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p.8 #11 · Leica Q: First impressions. | |
rscheffler wrote:
Is it that much different than say leaving the camera manually on f/8 and 1/500 with auto ISO? With that combo, you'll never blow a sunlit scene because it was too hot for the lowest possible ISO, while auto ISO 3200+ should be adequate for any deep shadow areas during the day.
I've been slow to adopt auto ISO, but have started using it more recently at times, such as the situations you described in urban settings going through constantly changing areas of direct sunlight and deep shadows. With the M240 I could combine it with aperture priority, but still don't trust this so much. I guess because I have auto ISO set to a slowest speed of 2x focal length. Maybe I need to use 4x focal length. It's possible to set the slowest speed to 1/500 at the highest end, but at least for me, I feel this could run into serious problems if I'm not paying attention. The other problem, for me, with the M240, that I guess isn't a problem with the Q, is that once ISO is over 1000, the frame rate drops from 3fps to 1, which is another variable I try to avoid as much as possible. For some reason I never gelled with the concept of setting various user profiles for different applications. Maybe because I'd end up creating a number of them, then due to infrequent use would forget what they did and therefore would just ignore them and end up thinking, what's the point? Maybe something to revisit.
OT to this, but lately have remapped the control dials of my Canons for sports events so that one adjusts ISO rather than aperture, since for me, in those situations, 99.999% of images are shot wide open and I care more about manually controlling the ISO to match a desired shutter speed. The one downside, IMO, of dedicated aperture and shutter speed rings/dials is that they can't be repurposed like this. With the Q it theoretically could be possible for the thumb dial to be given the option for direct ISO adjustment via firmware update, but wonder if Leica would ever see the logic in doing so. It would give fingertip control for all three exposure variables. Maybe their thinking about ISO is similar to mine until recently, that it's something you set infrequently. For me it's probably a long ingrained habit from shooting film (which I haven't for over a decade), where of course you couldn't change ISO on the fly... and with earlier digital systems where you wanted to be cautious about moving into higher ISO ranges due to quality concerns...
Sorry, rambling... It would seem for the Q to best suit your preferences, Leica would need to add user profile selection to the Fn button. Seems like an 'easy' firmware fix. Would be great to see Leica significantly widen the options available for Fn button assignment....Show more →
You'd be amazed. Your suggestion (manual mode with auto ISO) has been my work-around on cameras that don't have adequate shutter speed control in auto ISO in aperture priority mode. And I always have to monitor the ISO and frequently have to run the shutter speed up in good light and down in low light. Looking at the exif from a bunch of Coolpix A shots, which IS programmable this way, walking around at f7.1 with a max ISO of 6400 and minimum shutter speed of 1/500, I have brightly sunlit shots where the camera is down at base ISO and the shutter speed ends up at 1/800 or 1/1000, and other shots in deeply shaded areas where the ISO will go up to 5000 in order to maintain 1/500.
With this setup, the camera is following the exact logic in balancing ISO and shutter speed I'd use if setting it manually, but it does it faster than I'd ever be able to and it saves me from having to think about it on a shot by shot basis. On the Coolpix A, I have two custom settings on the mode dial - one for street, one for nearly everything else, and then I've got the PASM modes to flip into for something I want to set differently at a given moment. On the DF, where I occasionally shoot with zooms also and some lenses with VR and some without, I have four different custom settings in Nikons shooting "banks" - fortunately it lets me name them so I don't have to remember which is which. One is for street with a wide prime, very much like the settings I described above but with a max ISO of 12,800 because the high ISO is sooooo good with that sensor. The other three all use Nikon's "auto" shutter speed setting and float with the focal length and work with either primes or zooms. One is at the conventional 1/focal length for shooting primes and zooms in typical situations, one is biased two stops faster for shooting action. And one is biased two stops slower for shooting static subjects in low light with VR lenses. I occasionally leave these modes, but it's rare - there's not much they don't work brilliantly for. So I spend my time making sure my aperture is set right for the visual effect I want in a shot and I work the exposure comp dial based on the light, but the camera does the rest and it doesn't miss...
I don't have a problem with automated settings as long as I can control the parameters of when the camera does what. With this setup it keeps the ISO as low as possible while still meeting my minimum shutter speed (as I would), raises the shutter speed as needed in bright light (as I would), raises the ISO as the light decreases (as I would), and then in extremis, when there's too little light to meet my minimum shutter speed with the camera pegged at my highest permitted ISO, then it'll start dropping the shutter speed, but only as much as absolutely needed for a proper exposure. In all cases, it's balancing these parameters exactly how I would and I've come to trust it totally. I obviously leave these modes on the rare occasion I'm doing a time exposure or just going for motion blur or something. But 98-99% of the time, I'm in these modes...
-Ray
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