Hello there Robin, beside the fact that LQ2M honeymoon phase is over, I would still love to hear your opinion - do you use the hood or are coloured filters (orange, red...) enough to fight the sun from different angles??🤔 What works for you the best? The square hood is the real pain when you need to switch the filters...I use protective clear filter, light red and orange filter... Maybe I am just not a very practical person :D :D
I`m waiting for this video update of your leica Q2 monochrom, and I thought you sold it out, but I`m glad you didn`t, I wait for the next video with leica Q2 monochrom 😁
If the grain misses to you, why don't you use the classic Q2 witch is more grainy, it's Jpeg B&W algorithms are very nice ! and you still have the ability to do whatever you want with the DNG without thinking about the front color filter like on the monochrome or with a b&w film, it as more grain than the monochrom in high iso , it is less expensive, more versatile.
For me it was the X100V. I traded a XPRO 1, XT20 and X100S for it. I just couldn’t get images I wanted from it. I preferred images from an old X1 and Panaleica. Thankfully I was lucky that I could sell the V for more than I bought it for and now have a camera that I enjoy using and gives me the images that I like 👍
Same here, I had a Fuji 1X00F, great camera, but changed also to a Q, and Q shooters probably understand why. But any Fuji X100 is still one the greatest cameras build. Thanks for sharing, auf wieder schnitzel !!
I have the M10 monochrome, which I have had for a similar amount of time as you have owned the Q2M. I am still really enjoying the experience of using the camera, it's my daily carry. Like you, sometimes I wish it had a more gritty look, but that's just digital. Nowadays, if I want grit, I'll shoot film and keep the digital files clean to emphasise the difference (if only to me). I still prefer the look of film though, but digital is just so convenient and I do like the clinical look it gives. In terms of cameras that I have sold, I had a Canon R5. In most regards, it was great. But, the EVF would get condensation in the rain, the buttons were too small around the AF on area (I use back button focus, so I remapped the two adjacent buttons to do the same job as I have big hands), and the RF70-200 2.8L would miss focus even though the focus reticule said it was locked on. The files also looked terrible in Lightroom, but this was an artefact of some issues between Adobe and Canon at the time.That's been addressed now. I believe that the lens focus issue has been sorted as well. Truth be told, if it was a little better ergonomically I might have kept it. The R3 is probably better, but I don't need that sort of camera nowadays.
My honeymoon story is actually the original Fuji X100. I love it, and had it as my main daily carry for many years. The sensor renders beautiful colors! But, it is just too slow and was starting to show its age. I still own it - a very precious camera in mint condition - but, I have just bought a secondhand Fuji X100T. And yes, the X100T honey,on has begun! It has everything I loved about the original X100 and so much more! I am loving it! I also got the X100T in black (the original X100 only came in silver), and the black looks beautiful. It reminds me a great deal of my black Leica M9. Thanks for the great videos. I a am glad that you are keeping the Q2M. You make amazing pictures with it!
Mine is also the original X100. I still have it because I think the jpeg colors are unique & beautiful, but the slow autofocus meant that I defaulted to zone focusing. Even then, it was kinda frustrating. I mainly use the X100F now, usually with ACROS jpegs.
Your Bangkok train station videos are my favourites. I have a lot of good personal memories of that station, and your shots are so good. I will have to order the zine. There is one photo in particular that I remember pausing the video for because it was so nice, I will have to go back to find the time stamp. My camera that I once loved and then hated was the Sony A7II. It was my first experience with full frame, so I was obsessed with bokeh. After getting quite annoyed with the battery life I bought an old 16mp Fujifilm X-E2, then I quickly realised that the image quality was superior. The poor iso gain noise performance with heavy magenta noise colouration, colour banding on every mild gradient, and PDAF artifacts of the Sony fullframe were suddenly very obvious to me. I sold the A7II and bought an X-T2 which was a flagship of the same generation as the Sony. The price and performance were far and away superior. It took me a long time to get used to the colours of the Fujifilm, because I have always preferred a natural look to the gimmicky impressionistic style they and Canon provide, but I still use it all the time. Along with my 16mp X70. I think the only thing that could dethrone my aps-c darling would be if Ricoh made a GRIV that didn't break so easily and had a flip up screen for fast low angle and waist level photography. I like Nikon too but their good quality cameras are pretty huge.
