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Q2 Shutter speed never seems to move


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New Q2 owner here! Super excited and still learning the ropes of how the Q2 "works".

Noticed a confusing trait and wanted help to see if there is something wrong with my configuration.

I'm trying to replicate an Aperture priority shooting style (coming from Nikon DSLRs) and noticed that the shutter speed never moves when I have the following configuration:

  • Example Aperture at f4
  • Shutter dial set to Auto
  • Auto ISO enabled (Max 3200 / min 1/125s
  • AFs, spot mode, center-weight metering

In a darkish room with only light coming from monitor and sunlight behind blinds, spot metering against the monitor and a dark patch on the floor, the minimum shutter speed stays static. Only the ISO moves. Only when I used Exposure compensation  to -3 (against bright monitor) does it start to increase shutter speed, locking ISO to 100 (I believe it doesn't go down to 50 in Auto mode).

This seems weird to me because ISO has a great impact on IQ. Why is the shutter speed so "sticky" when set to Auto?

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In the darkish room, is your shutter speed  1/125?  If so, your camera is behaving properly as the only variable is ISO. You could open the aperture to f1.7, lower the minimum shutter speed or increase the ISO range if you want to keep 1/125 as your minimum.  

Edited by Trankster
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You had one exposure element fixed—aperture—and two set by the camera—ISO and shutter speed.  If there is enough light, the camera will leave the ISO at 100 and adjust the Shutter speed.  But once the camera thinks you are in danger of motion blur affecting the image, it will start to shift ISO instead.  The shutter speed at which it thinks motion blur could be a problem will depend on how you have the camera setup.  Check that setting.  

There is also a maximum ISO that you can enable.  If you hit the limit of the lowest shutter speed and the highest ISO the camera will start to underexpose since it no longer has variables to adjust.

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When moving over to the bright monitor, I’d expect the shuttle to move as well but it seems to just stick at the minimum configured.

It seems a bit odd to me. Granted I’m still figuring out how the Q2 behaves.

there are some other interesting ticks where I feel that even with spot metering the camera underexposed by a lot. 

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On 11/9/2019 at 12:03 PM, LordCho said:

When moving over to the bright monitor, I’d expect the shuttle to move as well but it seems to just stick at the minimum configured.

It seems a bit odd to me. Granted I’m still figuring out how the Q2 behaves.

there are some other interesting ticks where I feel that even with spot metering the camera underexposed by a lot. 

Spot metering is definitely the trickiest to get a handle on, just since you never know for sure what the reflectance is of the object you are metering (unless it's an 18% gray card). 

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Just got a new Q2 and playing with it the last few days, I’ve noticed the same thing (to my dismay, since I had minimum shutter speed set at 1/50th and was shooting a child running with a puppy, so lots of blurry photos). 

From what I can tell, the Q auto-ISO algorithm is set to favor lowest ISO possible at a given aperture vs. faster shutter speed. So it will keep the camera pegged at the minimum shutter speed set and vary the ISO as necessary. So in my case the camera was shooting at ISO 100 and 1/50 vs. a more reasonable ISO 400 and 1/250 (which is what I would have shot had I been shooting manual). Of course, the camera didn’t know I was shooting action and I didn’t know the camera well enough to realize what was happening for a few shots. 

Given this behavior, I suspect you won’t see the camera change to faster than the minimum set shutter speed until there is too much light for ISO 100 (or maybe even 50) for your given aperture. Not a big deal, and easy enough to over-ride once you realize this is how it is programmed. I tend to prefer choosing my own ISO manually and shooting aperture priority anyway, with exposure compensation as needed.  Never have liked the behavior of the auto-ISO algorithms. 

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I believe that in ISO Auto and with a set minimum exposure time all the cameras work this way, not only Leica. And is it not what you expect the camera to do? The camera tries to render the lowest possible ISO which results in the best image quality. I would not like a camera going to ISO 400 when there is no need for that unless I set the exposure willingly to 1/250s for my moving children. 

@LordCho If you would expect the Iso to stay as low as 100 then you would have to allow your exposure time to go longer than your set 1/125s (e.g. 1/60s). It can go shorter but not longer as long as it is fixed there. And given the situation that you have more light on your sensor then ISO will stay at 100 and your exposure time will go faster, e.g. 1/250s.

Edited by M10 for me
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@Dirk Mandeville So I think what you're saying makes sense from what I'm seeing, as well. It really does actually beg to be used with more manual control as the best option.

@M10 for me I guess so. I shoot with a D750 and D810 and pretty positive they will alter the shutter speed in conjunction with ISO when I change the Exposure Compensation. The Q2 literally will just keep the Minimum Shutter and just change ISO and basically give up and underexpose in almost all the instances I've tested it with. (Granted, Nikon will drop below the Minimum Shutter at times)

That being said, in good light, IQ is really good. In low light, it's pretty damn bad. AF is poor and with multiple people in frame, it keeps focusing on the background which is really frustrating. Even in daylight shooting conditions, AF is kind of unreliable and will pick random things in Multi-Field mode. Even with Spot focusing, the Q2 fails to focus in a restaurant environment at dinner.

In low light, this evening I was REALLY disappointed to see the LCD display artifacting when trying to focus (and then fail to acquire focus). The LCD really just lagged like the CPU was not keeping up or the refresh rate was plain poor. Has anyone else experienced this and is it normal/expected? I had 1 bar of battery left but even then, the camera really shouldn't act like it is out of cycles to perform basic actions.

ISO performance at 6400 is kind of a wash too in lower light. Perhaps I'm fairly spoiled with big DSLRs.

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