Newbie Questions

[bjamisonf]

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Where can one find the battery charge level?

What's the best way to extend the battery life? 

If I shoot DNG/JPG, where do the JPGs end up? I don’t see them when I import the files into Lightroom. Are they the ones transferred over to the Leica Photos? 

If one shoots A for aperture, shutter speed, and focus, is it the same as Full Auto in Scene Mode?

I notice the photos I take in Black and White turn to color when I import them into Lightroom. Importing the B&W photo into Leica Fotos shows it is B&W, which I assume is so that it can be shared. My question is: Are there specific Lightroom presets that show the Leica style?

I occasionally get the red box with spinning circle. Why does it do that? I assume it’s writing to disk but I’ve had occasions where I haven’t taken a photo at all, so there’s nothing to “write to disk.”

Can I use the Leica Q2 LCD panel to focus/shoot like my Canon 5D Mark IV? Maybe I’m wrong but I recall seeing a video of a Leica Q doing so. 

Does changing the user profile also change what’s found on the favorites menu? 

Is there any sort of logic for how to set up the FN versus the wheel button? I appreciate their usefulness but I find I can’t remember what’s where and I end up going back to the menu button. Any suggestions on how to set it up logically? 

 

[jaapv]

Welcome :)

A long list. I would advise you to take some time to familiarize yourself with the camera, using the manual, first.

There are no LR settings for "Leica Look". Nobody really knows what it is supposed to be. My definition is that it (whatever it is) is created by the way that the photographer takes the image.

[Leica Guy]

9 hours ago, bjamisonf said:

Where can one find the battery charge level?

What's the best way to extend the battery life? 

If I shoot DNG/JPG, where do the JPGs end up? I don’t see them when I import the files into Lightroom. Are they the ones transferred over to the Leica Photos? 

If one shoots A for aperture, shutter speed, and focus, is it the same as Full Auto in Scene Mode?

I notice the photos I take in Black and White turn to color when I import them into Lightroom. Importing the B&W photo into Leica Fotos shows it is B&W, which I assume is so that it can be shared. My question is: Are there specific Lightroom presets that show the Leica style?

I occasionally get the red box with spinning circle. Why does it do that? I assume it’s writing to disk but I’ve had occasions where I haven’t taken a photo at all, so there’s nothing to “write to disk.”

Can I use the Leica Q2 LCD panel to focus/shoot like my Canon 5D Mark IV? Maybe I’m wrong but I recall seeing a video of a Leica Q doing so. 

Does changing the user profile also change what’s found on the favorites menu? 

Is there any sort of logic for how to set up the FN versus the wheel button? I appreciate their usefulness but I find I can’t remember what’s where and I end up going back to the menu button. Any suggestions on how to set it up logically? 

 

Answers to virtually all your questions are in the Q forum threads, but I’ll tackle one.
 

When you take B&W images in camera those show in in LR as B&W if you are shooting jpgs and color if your shooting DNG’s. Sometimes it’s nice to shoot jpg + DNG. That way you can quickly upload the B&W images using the Fotos App to your smartphone to share. Later in LR on your computer the DNG has the full color image. You could covert that to B&W in LR if you want or process the full image anyway you choose. 

[4peterse]

Some answers:

> Does changing the user profile also change what’s found on the favorites menu? 

yes

> Is there any sort of logic for how to set up the FN versus the wheel button? I appreciate their usefulness but I find I can’t remember what’s where and I end up going back to the menu button. Any suggestions on how to set it up logically? 

You can (and should) invent your own logic. I assume, everyone has their own preferences here. Mine are:

• FN button: I call it "camera control", and contains interval/bracketing/self-timer/focusing etc.
• Wheel button: I call it "exposure control", and contains exposure metering, ISO, white balance etc.

Settings for FN button and wheel button are the same in every profile (otherwise I would get mad).

Edited October 1, 2019 by 4peterse

[Leica Guy]

28 minutes ago, 4peterse said:

Some answers:

> Does changing the user profile also change what’s found on the favorites menu? 

yes

> Is there any sort of logic for how to set up the FN versus the wheel button? I appreciate their usefulness but I find I can’t remember what’s where and I end up going back to the menu button. Any suggestions on how to set it up logically? 