I shot Q2m but didn’t like the files. I don’t need a camera that can see in the dark with high iso. Specially when shooting b&w I like a film like experience and look and prefer using a flash if needed above 1600 iso. My favorite digital camera for b&w is the regular m10 b&w jpeg.
I frequently shoot BW on em10 Mkii in raw. If I acquired a camera like the Q then it would replace my present camera for street and travel . In life we adapt and use what we can to tell our stories . Love your images .
My Honeymoon camera was the Sigma sd Quattro. I'm a Foveon lover and love the DP1 Merrill, but loved the idea of getting even more shallow DOF with some of the lens options the sd Quattro had. Ergonomically, the sd Quattro was amazing for me. Comfortable, and functional. Files of course were amazing, and being that it uses SA Mount glass, manual focus was REAL and not by wire. But every time I brought it out, it was just too big. Couple that with the 18-35 (an amazing amazing lens), or even the 24mm f/1.4 and it was too big. Too many people noticed me in the street, and I like to be a ghost and missed how invisible I am with my M240 and 35mm Summarit. I finally decided to do one last event with it, and got some great frames, but it was always a struggle to get what I wanted. Great camera, just not for what I wanted to do with it.
Hello Sir Robin. I cannot understand the question you are asking yourself. You have already owned your Q2 Monochrom for two years .......... why are you wondering if you would buy it today? You got it !!
Thanks for this video. Capture One's Film Grain panel allows me to produce grain that is very close to film - Double-X, all speeds of TMAX, Acros, etc. are fairly easy to emulate.
@Phillip Banes The Q2M is virtually grainless at high ISO even with NR set to zero in post. The ultra-high ISO grain of the Q2M (25K ISO+) is too small to look like film anyway, unless maybe we're talking about the grain from 8x10 film :)
@Phillip Banes I only the have the Q2 at the moment, I sold the Q2M a while back. But I did shoot some at max and near max. But ultra-high ISO shooting has many drawbacks: highly-reduced dynamic range, need for f/16 in even moderate light, etc. But bottom line is the film grain I can add using Capture One is much, much nicer than the high ISO noise on the Q2M. Even with the M10 Monochrom I had for a while, adding film grain in Capture One looked better than trying to provoke noise via high ISO. The regular Q2, however, has quite a bit of noise in dim light starting at ISO 6400; however, the Q2 noise is not very attractive in my opinion.
bouta chuck this lumix G95 so far. WHY? Great camera but micro43 aint it for me. i miGrated to nikon z6ii full frame. its been a while and she loves me too.
You ask for more "honeymoon-is-over" stories -- mine is very minor league as it involves a $550 camera: the Olympus Pen E-PL10. I got this as an upgrade to the E-PL8 for street photography because it had silent shutter and in black it was flat out gorgeous. For a while I loved it, but it had two major issues. (1) The AF was worse, hunting with loud clacking sounds. (2) It had two buttons to bring up control panels, and I wanted to keep one fixed on ISO and one flexible, but they were linked, so whatever you chose in one reset the other. Eventually I went back to using the E-PL8.
Like you I have the same thoughts on the Leica Sl2s the autofocus is extremely behind compare to the industry standards 😅. I am waiting to see what Leica does next before I consider selling it. Cheers
I had been a Leica shooter for decades with my last body being an M6 classic, but it was clear that digital was going to be the thing, but no digital camera excited me... I like dials and rings. When the original Fujifilm X100 was being launched, all the photo magazines had articles featuring pictures of the camera and it screamed "Leica" to me. I drove 100 miles to a big city and bought it the day it arrived. I will never do that again. I applaud Fujifilm for the boldness of the design, but that camera frustrated me to no end. The battery life was a joke, the autofocus was deadly slow, the write time to the card was for ever. I tried to love it (hey, spent $1200 on it), but I can still see the missed shots in my mind, shots the camera didn't allow me to capture. Even my old-school M6 would have been faster with zone focusing and intuitive ergonomics. I did give Fujifilm another chance years later, and it is my primary digital platform now with the X-T and X-Pro class cameras. I still have the X100, and take it out once a year or so, but it just reminds me of the progress since 2011.
