new q2, random initial thoughts

[gteague]

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thanks to all who helped me on the other thread i started about activating the field focus box with my nose. the popular workaround was to use spot mode, but my eyes aren't good enough to reliably pick up that thin plus sign and surprisingly i'm finding that tracking mode might work. it's the perfect size box and even bolder than the field box. i've never used tracking as i thought you had to use afc and i never use afc, but it seems to work with afs. i picked an object, half pressed, and moved the camera around and the box stayed put which seems nearly as good as my normal routine of half pressing and moving the camera. to my surprise, i moved the object i'd focused on completely out of the frame and when i swung the camera back around it picked right back up on the object.

i'm going to be iced in for nearly two weeks (thanks polar vortex!) and all i have to shoot is the tv and the cats. the manual says that the photo styles are 'improved', but over what i don't know. i know on my cl that i have to jack up all 3 settings (2 on b&w) in order to get what i consider normal looking jpegs and even then i have to use vivid for color and the hc b&w. i don't edit and i don't shoot raw, but i'll circle back to raw.

so i took a series of pictures of a 4k screensaver on my tv using all the styles, all at the same exposure and at 50mm. and the best two were the vivid and the b&w hc although i didn't max out the settings, just bumped them all up by 1 i think. except for sharpness--since i don't edit, i max out the sharpness. and since i was testing i used raw+jpeg because after all i have a shiny new 47mp sensor and who know, raw on this beast might blow me away and i'd start using it, right? 

but there's two huge problems not even counting the endless hours editing raw in order to make it look 'nearly as good' as in-camera jpgs. first, the raws weren't 50mm crop. they were 28mm. and my raw app doesn't have presets to jump to my crops. but worse, the two b&w images were not b&w--they were color. what's up with that? if i was going to have to make them b&w in the editor, why bother to shoot them in b&w to begin with? that's insane. i was so surprised i loaded them in 3 raw apps and none of them showed the images in monochrome.

i made my first pass at configuring the q2 and then, as much as i was able, i mirrored all the settings in my cl. but there are some differences, the main one being the cl has a lot of options for afl/ael and the q2 you have to lose your zoom button and, then the worst part, try to half press the shutter button while holding the zoom button. i'm not capable of that so i'll have to make do with the default half-press behavior.

really loving the q2 so far despite not being able to take it out for a photo road trip. it's very heavy though, very heavy. of course i'm tweaking it and holding it up for hours while out shooting i'd be letting it hang at intervals, so i doubt it'll be an issue.

oh, and when i started shooting my test sequence somehow i had put the q2 in bracket mode at 1-1/3 ev, so my first 3 shots were bracketed. it's so dim in here the camera changed the iso, not the f-stop or shutter speed which was nice for my comparison. but the minus 1.3ev shot was the best of all--rich and deep and saturated. so when i finally make it outside i might try shooting some stuff at -2/3 just to see if i can duplicate that look although it might just be a result of shooting a tv screen.

/guy

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[BeMoreDog]

You seem to be having some teething/ getting acquainted issues which is sad but many things you mention are so common to most cameras that this is anything but unusual.

I believe, in keeping with their overall simplicity and purity ethos, Leica prefer you to shoot raw (this is helped by their trial inclusion of Lightroom subscription with the purchase of new camera). Their JPEG’s are not the best but that’s surely not their focus. Unless you purchase a B&W only sensor camera then only JPEG’s will show B&W and the raw files will retain everything raw as per the sensor, this is the same with every digital camera I have ever owned (save my Q2M). Also, as stated in most reviews/literature, when using the crop function in camera it too only physically changes the jpeg file, the raw will still be full size but (at least in Lightroom and Capture 1) will appear on screen with chosen crop but can be manipulated from the full 28mm once using the softwares crop tool.

Hopefully you will continue to use and learn with this amazing camera and come to love it, but these things were very well known/documented so shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise and I for one love the choices and implementation Leica made with the Q series, making it a true photographers camera yet with thoughtful simplicity.

[gteague]

6 hours ago, BeMoreDog said:

You seem to be having some teething/ getting acquainted issues which is sad but many things you mention are so common to most cameras that this is anything but unusual.

I believe, in keeping with their overall simplicity and purity ethos, Leica prefer you to shoot raw (this is helped by their trial inclusion of Lightroom subscription with the purchase of new camera). Their JPEG’s are not the best but that’s surely not their focus. Unless you purchase a B&W only sensor camera then only JPEG’s will show B&W and the raw files will retain everything raw as per the sensor, this is the same with every digital camera I have ever owned (save my Q2M). Also, as stated in most reviews/literature, when using the crop function in camera it too only physically changes the jpeg file, the raw will still be full size but (at least in Lightroom and Capture 1) will appear on screen with chosen crop but can be manipulated from the full 28mm once using the softwares crop tool.

