Got the Q10 this week and have been playing around taking photos with it. There's a few first impressions I'd like to share.
Holy cow it's small. It looks like a toy (but feels a little more substantial than one). It's ridiculous how small it is.
I've heard a lot of good things about picture quality. I will say, I'm pleasantly surprised how good it is in good light. However, there were also no surprises when the ISO creeps up or in conditions that are anything less than ideal... it starts to look like a typical modern (and good) compact camera sensor pretty quickly. It's not a bad thing at all, but no one should expect APS-C or even m4/3 level quality out of the Q10, especially at anything other than the absolute lowest ISO settings possible. That's not to say the image quality isn't very very good; it's surprisingly good.
I got a refurbished body and 02 Standard Zoom for just $159. For this kind of super low-risk investment, pretty much no one can say it's a bad choice for an ultra small camera with this kind of flexibility. I have an M-Mount adaptor on it's way and will be testing out a C-Mount adaptor this weekend. I plan to try doing some time-lapse photography with the Q10 in the next few weeks (and of course will share). I had been looking at GoPro cams recently and with no real way to focus the shot or change lenses, the Q10 seemed like an interesting alternative.
Photos:
The first photo was on the first day I got the camera. This shot was converted to B&W using photoshop, and I also ran it through Analog Efex Pro for some texture. Shot with the 02 Standard Zoom.
This next one was shot with the 01 Standard Prime (which will obviously become my favorite lens!). I shot in the BC (Bokeh Control) mode, with the level set at 2. BC seems to work better than I expected it to, though moving the focus point area to exactly what you want in focus (not focusing and recomposing), seems to yield the best possible result.
This was shot in color and I converted it to monochrome in-camera and added the vignetting in-camera. In photoshop I added a hint of warmth.
This last batch of shots is from yesterday.
Bold Monochrome might be one of my favorite things about the Q10 so far. I love contrasty black and white photos, and to my taste the Q10 nails it quite well! All of these are almost straight out of the camera. The only thing I did in photoshop was to add a little warmth, and the one with the "piloting" book, I did a little spot contrast adjustment on the book itself. The first one (with the rope) I used BC Mode, the rest were just regular aperture priority (Av) mode.
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One of the things that is always hard to quantify is the "fun factor". There's something that's just really enjoyable about using the Q10. It's simple enough to use that I'm sure anyone who knows photography could get a decent shot with it, but for those of us a little more enthusiastic about photography, it has advanced enough features to keep us smiling.
It's not going to replace my K5-IIs, my K-01 or my Fuji XT1 anytime soon... however, I am anxious to try it for time-lapse and am pleased to just have it around to play with. II'll be sharing more results as I try different things, so feel free to ask questions or contribute too!
Thanks for reading along