Robin, did you ever shoot the Olympus Pen-f? It has the ability to add grain in three levels and can simulate all standard color filters. These photos are in JPG though, while you can shoot RAW simultaneously. I (almost unfortunately) have no cameras that I have started to like less. In fact I like each camera more and more despite the quirks and flaws some of them have.
I never really got into Leica Cameras because of their price but it's interesting to see how other people "use" their limitations. And also I just love your photos!
2 things that disturb me most about q2m is the bad autofocus (especially face tracking is useless) and continuous autofocus just lags behind and hunts badly and second, the digital in-camera correction of the lens distortion (seen only when you push exposure in higher iso situations against lights in black sky)
@@hkraytai That`s why I`ve held of getting a Q2M . I have an SL2s and the focus is next to useless. I understand that they`ve put a same bad af in the Q .Unbelievable in 2023.
@@absonus Don’t let my comments stop you from getting one. I shoot street and a lot of grab shots that can be done traditionally stopped down zone focus. This camera looks great when shot at wide apertures and why I bought one. For all other types of photography the Q2M is a killer. True the tech is a bit behind but the image quality is tops.
I'm going to be brutal ; my best pictures have been taken on a canon-AE1-program with black and white film. I find the post processing required on the Q2M kills my spare time and the results don't inspire like the way the film shot do.
Low tech AF not good enough for street or fast shooting. Using face detection in the street even if the subject is front and center closest to the camera the Q2 will often choose to focus on a face on the edges. Baffling. If the menu can let me at least lock focus point dead center I can make it work somehow but focus point wanders and it is a surprise what it chooses to be in focus. You need to constantly check and recenter by tapping on the screen. I have really nice shots with it and it’s magical at f/1.7 so very frustrating I ended up selling and learned to zone focus with M10M. I can only assume Leica didn’t want to pay to license better AF tech.
it is almost as once the sponsorship wears out, all the youtube photographers start finding cons in the cameras they were paid to talk about earlier. during the promo: excellent camera, my favorite, blah, blah, blah. some time later when new sponsor knocks on a door: yeah, good camera, but... that is why you should not trust these reviewers. rent a camera before buying and make up your own mind.
A year and half later, the Q2M is still my lifetime favorite camera. And I’ve owned an M6 and many other types of camera over the last 30 years.
Robin, I think some of your best work has been done with the Leica Q, so I am pleased that you will be continuing to use it. Cheers.
Love my Q2M, had it today in Vienna with me. Since one year this beauty is almost always with me :)
Hello there Robin, beside the fact that LQ2M honeymoon phase is over, I would still love to hear your opinion - do you use the hood or are coloured filters (orange, red...) enough to fight the sun from different angles??🤔 What works for you the best?
The square hood is the real pain when you need to switch the filters...I use protective clear filter, light red and orange filter... Maybe I am just not a very practical person :D :D
B&W Tri-x 400 or hp 5 and a good lens are all I need.
Second the Tri-x 400 developed with rodinol
@@KaiyaKramer Rodinol work with everything!
@@nickcr3919 it works but i dont like Delta 400 in Rodi.nal at all,not pleasing
@@aantonic I agree.Personally I don’t like Delta 400 at all.For my taste has no character and it is less versatility.
If you haven’t try to shoot Pan F. It’s become my favourite film stock, almost no grain, so little grain it feels digital lol.