Hopefully you will continue to use and learn with this amazing camera and come to love it, but these things were very well known/documented so shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise and I for one love the choices and implementation Leica made with the Q series, making it a true photographers camera yet with thoughtful simplicity.

i'm not having hardly any problems getting acquainted since the cl and the q2 share like 90% of the same dna.  no, everyone tries to tell me that i have to shoot raw and every time i get a new camera i shoot some raw images to see if i can beat the sooc (straight out of camera) jpgs by using raw. and in every single instance in the last 10-15 years, i can't. i've been shooting for over 55 years, so it's rare i'd blow out a photo so badly i'd need the recovery options raw affords. and i no longer shoot where losing any given shot or not being able to tweak it into perfection matters.

i admit that leica makes it nearly impossible to use their pretty crippled jpeg system. as i said, with the cl i've had to crank the settings up to max in order to even approach the quality i routinely get out of my panasonics and my sony with no tweaking whatsoever. but the point is that i was able to reach an acceptable level of quality without resorting to raw and the q2 seems to have a slightly better jpeg algorithm.

my surprise when i looked at the raws was because i've never noticed that they didn't honor the camera crop or the style you shot in, such as b&w. it has nothing to do with the q2, just my only dipping into raw processing like once every 5 years and only for a dozen or so images.

i loved the cl when i got it, even with its warts. the q2 is like a cl on steroids, albeit without the ability to mount any lenses. so there's a place for me to use both.

/guy

[BeMoreDog]

I was actually trying to be supportive and helpful but alas you appear to be a little cranky.

If you wish to shoot JPEG’s then go ahead, it’s your camera and you should enjoy it as you wish.

I however can never remember any camera assigning “in camera styles” to a raw file, that would make a mockery of a raw file to begin with so it’s hardly “insane” that the B&W style in camera only applies to jpeg files.

Its also abundantly reviewed and expressed that the whole raw file size and focal length is retained but shows as the chosen crop in LR and C1 with the ability to still change the crop as the full focal length is still there. Rather like not baking in a “style” to a raw file, you have the ability to “change your mind” or alter to taste.

Now, if you’re happy with jpeg then there’s no issues but the choices by Leica are neither insane nor unusual. Now if you wish to “duplicate “ how the jpeg looks but using a raw file then that may take some more time and effort to accomplish. 
I choose to shoot raw as I want to “develop “ the file to my own taste, rather like I used to in the darkroom.

Enjoy your shooting and just shoot jpeg and don’t listen to anyone else if you’re happy. 

[gteague]

sorry to sound cranky, but that's an upgrade from curmudgeon! indeed i'm disappointed that the default jpgs out of the two leica models are not as good as the ones out of nearly any panasonic model, especially since leica and panasonic are, if not welded at the hip with the sl and sl2 being based on or sharing features with the panasonic s1 and s1r, at least cooperating. there's an old saying which goes something like women and cats do what they wish and men and dogs must get used to it and i doubt anyone would argue that leica hoes it's own row and has done for decades.

but the good news is that i can just about duplicate the jpg quality of the s1 by tweaking the leica images and at least leica provided the right tweaks to allow this.

i too spent thousands of hours in darkrooms, but there was no choice back then. well, there was polaroid, but it hardly signified. today, in the last 10 or 15 years the  in camera jpgs from nearly every manufacturer are excellent for 90% of usage. if i was working for money i assure you i'd be all up in raw images and also i'd back up cards more regularly.  but the storage and workflow accommodations along with the editing time to work with a large number of raw images just isn't worth it to me for the (again, to me) benefit of a slight increase in quality although i freely admit that dxo nearly automatically corrects exposure and perspective and just loading a raw into dxo provides an image as good as the out of camera jpg. i guess part of my crankiness was to find that, although dxo supports the q2, it won't sense images shot in b&w and display them that way and i couldn't find a way to get it to read the exif to see what focal length it was shot at and display it that way.

also, heck, with 47mp sensors it's hard to imagine a medium you'd need to display it to fullest effect. nowadays i'm old and sick and retired and my most used medium is facebook which crushes the life out of images anyway.

<crank out!> /guy

[BeMoreDog]

It’s all down to personal taste at the end of the day right.

Generally, when buying a new camera, I take my time and make several “presets” in Lightroom which I can easily assign to my images (save for the Q2 Monochrom which is a different beast).

Honestly I’ve only seldom used a “style” in camera linked to a jpeg and then it was mainly from a Fuji who are probably best known for the time they put into there jpeg style simulation or very occasionally for a Ricoh. Every other manufacturer I find rather “heavy handed” in their styles, but once more it’s All personal taste.

