera will let you crop in post, so it’s hardly unique to the Q/Q2.  However, people who are used to zooms or interchangeable lens cameras generally don’t think about digital crops as a valid approach.  This is for a couple of reasons.  First, no photographer likes to throw away resolution, and a digital crop does exactly that.  So changing focal lengths is almost always the preferred approach.  Digital zoom has always been thought of as a “gimmick”.

Second is that most photographers are used to composing and framing based on what is shown in the viewfinder.  Most of us just don’t think about possible crops when composing—we are trained to “get it right in capture” so that post processing of all types is minimized.  Nothing wrong with that in general.  The more you get right in camera, the less you will need to “push” the resulting files.

So what’s different about the approach in the Q/Q2?  Why is it not simply a “gimmick” like in a $150 point-and-shoot?  Two things are different.  The first is simple recognition that megapixel counts have climbed high enough that a very significant crop may still leave you with an image that is not just usable, but actually excellent. No reason one can’t make 8”x10” prints of a 50mm crop from a Q2 that are absolutely indistinguishable from a dedicated 50mm f/3.0 lens.  That ability is not unique to the Q2, but it is unique to the current generation of cameras.  A few years ago neither the chips nor, frankly, the lenses were up to the task of making such a large crops (digital “zoom”) without it being obvious at normal print sizes.  

The second thing that is different about the Q’s approach is the choice to show a digital frame line rather than simply zooming in.  This, I assume, is a result of Leica’s long history with the rangefinder.  Leica photographers have long tried to turn this “flaw” in rangefinders into a “strength”, and with some success.  Seeing multiple frame lines at the touch of a button can encourage the photographer to think about the composition and how best to capture what’s special in the scene, either by changing one’s perspective or by changing the camera’s angle of view.  Not revolutionary, but uniquely Leica now that optical rangefinders have all but disappeared.  

So, is it an amazing feature or a gimmick?  I’d say somewhere in between.  It encourages photographers to think a little differently about how they might compose a shot given the inherent limitations of a fixed focal length camera.  While it’s certainly not a technical achievement per se, anything that gets photographers to expand their thinking is a good thing.  I have found myself taking shots I might ordinarily give up on as a result of the framing button.  I, at least, do need to be reminded that my camera’s technical quality is now good enough under many circumstances that a digital crop is not inferior.  For many, even most, purposes the Q/Q2 is not just “good enough” at 50mm, but “indistinguishable” when cropped.  Yes, that would apply equally to a Sony or a Canon or a Fuji, but only Leica is trying to bring that point home.  They are doing it because of the limitations of a fixed lens camera, but it is still unusual and creative thinking.

[Strmbrg]

As far as I am concerned, the sensor-proportions 4:3, 3:2 or whatever it happens to be, nearly never corresponds to what I want to create. Sometimes I must make the final image low and wide, sometimes it must have a more or less narrrower widh than the full vertical shape gives.
To me the final image nearly ever is left un-re-shaped. There is always something to get rid of in the outer parts, or the main object is simply not harmonizing with the given sensor-shape.
I understand we are very different-minded about this. 
Regarding resolution: Of course there is fewer pixels left if I cut parts of the image away. But so what? If the important part of the image is, say, in a square in the center of the whole thing - then the pixels outside of this Square, representing non-important areas, is of no other importance than if one wants to count them.
Well, that is just my way of thinking. 🙂

 

Edited August 17, 2019 by Strmbrg

[Strmbrg]

Take this one as an example of what I mean.
The complete image has way too much floor in it for my taste. The floor to me is of no importance and it must be cut away to give me the result that I want.
Another lens - of whatever focal length - could not give me the final result directly. And therefore not the crop-funktion either.
Another - but completely different - matter is of course whether one likes the complete picture better than the cropped.
PS the resolution is of course very reduced to make both images possible to transfer.

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Edited August 17, 2019 by Strmbrg

[mbphotox]

You should've aimed the camera higher... There's too much floor and too little roof present.

 

If you aren't happy with the aspect ratio, that's something else entirely, but the digital zoom is to "emulate" longer lenses.

Makes things easier, if you see the crop already while shooting.

[Strmbrg]

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16 minutes ago, mbphotox said:

You should've aimed the camera higher... There's too much floor and too little roof present. ..

Well, if I had, there would be non-parallel lines. I wanted the lines to be strictly vertical. Of course i could adjust the lines to be parallel afterwards. But then much of the pillar-area would automatically dissapear, which I dislike.
It is not very easy this matter. Especially when one - as I tend to do - complicate things. 😄

 

[Strmbrg]

Another example with a completely different image.

There is too much irrelevant dark and out of focus area in the lower right corner of the original.
Furthermore the image feels "closed" in original and "open" in the cropped and turned version. (I have an idea that because we "westeners" read texts from left to right, we tend to look at picktures the same way.)

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Edited August 17, 2019 by Strmbrg

[Leica Guy]

7 hours ago, Strmbrg said:

Well, if I had, there would be non-parallel lines. I wanted the lines to be strictly vertical. Of course i could adjust the lines to be parallel afterwards. But then much of the pillar-area would automatically dissapear, which I dislike.
It is not very easy this matter. Especially when one - as I tend to do - complicate things. 😄

 

+1. I struggle with this a lot both with my Q2 but way more with my Cañon 11-24 lens. It’s very sensitive to not being exactly at a right angle to the subject. I dislike keystone buildings and try and fix in LR assuming I’m not too far out of the ideal position. 

[mbphotox]

Sounds like you need a T/S lens, then.. 

Or a ladder to bring along

[Leica Guy]

5 hours ago, mbphotox said:

Sounds like you need a T/S lens, then.. 

Or a ladder to bring along

I have definitely brought a step ladder on a few shoots. 😁

[ralphh]

Just use the transform setting in LR. I used to do quite a bit of real estate photography and straightened almost every picture at least a bit. 

 

As for the crops. I actually find it a really helpful composition tool; if I want to get a 50mm view (which is not the same as just walking closer) then I find it very useful to have the frame lines up so i can think about what's around my frame edges. Maybe its just because I'm used to range finders. I would like to have the option to digitally zoom too - just a bit on 50 and 75mm modes - so the frame wasnt such a small part of the screen. The optical finder of the xpro2 actually has an addition lens that slides in on 50mm and longer lenses and it's much nicer to use that way. 

Edited August 19, 2019 by ralphh

[dancook]

I take 100 photos of a musician performing, I find various compositions to suit 28/35/50 frame lines.

that is much easier to compose with crop mode. If you didn’t use crop mode you would have 100 28mm images in post processing hoping to remember what your vision was when you took them

[pico]

2 hours ago, dancook said:

I take 100 photos of a musician performing, I find various compositions to suit 28/35/50 frame lines.

One hundred images! There is a way point marking digital from film.

[dancook]

14 hours ago, pico said:

One hundred images! There is a way point marking digital from film.

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