I`m waiting for this video update of your leica Q2 monochrom, and I thought you sold it out, but I`m glad you didn`t, I wait for the next video with leica Q2 monochrom 😁
I loved my X100V and 'upgraded' to the Q2M. At first I had buyer's remorse. No longer. I love my Q2M despite its quirks.
If the grain misses to you, why don't you use the classic Q2 witch is more grainy, it's Jpeg B&W algorithms are very nice ! and you still have the ability to do whatever you want with the DNG without thinking about the front color filter like on the monochrome or with a b&w film, it as more grain than the monochrom in high iso , it is less expensive, more versatile.
Ilford HP5 pushed two stops is the b&w GOAT!
Just purchased the new zine... looking forward to it!
For me it was the X100V. I traded a XPRO 1, XT20 and X100S for it. I just couldn’t get images I wanted from it. I preferred images from an old X1 and Panaleica. Thankfully I was lucky that I could sell the V for more than I bought it for and now have a camera that I enjoy using and gives me the images that I like 👍
Same here, I had a Fuji 1X00F, great camera, but changed also to a Q, and Q shooters probably understand why.
But any Fuji X100 is still one the greatest cameras build.
Thanks for sharing, auf wieder schnitzel !!
Exactly the same xD
Whew! I was worried I wouldn't see any more Q2M night videos from you.
Great vid as always. May I ask why you don’t use a lens hood? Many thanks….
I have the M10 monochrome, which I have had for a similar amount of time as you have owned the Q2M. I am still really enjoying the experience of using the camera, it's my daily carry. Like you, sometimes I wish it had a more gritty look, but that's just digital. Nowadays, if I want grit, I'll shoot film and keep the digital files clean to emphasise the difference (if only to me). I still prefer the look of film though, but digital is just so convenient and I do like the clinical look it gives. In terms of cameras that I have sold, I had a Canon R5. In most regards, it was great. But, the EVF would get condensation in the rain, the buttons were too small around the AF on area (I use back button focus, so I remapped the two adjacent buttons to do the same job as I have big hands), and the RF70-200 2.8L would miss focus even though the focus reticule said it was locked on. The files also looked terrible in Lightroom, but this was an artefact of some issues between Adobe and Canon at the time.That's been addressed now. I believe that the lens focus issue has been sorted as well. Truth be told, if it was a little better ergonomically I might have kept it. The R3 is probably better, but I don't need that sort of camera nowadays.
I'm signing. I love her too... I love the X100V as well, especially with the TCL prefix
My honeymoon story is actually the original Fuji X100. I love it, and had it as my main daily carry for many years. The sensor renders beautiful colors! But, it is just too slow and was starting to show its age. I still own it - a very precious camera in mint condition - but, I have just bought a secondhand Fuji X100T. And yes, the X100T honey,on has begun! It has everything I loved about the original X100 and so much more! I am loving it! I also got the X100T in black (the original X100 only came in silver), and the black looks beautiful. It reminds me a great deal of my black Leica M9. Thanks for the great videos. I a am glad that you are keeping the Q2M. You make amazing pictures with it!
Mine is also the original X100. I still have it because I think the jpeg colors are unique & beautiful, but the slow autofocus meant that I defaulted to zone focusing. Even then, it was kinda frustrating. I mainly use the X100F now, usually with ACROS jpegs.
About to pair my Ricoh GR IIIx with a Q2M 😊
Your Bangkok train station videos are my favourites. I have a lot of good personal memories of that station, and your shots are so good. I will have to order the zine. There is one photo in particular that I remember pausing the video for because it was so nice, I will have to go back to find the time stamp.
My camera that I once loved and then hated was the Sony A7II. It was my first experience with full frame, so I was obsessed with bokeh. After getting quite annoyed with the battery life I bought an old 16mp Fujifilm X-E2, then I quickly realised that the image quality was superior. The poor iso gain noise performance with heavy magenta noise colouration, colour banding on every mild gradient, and PDAF artifacts of the Sony fullframe were suddenly very obvious to me. I sold the A7II and bought an X-T2 which was a flagship of the same generation as the Sony. The price and performance were far and away superior. It took me a long time to get used to the colours of the Fujifilm, because I have always preferred a natural look to the gimmicky impressionistic style they and Canon provide, but I still use it all the time. Along with my 16mp X70.