Perhaps Leica, with its abundant history, does not take their JPEG’s so “seriously “ as others and it’s just that. I mean BMW own Rolls Royce but I don’t necessarily expect the Germanic Titan to turn the historic mark into a mirror of itself.

Time is a precious commodity and happiness goes hand in hand so I certainly appreciate some don’t want nor enjoy spending time processing digital files in front of a computer. Nor would I tell anyone how to shoot (except my students when I lectured at University) so I’d do that which best balances your joy of shooting.

I guess I just think some of your prose was poorly chosen as a couple of the “insane” things you mentioned are actually the norm rather than unusual.

The best bit about these days is the amount of choices we have, equipment to software and we can choose what we purchase and use to best satisfy ourselves. Enjoy your Q2 for the precision piece of photographic equipment it is and don’t worry about the output you choose, it’s more the act rather than the outcome these days when earning a living from photography is as hard as is anyway. But don’t “wish/what if” or you’ll waste precious time.

Just go make art and enjoy life 🙂

[gteague]

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is anyone with a q2 using dxo photolabs for raw processing? can you tell me if it's possible to get dxo to process the images i shot in b&w as b&w without using a film profile? and to show me the cropped image if i shot in crop mode? i haven't experimented with presets much, it's possible they have that capability and i'll explore that. thanks! /guy

[gteague]

i think i found the problem. the most recommended raw apps are too complicated for me. i mounted a search today to try out some trial versions of different  apps and came across raw power on the mac app store. evidently it uses the mac underpinnings and thus is very compatible with the mac and i like that it, like dxo, has no cataloging built in which complicates things for me--it's why i can't use aperture and photos. and dxo drives me crazy by insisting on adding .dop files everywhere making yet another file to keep up with. this app doesn't have the renowned dxo labs corrections for every lens, but admit it, leica lenses rarely need much post-processing help, right?  

i was able to figure out nearly everything i'd want to do in just a matter of a few minutes without resort to docs or help system. also, a very very welcome feature was the ability to import my video luts of which i have several hundreds i bought for final cut pro which is an order of magnitude too complicated for me to actually use, but i'm a wizard at applying luts!

this app still doesn't recognize my focal length crops or that i shot it using b&w film style. but one of my big problems with the cl and the q2 is that i can't assign a button to toggle between color and b&w styles and it's slow and awkward compared to my s1 which does allow this. but what i can do is apply an ilford 400 lut to my color image and bob's your uncle!

the trial version puts a logo on the image but i suspect i'll buy this for $40. i'm tired of chasing dxo updates which come out to about the same as subscriptions, which i detest. oh, and this is strictly a test and i shot a screensaver on the tv, so it's not straight. but to my delight it does sort of look like ilford and i have over a hundred of these classic film types as luts including velvia which i'm not that fond of, but is wildly popular.

just discovered a nice extra--there's an ios app which will allow you to continue editing on the desktop or the iphone. and i shoot a lot on my iphone 12. 

so i might be cranky, but i'm persistent and willing to admit i could be doing things better. i've been learning photography for over 55 years now and don't plan to quit until they bury me with my leica.

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/guy Edited February 13, 2021 by gteague

[Stephen.s1]

Try Lightroom: Develop: Basic.  You'll see, on the right most column "AUTO"  That should get you damn close to what you're looking for

 

[gteague]

Just now, Stephen.s1 said:

Try Lightroom: Develop: Basic.  You'll see, on the right most column "AUTO"  That should get you damn close to what you're looking for

 

if the other chap thought me cranky, he has no concept of the rage which comes over me when adobe is mentioned. they've been greedy crooks since their inception and the product they started with, photoshop, wasn't designed for photography. they are the worst examples of copy protection ruining software. 

about a half-dozen years ago i did use the standalone lightroom and  i used to use premier for video and went from like v8 to v14 of premiere  without problems. but after another update it simply quit running--wouldn't even launch. no other changes, same os and everything. took me 3 days to get someone from adobe engaged and then i foolishly let them into my system to try to fix it. and they destroyed my system--at least as far as adobe products go. not a single one of them, standalone or creative cloud, not even flash or dng will run. and they admitted what had happened--one of their copyright protection files got corrupted during the upgrade and they were unable to fix it. i tried for 3 weeks to escalate and it was impossible to get anyone to engage again. i've been in computing since the beginning and adobe is one of the worst examples of greed and incompetence in the computing world. screw them with a spiked dildo. 

so no, i'm unable to try anything adobe, even if i wanted to.

/guy

[Stephen.s1]

Grins.. Don't hold back gteague, tell us what you really think. 

Stuff happens.  Keep on keep'n on.

