Q3 43 and Tiny Humans

[Flilow06]

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Hello! Excited to have jumped into my first Leica with the Q3 43, coming from Sony systems. 

Two somewhat unrelated but still related questions, please.

1. I've been getting quite a few blurry photos of my toddler. I'm having difficulty nailing down the best combo of focus settings to keep up. AFc and eye focus seem to be less reliable than I'm used to. Keeping shutter speeds at or faster than 1/1000 sec at places such as the park, of course. What settings tend to work best with these tiny humans?

2. I would love some input on how you would have taken the picture below differently, in order for all 3 people to be sharp. I provided a cropped image so you can see how soft the toddler turned out. The full size image is uncropped. I thought f/4, 1/1000 sec, ISO 100 would have yielded a nicer result?

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[JTLeica]

1000th second is fast enough to freeze almost anything. So that is fine. No need to use that fast a shutter for static portraits of course.

Your issue is plane of focus.

The person to the left, who is sharp, is a good 10-20cm closer to the camera than the tiny person. Stand back a little or shoot at f5.6/f8. Or pick a point of focus that is in the middle of the two, like the right cheek of the lady on the left, or use manual focus.

Dont use eye af for this just do it yourself manually. I find it easier.

Or just make sure they are all on the same plane of focus (same distance from the camera)

Edited October 20, 2024 by JTLeica

[Guest]

Hi, glad you're enjoying your new camera!

The depth of field (DoF) has nothing to do with shutter speed or ISO, it's determined by focal length, aperture, and distance from the subject.

So, at F4 with a 43mm lens, and I'm guessing about 2m distance from your family the depth of field is only 23 cm in front of the point of focus and 29cm behind it. If you were focussing on the "big" person, then that would explain why the "little" person is out of focus.

Note that Depth of Field is subjective, and not an absolute measurement.You need to consider what your requirements are, e.g size and viewing distance of the final photo, media (screen or print for example) so the distances I've quoted above are just one set of "acceptable" DoF values.

Long story short, use shutter speed to minimise blur due to camera shake (which you have done) and then select acceptable DoF by choosing appropriate F-stop and the point upon which you actually focus.

The DoF markers on your lens can help with this, although that's another discussion.

Here's a site where you can experiment https://www.photopills.com/calculators/dof

EDIT: @JT_Leica posted while I was composing this. I think we're both saying the same thing  

Edited October 20, 2024 by Corius

[Pierre68]

the camera locked focus on the person standing on the left. Why don't you try to use manual focus with focus assist. It is such a joy to use on this camera, 

[Sandokan]

With today's higher pixel count sensors, DoF is less than for film. 

[Cogito]

The other posters are correct in that stopping down for more dof could have kept all three subjects in focus. You’re probably realizing by now the AF on this camera is nowhere near as advanced as sony, you’re going to have to keep on your toes to not miss candid shots. Or change your technique, (obligatory Cartier Bresson reference here, he managed to get some candid shots.~) This isn’t necessarily worse, you could think of shooting Leica like driving a standard shift car, it can be more fun and precise but you have to know what you’re doing. I would never want to go back to shooting primarily manual focus (did that professionally for 30 years) but all the M shooters out there seem to like it. As for AI AF automatically stopping down for more dof when camera detects more subjects in frame on different planes, I don’t think Leica can do that the way that sony (and others?) can. Obviously the Q343 has other strengths, like the quality of the APO lens, the UI, and the tactile pleasure of using it, enjoy your journey. 

[FlashGordonPhotography]

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From a technical point of view the above is correct. Also note that the fall off from APO lenses tends to look more aggressive. From a non APO lens you might get a smoother deeper transition so things slightly off the focus plane still look nice(ish). Not so with an APO. That's the trade off for an APO lens.

More DoF is your friend here.

Gordon

[Flilow06]

Thank you all for the incredibly helpful responses! The camera truly is a pleasure to use so I look forward to working on focusing techniques and revisiting DoF. The contrast described of the Sony system is accurate, it is much more forgiving... relatively "idiot proof." 

[JTLeica]

9 hours ago, FlashGordonPhotography said:

From a technical point of view the above is correct. Also note that the fall off from APO lenses tends to look more aggressive. From a non APO lens you might get a smoother deeper transition so things slightly off the focus plane still look nice(ish). Not so with an APO. That's the trade off for an APO lens.

More DoF is your friend here.

Gordon

Yeah that is very true actually, as soon as you move off the plane of focus it’ll become quite blurred. Good point

[ruskkyle]

The other thing to consider is that in iAF you will get a box around all the people detected in frame. The camera has chosen the lady as the point of focus but could have moved the selection over to your child with the D-pad.

[JNK100]

It is better to select the AF point yourself in my view as no camera can know what you want to achieve.

[JayQ3]

I love my Q3 but gave up using it to photograph young children. I use my Z8 for children and my Q3 for everything else.

[jaapv]

How does the camera know the age of the subject? 

[JTLeica]

2 hours ago, ruskkyle said:

The other thing to consider is that in iAF you will get a box around all the people detected in frame. The camera has chosen the lady as the point of focus but could have moved the selection over to your child with the D-pad.

Ahh yeah I wondered if that was a feature, nice solution.

[mholeica]

I use my Q3 to mainly take photos of my family that includes 3 children. Here are my not so technical tips but more of what I have found to work in real life usage. 
 

You don’t need 1/1000 sec to get sharp photos of moving children, I have found that 1/250 sec is usually more than enough, this then allows you to be able to have a higher aperture to get more in focus. In your photo above, if you wanted to keep it at f4 you could direct all three people to be in one plane as much as they can be or use something like f8. 

With children I found that I needed the camera set up to allow me to take a photo as quick as possible as otherwise if you need to change settings etc you will miss the moment. I therefore use auto iso with max iso setting to be 12,800 (I think this is the correct number as don’t have the camera with me), minimum shutter timer at 1/250 sec, then all I need to do set the aperture via the ring and compose and shoot. I use iAF or AFc and use eye/face tracking. This usually gets me the photo 95% of the time, sometimes the focus misses slightly and it is not super sharp but the photo is good enough as it has caught the moment that I wanted to capture. 

Personally, I think it’s the perfect camera for family. Easy to use, small and jpegs straight from the camera are amazing already. I also moved from Sony (A7iv) to Leica, Sony had amazing eye AF but the JPEGs from the camera just do not match what you get from the Leica, I feel that the Leica is much closer to what I see with my eyes.