I think the only thing that could dethrone my aps-c darling would be if Ricoh made a GRIV that didn't break so easily and had a flip up screen for fast low angle and waist level photography. I like Nikon too but their good quality cameras are pretty huge.
I shot Q2m but didn’t like the files. I don’t need a camera that can see in the dark with high iso. Specially when shooting b&w I like a film like experience and look and prefer using a flash if needed above 1600 iso. My favorite digital camera for b&w is the regular m10 b&w jpeg.
I frequently shoot BW on em10 Mkii in raw. If I acquired a camera like the Q then it would replace my present camera for street and travel . In life we adapt and use what we can to tell our stories . Love your images .
My Honeymoon camera was the Sigma sd Quattro. I'm a Foveon lover and love the DP1 Merrill, but loved the idea of getting even more shallow DOF with some of the lens options the sd Quattro had. Ergonomically, the sd Quattro was amazing for me. Comfortable, and functional. Files of course were amazing, and being that it uses SA Mount glass, manual focus was REAL and not by wire. But every time I brought it out, it was just too big. Couple that with the 18-35 (an amazing amazing lens), or even the 24mm f/1.4 and it was too big. Too many people noticed me in the street, and I like to be a ghost and missed how invisible I am with my M240 and 35mm Summarit.
I finally decided to do one last event with it, and got some great frames, but it was always a struggle to get what I wanted. Great camera, just not for what I wanted to do with it.
A great camera, not for the faint of heart.
Hello Sir Robin. I cannot understand the question you are asking yourself. You have already owned your Q2 Monochrom for two years .......... why are you wondering if you would buy it today? You got it !!
He would buy it again if he didn’t have it. Because he likes it that much.
Thanks for this video. Capture One's Film Grain panel allows me to produce grain that is very close to film - Double-X, all speeds of TMAX, Acros, etc. are fairly easy to emulate.
@Phillip Banes The Q2M is virtually grainless at high ISO even with NR set to zero in post. The ultra-high ISO grain of the Q2M (25K ISO+) is too small to look like film anyway, unless maybe we're talking about the grain from 8x10 film :)
@Phillip Banes I only the have the Q2 at the moment, I sold the Q2M a while back. But I did shoot some at max and near max. But ultra-high ISO shooting has many drawbacks: highly-reduced dynamic range, need for f/16 in even moderate light, etc. But bottom line is the film grain I can add using Capture One is much, much nicer than the high ISO noise on the Q2M. Even with the M10 Monochrom I had for a while, adding film grain in Capture One looked better than trying to provoke noise via high ISO. The regular Q2, however, has quite a bit of noise in dim light starting at ISO 6400; however, the Q2 noise is not very attractive in my opinion.
For me, the Leica M 10 Monochrom is the better camera. But that is definitely a matter of opinion
Honeymoon camera was Lomo Compact.
Nice video, man! Come and visit Seoul again. - Marco
bouta chuck this lumix G95 so far. WHY? Great camera but micro43 aint it for me. i miGrated to nikon z6ii full frame. its been a while and she loves me too.
You ask for more "honeymoon-is-over" stories -- mine is very minor league as it involves a $550 camera: the Olympus Pen E-PL10. I got this as an upgrade to the E-PL8 for street photography because it had silent shutter and in black it was flat out gorgeous. For a while I loved it, but it had two major issues. (1) The AF was worse, hunting with loud clacking sounds. (2) It had two buttons to bring up control panels, and I wanted to keep one fixed on ISO and one flexible, but they were linked, so whatever you chose in one reset the other. Eventually I went back to using the E-PL8.
X100v is good af wise, the S was useless. HP5 fuji jpegs are lovely.