[wda]

Guy,  why not use lockdown to learn and master working with Raw files? There are plenty of good videos you can study. In my view, it is sacreledge not to get the very best results from any Leica camera by capturing  in raw format. It was a mystery to me for some time. Now, it is so simple processing in Lightroom, that the whole process is just taken for granted. But, you can enjoy superior results, just as Leica intended.

Edited February 14, 2021 by wda

[gteague]

22 minutes ago, wda said:

Guy,  why not use lockdown to learn and master working with Raw files? There are plenty of good videos you can study. In my view, it is sacreledge not to get the very best results from any Leica camera by capturing  in raw format. It was a mystery to me for some time. Now, it is so simple processing in Lightroom, that the whole process is just taken for granted. But, you can enjoy superior results, just as Leica intended.

i think i have mate. i found raw power for the mac and was able to use it within minutes, unlike dxo which i've tried and failed to learn over more than 10 years. i read every page of the docs and faqs (about 100 pages total) for both the desktop and the iphone versions and have even been corresponding with the developer when i discovered a bug in the 'handoff' it's supposed to do from  desk app to iphone app and vice versa. 

yesterday i set my s1 and my cl to record raw+jpg as well as the q2, so for now i'm invested. 

btw, even if i hadn't been locked down tight for a year now, we are slammed with two blizzards coming in. it looks like i have nearly a foot of snow since morning, and this is in west texas, it just doesn't happen here. plus we're in for 2-3 days of below zero temps and that never happens either. i've only been able to shoot the cats and the tv and that's not going to change for over a week. 

/guy

Edited February 14, 2021 by gteague

[wda]

30 minutes ago, gteague said:

i think i have mate. i found raw power for the mac and was able to use it within minutes, unlike dxo which i've tried and failed to learn over more than 10 years. i read every page of the docs and faqs (about 100 pages total) for both the desktop and the iphone versions and have even been corresponding with the developer when i discovered a bug in the 'handoff' it's supposed to do from  desk app to iphone app and vice versa. 

yesterday i set my s1 and my cl to record raw+jpg as well as the q2, so for now i'm invested. 

btw, even if i hadn't been locked down tight for a year now, we are slammed with two blizzards coming in. it looks like i have nearly a foot of snow since morning, and this is in west texas, it just doesn't happen here. plus we're in for 2-3 days of below zero temps and that never happens either. i've only been able to shoot the cats and the tv and that's not going to change for over a week. 

/guy

Guy, destiny has taken a hand and there is little chance of escape. I have a suggestion for you. Imagine you have been commissioned to produce a photobook of your cats' lives, snow-bound during lockdown. Use a camera and lenses of your choice, or all of them, and produce a well-balanced picture story of your beloved felines. Share with us a few pictures along the way, in the Cats thread. You will make many people happy, and it will keep you out of mischief. 

[gteague]

there's a cats thread? who knew. i could sure contribute to it, but the restrictions on size of photos you can upload sort of ruin the whole  point of having a leica, especially one with 47mp.

/guy

[wda]

4 minutes ago, gteague said:

there's a cats thread? who knew. i could sure contribute to it, but the restrictions on size of photos you can upload sort of ruin the whole  point of having a leica, especially one with 47mp.

/guy

Well just concentrate on the photobook. Family and friends will just love the result.

[gteague]

here's one i took with my new q2 just a couple of hours ago. i didn't raw process it--this is the sooc jpg. it's also shot at the 50mm crop. i think that, for what it is and does, the q2 is going to work out just fine!"

/guy

 

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[wda]

A black coat is very challenging, with any camera. Undoubtedly RAW processing would help reveal good detail in the darker, almost invisible,  eye. This is not a criticism, because that is how you saw the cat. Just an observation. However, Q2 at 50mm crop is a very viable option.

For such a shot, I would use a CL with adapted 50mm or 75mm M lenses, giving the equivalent of 75mm or 100mm, a useful stand-off and less threatening to a camera-wary cat.. But you have shown that a Q is equally capable.

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[gteague]

this is a good example of one which i would like to work on  in raw although it's perfectly fine for 99% of usage as is. but you could tweak it and turn it into something special i think. yeah, the light was coming in from a window to the right and the angle of his head put the left eye in a little shade. and yes, i have two black cats although this one is  inky black and they are both huge pains to get exposure correct. kudos to the q2 meter as i shot as metered and it came through. but the light was very soft as snow was falling outside and it was nearly a perfect 'soft box' situation, which limited the contrast. 

and my cats are the farthest from camera wary--i have to make sure i have a filter on in case they attack their reflection in the lens!  

Edited February 14, 2021 by gteague

[jmschuh]

I think the sense and possibilities of RAW have not been understood here.

Using RAW only makes sense if you are prepared to deal with it intensively. A perfect RAW at the push of a button because other software is too complicated or has too many controls makes no sense. Then you can just use JPG.