You can (and should) invent your own logic. I assume, everyone has their own preferences here. Mine are:

• FN button: I call it "camera control", and contains interval/bracketing/self-timer/focusing etc.
• Wheel button: I call it "exposure control", and contains exposure metering, ISO, white balance etc.

Settings for FN button and wheel button are the same in every profile (otherwise I would get mad).

I set up the Fn button and the thumb wheel almost exactly like you. It just seemed logical to me and something I can remember. 

[microview]

Lightroom imports either DNG (raw) files or both DNGs and jpegs – but I have forgotten how you set this! If you have opted for b/w jpegs  but Lightroom shows colour pics that's because it is importing the raw files.

[Leica Guy]

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4 hours ago, microview said:

Lightroom imports either DNG (raw) files or both DNGs and jpegs – but I have forgotten how you set this! If you have opted for b/w jpegs  but Lightroom shows colour pics that's because it is importing the raw files.

As I remember even the DNG’s show up with the in camera settings for instance crop and B&W. Whenever you try to read-crop you’ll see the full image (28mm). Whenever you try and develop, you’ll see the full RAW image and adjustment possibilities. I pretty much take all this for granted now and don’t even think about it anymore. Seamless in LR. 

[bullmoon]

On 9/30/2019 at 11:38 AM, bjamisonf said:

Where can one find the battery charge level?

What's the best way to extend the battery life? 

If I shoot DNG/JPG, where do the JPGs end up? I don’t see them when I import the files into Lightroom. Are they the ones transferred over to the Leica Photos? 

If one shoots A for aperture, shutter speed, and focus, is it the same as Full Auto in Scene Mode?

I notice the photos I take in Black and White turn to color when I import them into Lightroom. Importing the B&W photo into Leica Fotos shows it is B&W, which I assume is so that it can be shared. My question is: Are there specific Lightroom presets that show the Leica style?

I occasionally get the red box with spinning circle. Why does it do that? I assume it’s writing to disk but I’ve had occasions where I haven’t taken a photo at all, so there’s nothing to “write to disk.”

Can I use the Leica Q2 LCD panel to focus/shoot like my Canon 5D Mark IV? Maybe I’m wrong but I recall seeing a video of a Leica Q doing so. 

Does changing the user profile also change what’s found on the favorites menu? 

Is there any sort of logic for how to set up the FN versus the wheel button? I appreciate their usefulness but I find I can’t remember what’s where and I end up going back to the menu button. Any suggestions on how to set it up logically? 

 

The battery level is shown on the LCD, top right corner.  You've actually taken the camera out of the box and turned it on, yes? ☺️

Take a look at the Power Save Modes in the manual and menu for extending battery life.  You can also disable the rear LCD screen to varying degrees.

One cool trick with the FN button - a long press with show you all the items you have set it up to control, and then you can choose one for the moment (same is true for the Wheel button).  For example, you can switch it from controlling the drive mode, to controlling the self-timer, or to AF mode. I set FN to menu items that I want to find quickly that I change often: Drive Mode, Self Timer, Focusing, AF Mode, Exposure Metering, Scene Mode, EVF-LCD (useful for power savings), Leica FOTOS.  Once you get used to using the camera, you'll know what functions you want quick access to.  I almost never change the Wheel button from ISO.

Seriously, dig into the user manual; there's a lot going.

[Viv]

On the matter of battery life, be aware that a new battery will not reach full performance until it has been charged two or three times.

As others have suggested, sit down for a couple of hours with the manual in front of you and the camera in your hand.

[KenBennett]

Use the center button in the 4-way controller to change the view mode. Each press cycles through the next mode. One of the views shows the battery level at the top right corner. 

You may use the LCD to compose and shoot. There is a menu command EVF-LCD that lets you cycle through several options. I prefer EVF Extended, which keeps the LCD off in normal use but shows menus etc., when needed. 