Like you I have the same thoughts on the Leica Sl2s the autofocus is extremely behind compare to the industry standards 😅. I am waiting to see what Leica does next before I consider selling it. Cheers
I had been a Leica shooter for decades with my last body being an M6 classic, but it was clear that digital was going to be the thing, but no digital camera excited me... I like dials and rings.
When the original Fujifilm X100 was being launched, all the photo magazines had articles featuring pictures of the camera and it screamed "Leica" to me. I drove 100 miles to a big city and bought it the day it arrived.
I will never do that again. I applaud Fujifilm for the boldness of the design, but that camera frustrated me to no end. The battery life was a joke, the autofocus was deadly slow, the write time to the card was for ever. I tried to love it (hey, spent $1200 on it), but I can still see the missed shots in my mind, shots the camera didn't allow me to capture.
Even my old-school M6 would have been faster with zone focusing and intuitive ergonomics.
I did give Fujifilm another chance years later, and it is my primary digital platform now with the X-T and X-Pro class cameras. I still have the X100, and take it out once a year or so, but it just reminds me of the progress since 2011.
Robin, did you ever shoot the Olympus Pen-f? It has the ability to add grain in three levels and can simulate all standard color filters. These photos are in JPG though, while you can shoot RAW simultaneously.
I (almost unfortunately) have no cameras that I have started to like less. In fact I like each camera more and more despite the quirks and flaws some of them have.
I never really got into Leica Cameras because of their price but it's interesting to see how other people "use" their limitations. And also I just love your photos!
Most people don't realise that limitations bring the best out of them... having every option available makes most people really really bad.
what a misconception. leica is priced really really good. compare q2 to an equivalent sony with an equivalent lens.
Same story when i got an Olympus XA and XA2
2 things that disturb me most about q2m is the bad autofocus (especially face tracking is useless) and continuous autofocus just lags behind and hunts badly and second, the digital in-camera correction of the lens distortion (seen only when you push exposure in higher iso situations against lights in black sky)
Bad 90’s tech AF was the reason why I sold mine. The subject must be dead center for AF to hit. Face defect is a joke.
@@hkraytai That`s why I`ve held of getting a Q2M . I have an SL2s and the focus is next to useless. I understand that they`ve put a same bad af in the Q .Unbelievable in 2023.
@@absonus Don’t let my comments stop you from getting one. I shoot street and a lot of grab shots that can be done traditionally stopped down zone focus. This camera looks great when shot at wide apertures and why I bought one. For all other types of photography the Q2M is a killer. True the tech is a bit behind but the image quality is tops.
Whenever I see someone with that Fuji I know they are a sucker for hype.
I'm going to be brutal ; my best pictures have been taken on a canon-AE1-program with black and white film. I find the post processing required on the Q2M kills my spare time and the results don't inspire like the way the film shot do.
Well, it takes me a few seconds for each picture. ;)
Low tech AF not good enough for street or fast shooting. Using face detection in the street even if the subject is front and center closest to the camera the Q2 will often choose to focus on a face on the edges. Baffling. If the menu can let me at least lock focus point dead center I can make it work somehow but focus point wanders and it is a surprise what it chooses to be in focus. You need to constantly check and recenter by tapping on the screen. I have really nice shots with it and it’s magical at f/1.7 so very frustrating I ended up selling and learned to zone focus with M10M. I can only assume Leica didn’t want to pay to license better AF tech.
U could use zone focus on Q2M as well.
Robin give me cash for leeeicaa pls 🤑🤑🤑🤑🤮😂🍌
4:10 "Maybe it's just me"? In English, better render that assertion as "Maybe it's just I" so that it makes grammatical sense.
Maybe it’s just me, is correct.
it is almost as once the sponsorship wears out, all the youtube photographers start finding cons in the cameras they were paid to talk about earlier. during the promo: excellent camera, my favorite, blah, blah, blah. some time later when new sponsor knocks on a door: yeah, good camera, but... that is why you should not trust these reviewers. rent a camera before buying and make up your own mind.
I pay for all my cameras with my own money. 😉
Just buy the M6....the fun never wears out.