Bought a used Leica Q-P, can someone help reassure me it's working correctly?

[greenshorts22]

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I am new to the Leica system and I was so excited to find a certified Leica Q-P in my price range. I just received it last night and having been playing around with it this morning. Two things I noticed right away - autofocus seems to be hit or miss and the photos seem noisy even at an ISO 400. In fairness, I started taking shots of my active daughter pretty early this morning before we had a lot of light, so it's possible the autofocus is totally fine and that the low light conditions and auto shutter speed were lending to the lack of focus. My settings were AFs, Face Detection, Spot exposure metering. I did notice that as the room got brighter, the photos were more in focus. As for the noise, it seems that a 400 ISO should be pretty clean?

I am shooting raw and editing in lightroom.

The photo below is ISO 400, f/2.0, 1/640. I am hoping I am just overthinking this because in the back of my mind I know it's a used camera.

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[Siriusone59]

I believe you might be overthinking it a bit as you say.  Your photo looks really nice to me and I don't see any noise at the resolution being displayed here.  What I do see is a somewhat shallow depth of field due to it being taken at f2 and the subjects being fairly close.  Probably only about 2 inches of depth will appear in focus at this distance and f2.  Check your other images where the light was better and see if the camera chose a higher f-stop.  You mentioned face detect for auto focus, I found with my Q that face detect is only reliable if the subject is fairly close...if not then small area or spot detect for auto focus works better.  Really shouldn't have much problem with noise until ISO is 1600 or greater and the optical image stabilization should handle any camera shake down to about 1/30 sec on shutter.

All things considered I'd say this was an excellent photo and could be a bit better if taken at f2.8-4 to give just a little more in focus depth of the child's face while still keeping the background distorted.

 

[greenshorts22]

11 minutes ago, Siriusone59 said:

I believe you might be overthinking it a bit as you say.  Your photo looks really nice to me and I don't see any noise at the resolution being displayed here.  What I do see is a somewhat shallow depth of field due to it being taken at f2 and the subjects being fairly close.  Probably only about 2 inches of depth will appear in focus at this distance and f2.  Check your other images where the light was better and see if the camera chose a higher f-stop.  You mentioned face detect for auto focus, I found with my Q that face detect is only reliable if the subject is fairly close...if not then small area or spot detect for auto focus works better.  Really shouldn't have much problem with noise until ISO is 1600 or greater and the optical image stabilization should handle any camera shake down to about 1/30 sec on shutter.

All things considered I'd say this was an excellent photo and could be a bit better if taken at f2.8-4 to give just a little more in focus depth of the child's face while still keeping the background distorted.

 

thank you so much for taking the time to respond! I thought it may all be in my head. Just a bit nervous spending so much on used gear but I feeling much more confident now.

[Siriusone59]

6 minutes ago, greenshorts22 said:

thank you so much for taking the time to respond! I thought it may all be in my head. Just a bit nervous spending so much on used gear but I feeling much more confident now.

Believe me, I know how you feel.  My first bad experience with my new Q was a Christmas dinner, using face detect autofocus and shooting a group.  Too many faces at various distances and the photos sucked...but it was a good learning experience.  Sometimes auto everything just won't cut it.

[bobtodrick]

Also the possibility of camera shake.  A couple of time over the years I have thought I had A/F issues...but usually in low light at low shutter speeds.  In every instance I have put the camera on a tripod in the same lighting conditions, and lo and behold sharp as a tack.

We were all brought up in the axiom of your focal length is the basis for your lowest shutter speed (1/30 sec for a 28mm, 1/60 for a 50mm, etc).  What a lot don't realize is this is for an 'acceptably' sharp image (which you photo of your daughter is)...not for a blazingly sharp image.