[leicameech]

Great answers in this thread so far. A couple more things:

User profiles:

• all settings currently applied except for Aperture/Shutter speed (physical dials) will be saved when you save a User Profile. For example, if I were shooting at 50 ISO when I decided to create a User Profile and decided in my mind "when I select Profile 1, I want my ISO to be in Auto with a limit set to 1600 and a Minimum Shutter Speed to be set to 1/60th," If I made those changes via the Auto ISO Settings from within the menu, but forgot that I was still at 50 ISO while making all these changes, I would automatically be reset to 50 ISO every time I selected User Profile 1. 
  • I would have to make all the Auto ISO changes like in my example (and whatever other changes I felt like making like favorites menu, button/dial assignments, etc.) exactly in the way that I would want them to be if I were to select Profile 1 on a recently-reset camera. To see if I like my profile settings, I'll make all of them and then select the profile and see if there's anything I'd change. The ISO example is one I always forgot about at first, hence me using it here. I would make all these changes to ensure that if I switched to one of my profiles, I'd be ready to shoot ~roughly anything and make small changes from there (like a specific ISO value). I would always forget that I made all these changes and saved the profile without actually putting the camera into Auto ISO at the end. 

 

If one shoots A for aperture, shutter speed, and focus, is it the same as Full Auto in Scene Mode

• No. In full auto scene mode, you have no control over how the camera auto focuses, what the ISO is, and you definitely can't touch the screen to do anything but swipe and pinch-to-zoom during playback when reviewing photos. Specifically about auto-focus, the camera will always default to multi-point, guessing if the particular contrasty thing it focuses on is what you want in focus with every half press of the shutter. Face detect autofocus will kick in automatically if a face is in the frame 5-6ft away and closer however, which is pretty cool and useful.
• You also can't change metering modes, white balance, or shoot black and white Jpegs (or change the way the jpegs look at all, for that matter)

 

I occasionally get the red box with spinning circle. Why does it do that? I assume it’s writing to disk but I’ve had occasions where I haven’t taken a photo at all, so there’s nothing to “write to disk.”

• You'd have to be more specific about when you get this window. I've gotten it trying to connect to the app, or near the end of a long exposure... maybe other times as well. Can you remember the scenarios in which you've seen this screen? You should not be seeing this while the camera is writing to disk.

 

Can I use the Leica Q2 LCD panel to focus/shoot like my Canon 5D Mark IV? Maybe I’m wrong but I recall seeing a video of a Leica Q doing so. 

• The original Q had a function of touch+release focus, where you could touch the screen to focus, and as soon as focus was achieved, the camera would also take a photo. So far, this is not possible on the Q2. Could come with a firmware update, so I'm sure you have seen a video of it happening on a Q. Just not on a Q2 (yet.. hopefully soon!)

 

If I shoot DNG/JPG, where do the JPGs end up? I don’t see them when I import the files into Lightroom. Are they the ones transferred over to the Leica Photos? 

• The Jpegs are there, but Lightroom is not treating them as separate photos. Check out this article on Adobe's website about how to change your file import settings: https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/file-import-formats-settings.html. Look for where it says Treat JPEG Files Next To Raw Files As Separate Photos
• Them being transferred (or not) to Leica Fotos has no effect on how Lightroom treats them. They are totally independent of one another, and sharing photos via the App will neither change the location of the Jpegs on the SD card nor prevent Lightroom from importing them. 

I hope this helps!

 

*Edit*  Just realized you didn't specify whether you're shooting a Q or a Q2. All of the above applies to both cameras except the touch+release focus, which is only available on the Q (Typ 116) at this time. If that's the case and that's what you were hoping you could do like on your Canon 5dM4, then yes, it's possible.. That's what you need to do!

Edited October 10, 2019 by leicameech
one more thing..!

[bjamisonf]

Thanks, everyone, for your very useful explanations and tips. I appreciate your taking the time. 

[reynoldsyoung]

The list WAS long...but, you guys really put out some great information.  I have had the Q and now, the Q2...and, I learned some new things from you all.  Still learning!!  Thanks!