How accurate is the Q2 at zone focus

[activeuk]

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if i set it to f8 ,f11 f16 etc  and set it to infinity will it be spot on 

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[Stevejack]

It's pretty close, you can check it against the focus peaking but you'll need to use a measuring tape and I'm pretty sure it's from the sensor and not the end of the lens.  Mine seems to be out slightly when I checked it, but I'm not THAT accurate at judging distance on the fly. In any case, if you're using F8 or above I don't think you'll have any issues.

[kyriacos]

It’s not accurate unfortunately at least on mine. It’s a bit off to be honest. Not something i expected but workable. As Stevejack mentioned use the focus peaking to check the first few times and once you get used to it you will estimate better on what to set. 

[pleasing eye]

I shot my 3 month old Q2 today and was very happy with the result; did not have to worry whether the focus would be right on while walking.  

So I figured.....Why not shoot at F11  Zone  at 200 ISO?   And if I'm at a distance, I can always crop since there's plenty of pixels.

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[Chippy_boy]

I don't mean to be rude, but isn't that very underexposed?  I am wondering what your monitor calibration is like.

[brickftl]

On 2/13/2020 at 5:20 AM, Chippy_boy said:

I don't mean to be rude, but isn't that very underexposed?  I am wondering what your monitor calibration is like.

it's not underexposed since he exposed for the highlights. In post however he can lift shadows to the extent he wishes to.

[Tom Hills]

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Wish I’d read this thread before the weekend!! My Q2 is hideously out, zone focusing is absolutely pointless on this camera. I totally rely on it on my M10 and Summilux 50/Zeiss Distagon lenses and it works perfectly there. 
I stupidly trusted it blindly on Saturday and my whole evening shoot at the beach was useless. Maybe I should have checked but I’ve never been one for chimping and wasn’t about to start, in retrospect you should not only hope for the best like this but prepare for the worst too and check a test shot on every shoot no matter what!

 

FWIW I have since found that the infinity marker wants to be set close to zero/centre and you’re ok. Not sure how other apertures and distances compare but if hypercocal distance is this far out then I’m assuming the whole set of markings is wrong and therefore completely useless!!

rant over...

[Chippy_boy]

18 hours ago, brickftl said:

it's not underexposed since he exposed for the highlights. In post however he can lift shadows to the extent he wishes to.

With respect, the highlights are miles off clipping, i.e. it's underexposed. And there are crushed blacks all over the place.

 

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[Tom Hills]

2 hours ago, Chippy_boy said:

With respect, the highlights are miles off clipping, i.e. it's underexposed. And there are crushed blacks all over the place.

 

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I hate getting involved in this sort of Petty childish Squabbling but if you’re exposing for the highlights you don’t want them being close to clipped, you want them more as a midtone, as is the case here. 🙄

If it’s not to your tastes then fine but the levels you’ve already gone to try and prove your point is time that could have been better spent doing something constructive or being nice to strangers. 

as could mine in replying to this of course 😂

 

[jaapv]

It is not a matter of taste, but a matter of severely limiting the dynamic range and crushing the blacks. If you want to have your highlights as midtones you expose so that they are just up to the righthand side of the histogram and pull them down in postprocessing. Leaving a two-stop gap at the right is simply a technical error. 

[jaapv]

4 hours ago, Tom Hills said:

Wish I’d read this thread before the weekend!! My Q2 is hideously out, zone focusing is absolutely pointless on this camera. I totally rely on it on my M10 and Summilux 50/Zeiss Distagon lenses and it works perfectly there. 
I stupidly trusted it blindly on Saturday and my whole evening shoot at the beach was useless. Maybe I should have checked but I’ve never been one for chimping and wasn’t about to start, in retrospect you should not only hope for the best like this but prepare for the worst too and check a test shot on every shoot no matter what!

 

FWIW I have since found that the infinity marker wants to be set close to zero/centre and you’re ok. Not sure how other apertures and distances compare but if hypercocal distance is this far out then I’m assuming the whole set of markings is wrong and therefore completely useless!!

rant over...

Given that zone focussing is something invented for the Kodak Brownie (face symbol-stick man- family group- mountain) and managed to endure  in a limited fashion for rangefinder cameras, which has been replaced by autofocus, it is not surprising that it doesn't work as well on modern cameras. Why should you want to zone focus using the Q2? Set it to face recognition and forget about it - it will even revert to multifield if it does not see a face. I guarantee excellent results.

[Chippy_boy]

5 hours ago, Tom Hills said:

I hate getting involved in this sort of Petty childish Squabbling but if you’re exposing for the highlights you don’t want them being close to clipped, you want them more as a midtone, as is the case here. 🙄

If it’s not to your tastes then fine but the levels you’ve already gone to try and prove your point is time that could have been better spent doing something constructive or being nice to strangers. 

as could mine in replying to this of course 😂

 

Yes you're right, the above is petty childish squabbling.

