HDR on the Q2

[photogray]

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I'll start out by saying two things: I'm a 'new' Q2 user and I know the HDR setting on the camera is an amateurish way of balancing contrast within a scene. Okay? No need to weigh in on that. But here's the issue I'm having: whenever I select HDR, regardless of the manual settings I choose, regardless of the available light, the camera defaults to 1/60 shutter speed. The manual has but a minimal description of the setting on p.77 and doesn't state anything about a default shutter speed. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!

[Leica Guy]

Sorry. I’m no help. I only do HDR in the computer afterwards. My thinking is HDR is a pretty computationally intensive operation and my desktop iMac is far far more powerful than my Q2. Good luck figuring it out. 

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[RoySmith]

The norm with HDR Is to keep the ISO, Aperture, and White Balance all fixed and then vary only the shutter speed for the different exposures. I use a tripod. This keeps the photos identical, but with different exposures. I have not done it with Q2 yet.

[Leica Guy]

On 9/17/2019 at 9:17 PM, RoySmith said:

The norm with HDR Is to keep the ISO, Aperture, and White Balance all fixed and then vary only the shutter speed for the different exposures. I use a tripod. This keeps the photos identical, but with different exposures. I have not done it with Q2 yet.

I do exactly as you say and it works very well on the Q2. 

[leicameech]

I'm holding a Q2 in my hands in HDR mode and am not getting 1/60th. It appears to be lighting dependent, but no matter what I do I can't make the shutter speed change given what I'm pointing the camera at. Aperture/ISO/Shutter speed controls are disabled, so you get what you get in HDR mode. Aside from all of that, however, the biggest drawback in my opinion (and therefore the biggest reason to take the advice of the other folks who've replied in this thread on the topic thus far) is that you cannot shoot in DNG when in HDR mode. All files will be in JPEG only, regardless of what you've set the camera to capture in (DNG or DNG+JPEG will not take effect). 

 

+1 to varying only shutter speed when shooting HDR, btw

 

[Leica Guy]

12 hours ago, leicameech said:

I'm holding a Q2 in my hands in HDR mode and am not getting 1/60th. It appears to be lighting dependent, but no matter what I do I can't make the shutter speed change given what I'm pointing the camera at. Aperture/ISO/Shutter speed controls are disabled, so you get what you get in HDR mode. Aside from all of that, however, the biggest drawback in my opinion (and therefore the biggest reason to take the advice of the other folks who've replied in this thread on the topic thus far) is that you cannot shoot in DNG when in HDR mode. All files will be in JPEG only, regardless of what you've set the camera to capture in (DNG or DNG+JPEG will not take effect). 

 

+1 to varying only shutter speed when shooting HDR, btw

 

Your comments do not agree with my usage. I guess I think of exposure bracketing and not in camera HDR. I use Aperture priority and I set a specific ISO. The bracketing mode varies the shutter speed to whatever it needs. I usually take 3 shots. Under. Normal. Over exposed. It just works. Then I combine in LR using Merge to HDR. I always shoot with DNG’s. Simple. 

Edited October 11, 2019 by Leica Guy

[leicameech]

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8 hours ago, Leica Guy said:

Your comments do not agree with my usage. I guess I think of exposure bracketing and not in camera HDR. I use Aperture priority and I set a specific ISO. The bracketing mode varies the shutter speed to whatever it needs. I usually take 3 shots. Under. Normal. Over exposed. It just works. Then I combine in LR using Merge to HDR. I always shoot with DNG’s. Simple. 

My apologies -- I wasn't clear in my post.

I do exactly the same thing as you. I also bracket, with the intention of creating an "HDR" image using underexposed, normal, overexposed shots and merging them together in Lightroom. I also shoot in aperture priority at a fixed ISO, letting the camera vary only the shutter speed in order to give me different exposures. I should have mentioned that utilizing Exposure Bracketing (in the Q/Q2 menu, if OP is reading this exchange) is indeed a far superior method of shooting HDR photos than using the HDR Scene Mode the Q/Q2 offers. Except that it's not going to stitch the images together for you.. 

Regarding the 1/60th of a second part (if that's what you were referring to about my post that you don't find in your usage), I was saying that I picked my camera up, selected "HDR" in Scene Modes and pointed the camera at something -- anything -- to see if my shutter speed was also stuck at 1/60th as the OP was saying his was. It was not. Mine happened to start shooting at 1/125th. 

In summary, if anyone is reading this:

If the goal is to create an High Dynamic Range image (HDR), you've got two options:

 

HDR Scene Mode

Pros:

• Quick
• Camera stitches the three exposures it takes into one image for you

Cons:

• You can't shoot in DNG. If your camera is set to shoot in DNG, HDR Scene Mode will override it.
• You will only ever have the HDR image the camera stitched together. You cannot separate the images out and use only one of them on its own (probably not a con in most cases, but sometimes I end up going with only one of my bracketed images because it looks better on its own than as part of an HDR image)
• You can't choose aperture, shutter speed, or ISO. The camera will choose it all for you.

 

Exposure Bracketing (my choice, and Leica Guy's choice!)

Pros:

• Complete control of Aperture, ISO, Shutter Speed
• Choose by how many stops (or fractions of a stop) you wish to overexpose/underexpose the "normal" exposure.
• Can shoot in DNG
• In case you decide not to merge the images later, you've got three different exposures, or starting points to work with, for the scene you photographed

Cons:

• Camera doesn't stitch the photos together for you
• Three separate images (not ideal for sharing the image right away, if that's what you want to do)
• Requires post processing software of some sort for you to be able to stitch the images together

 

Pretty new to the forum. I type how I think and I guess I don't know how it might sound to a reader.. Sorry!

[Leica Guy]

Thanks. Your explanation is great and I understand now. I’ll have to confess that I just don’t use and am unfamiliar with HDR in camera so I’m not any help understanding the shutter speed question. 
 

Good luck with how you choose to deal with high dynamic range scenes. 

[Orguy]

I just updated to v3.1 firmware. Is the amount of exposure bracketing for HDR settable? i.e. stitching together +-x stops where I can set x? What is the default (or only value) the Q2 is using?

[BillyRay]

Does anybody knows if its possible to save all 4 photos when in HDR more - 3 photos camera make and than stitched by camera?

[leicameech]

On 5/20/2022 at 12:04 PM, BillyRay said:

Does anybody knows if its possible to save all 4 photos when in HDR more - 3 photos camera make and than stitched by camera?

Not possible, I'm afraid. Similar idea to multishot mode on SL2/SL2-S -- you automatically get two images. The multi-shot image and the same image at standard resolution. No such capability on the Q2 in HDR mode. The result will be one image, a jpeg, and one image only.