[Tom Hills]

6 hours ago, jaapv said:

It is not a matter of taste, but a matter of severely limiting the dynamic range and crushing the blacks. If you want to have your highlights as midtones you expose so that they are just up to the righthand side of the histogram and pull them down in postprocessing. Leaving a two-stop gap at the right is simply a technical error. 

No it’s not but whatever mate. 

[Tom Hills]

6 hours ago, jaapv said:

Given that zone focussing is something invented for the Kodak Brownie (face symbol-stick man- family group- mountain) and managed to endure  in a limited fashion for rangefinder cameras, which has been replaced by autofocus, it is not surprising that it doesn't work as well on modern cameras. Why should you want to zone focus using the Q2? Set it to face recognition and forget about it - it will even revert to multifield if it does not see a face. I guarantee excellent results.

I don’t use autofocus, hence my annoyance. As a landscape photographer I have no use for it and rely on the focus scale and use hyperfocal distance. 

[PhotoCruiser]

vor 10 Stunden schrieb Tom Hills:

in retrospect you should not only hope for the best like this but prepare for the worst too and check a test shot on every shoot no matter what!

Absolutely true, before taking "important" shots it's always best to know exactly what to do and how to use the camera.

vor einer Stunde schrieb Chippy_boy:

you want them more as a midtone, as is the case here. 🙄

Well, everybody has his "artistic" point of view and can like or dislike whatever he want.
Also for my "artistic taste", if the photo is shot like this it's completely off as for my taste a good photo has 100% black and 100% white in it.
If it's digitally modified then it's pleasing eye's artistic interpretation of the original, bit some others like me don't find the gray levels particular beautiful.

Chris

 

[jaapv]

2 hours ago, Tom Hills said:

I don’t use autofocus, hence my annoyance. As a landscape photographer I have no use for it and rely on the focus scale and use hyperfocal distance. 

Why did you buy an autofocus camera then? I can’t complain that my car has LED headlights and I want to use acetylene....in your case I would use medium format film. 

[Tom Hills]

1 hour ago, jaapv said:

Why did you buy an autofocus camera then? I can’t complain that my car has LED headlights and I want to use acetylene....in your case I would use medium format film. 

Thanks for the advice, much appreciated. I did however buy a weather sealed camera, not an autofocus one as that for me is superfluous, what with the lens having a distance scale and all. 
maybe I’ll try this medium format film you speak of at some point, is it ok to drink from your fountain of knowledge again when that time comes then yeah? You’re a legend, thank you. 

[jaapv]

Remains the fact that tha Q2 is not conceived to be a dedicated landscape camera. It is intended as a high-level travel and reportage camera. Obviously it can do it within limits, but there are better choices. 
Leica’s do-it-all camera’s are the SL and CL with the former more aimed at the heavy-duty professional market and the latter at the high-end amateur. 

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica Q

[bullmoon]

I find the scale on my Q2 as accurate as I could imagine for a tiny scale with almost no resolution - @ f1.7 between 1ft and 6ft it seems very close.  I mean, from 6ft on, how would one begin to guess where any particular distance might be on that scale?  If I set a zone between 3 and 6 feet @ f8, I find both extremes to be in acceptable focus.  If I set a zone from 6ft to somewhere less than infinity (50 ft, a mile, 10 miles, 2000 light years, who knows?), @ f8, the details at 6 feet are in acceptable focus.  Hyperfocal @ f8 shouled be about 10ft.   How to find that on the scale; focus on something at 10ft  - should be close enough.  If it weren't dark and raining, I'd go out and test this for sharpness towards infinity.

Apparently some of the cameras have poor tolerance or defects with the scale, if the people who see this are testing them carefully.  If mine were that far off, I'd get it repaired.  I don't think this is a problem with all the Q/Q2.

I have shot many, many landscape shots with this camera and my previous Q and love the results.

Edited March 2, 2020 by bullmoon

[PhotoCruiser]

vor 43 Minuten schrieb bullmoon:

I have shot many, many landscape shots with this camera and my previous Q and love the results.

My words and my experience with Q and Q2;
I shoot mostly landscape and i don't felt never the need for any scale,  zone focus or hyperfocal distance, i just set to infinite and good i am.
Should i have a object nearer than infinite i decide what is better for the composition, more DOF to have all in focus or or where to set the focus.
And i have to admit that AF is a big friend of me, i just use MF if contrast is so low that AF will not lock.

I only use hyperfocal distance when taping videos underwater as there AF will start to hunt.

I would use zone focus or hypefocal distance settings for street or reportage photography and i used focus triggered shutter for shy animal photography.

But that's me ...

Chris

Edited March 3, 2020 by PhotoCruiser