M-240 samples and dng!

[maitani]

quick before the sever crashes...

http://en.leica-camera.com/photography/m_system/m_new/download-196_5.html

 

[maitani]

will M9 prices rather raise or fall after this?... what's your opinion??...

 

[semilog]

Some initial impressions:

There's a tremendous -- in my opinion, unacceptable -- amount of color moiré in the ISO 2500 JPG sample, in the woman's hair and in the dog's coat. In addition, the WB is subpar.

The noise characteristics (see the 60mm Elmarit-R image at ISO 2000) look pretty good. The small amount of chroma noise is almost eliminated in LR with +18 chroma NR.

DR in the ISO 200 JPG is impressive.

In the 60mm Elmarit-R image, there appears to be dust on the sensor. An odd choice to make public.

 

[icebear]

Some initial impressions:

There's a tremendous -- in my opinion, unacceptable -- amount of color moiré in the ISO 2500 JPG sample, in the woman's hair and in the dog's coat. In addition, the WB is subpar.

The noise characteristics (see the 60mm Elmarit-R image at ISO 2000) look pretty good. The small amount of chroma noise is almost eliminated in LR with +18 chroma NR.

DR in the ISO 200 JPG is impressive.

In the 60mm Elmarit-R image, there appears to be dust on the sensor. An odd choice to make public.

Obviously everything that's not a numbered result of a measurement is subject to debate, I agree about the WB but to talk about quote [tremendous amount of color moire] is a little exaggeration 😉. I had to go to 1:1 in LR4 to search for it (NEC PA271W). But then this example is a jpg and not the DNG file.
I think my naked eyes will perceive a similar amount of moire looking at her hair in this sunlight. Only that I don't have built in pixel peep mode. 😀

In terms of higher ISO performance this a clearly a step (or two) above the M9. I think MM files (DNG at 2:1) are still ahead of the M240 but that's just B&W.

 

[jtullar]

Hmm looks very canon like.....ugh......

 

[mervynyan]

Not impressed.

 

[leicapixie]

The photos were nice. They were not outstanding.
Truth tell, Ken Rockwell posted images taken with a Pre-War 50mm
Elmar lens on a M9. That is sharp, the color beautiful.
The showing of work by Leica lacks something.
Even Jean Gaumy's work is not representative of his "Sea" stuff.

 

[phaedrus]

The one taken with the Summicron 35 asph suffers from a lot of camera movement. Let's hope execution of the cameras themselves is not as shoddy as these sample pics.

 

[zsas]

For a $12k camera kit (240M and 35mm f1.4) I am hardly impressed (based on the picture of the woman/dog). But as a film photog, I might be missing something.

 

[semilog]

I would imagine the cameras will be quite good. The DR and noise characteristics seem to in line with what you might reasonably expect from a typical FF sensor in 2012 or 2013: D600 or 6D. A bit sharper but also with moiré* problems.

But the images are inexplicably poor on artistic and technical terms. The snowy landscape being an exception. That is impressive stuff any way you look at it.

If you are Leica and you are charging US $7k for a fast-depreciating camera body, and can't show the product at its best, why show anything at all? Why not show artistically competent images made by technically outstanding photographers, of subjects that really highlight what the optics and cameras can do?

Baffling.

*Cameras without moiré filters are like digital audio recorders without low-pass filters: technically deficient. Phase One (who make professional backs without moiré filters) knows this, which is why Capture One Pro has the best post-exposure moiré removal algorithms of any major RAW converter. It is a real, non-trival engineering problem that Leica has chosen to ignore.

 

[SDK]

Moire is almost not there on the DNG of the girl and black dog. See: http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-news/2013/02/leica-m-images-jonathan-slack/ The JPG conversion accentuated it. I rarely have trouble with moire on my M9P and D800E. Many subjects don’t provoke it.

 

[f16sunshine]

I suppose we will see more and better samples soon. I agree about the snow landscape.
The gradation on the LH side in the "sloping" area catches my eye straight away. The rest of the samples could be from an Eos 5/6D ( which is to say very nice ).
Is a well exposed image from a CCD that much richer in appearance (onscreen at least) ?
The M8/M9 images sure do seem to have a certain quality to them when their well exposed. Not seeing that here. Looking forward to more.

 

[raphaelaaron]

meh....

i'd rather buy another canon 5D classic.

 

[f16sunshine]

These are much more interesting. Thank you for the link.

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-news/2013/02/leica-m-images-jonathan-slack/

 

[semilog]

Moire is almost not there on the DNG of the girl and black dog. See: http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-news/2013/02/leica-m-images-jonathan-slack/ The JPG conversion accentuated it. I rarely have trouble with moire on my M9P and D800E. Many subjects don’t provoke it.

Thank you for the link.

Having now looked at the .dng, and with all due respect, I disagree.

The JPEG conversion did not accentuate the color moiré. Developed in LR 4.6 to a visually similar level of color saturation as the JPEG, it's about as bad, unless you have chroma noise suppression on (default is 25%). How does the chroma noise suppression filter in LR work? It is a chroma low-pass filter (of course).

Turn off the chroma noise suppression and you will see clear color banding resulting from moiré, just as you see in the out-of-camera JPEG.

This is not unexpected. The JPEG posted by Leica is quite large, so it should not contain a lot of compression artifacts.

---

One final point: if you have a discrete sampling system and it is not aliasing, your input is by definition limiting the resolution (i.e., you are oversampling, which is a good thing). In an audio system this means that the microphone or pre-amp do not pass frequencies higher than about 1/2 the digital sampling rate (often 44 kHz), or there's a low-pass filter in the sampling system; in an optical system it means that a lens has aberrations, there is motion blur, focus is imperfect, etc.

This is why, in scientific imaging, we either take care to over-sample the diffraction-limited resolution of our optical systems, or we employ some sort of low-pass filter.

If you aren't seeing moiré with a D800E or a digital M, you are oversampling. In other words, resolution is not limited by the sensor, but by your lenses, your RF calibration, or your shooting technique (critical focus; motion blur). If you're shooting handheld in available light and seldom achieving truly critical focus, you won't often need to worry about moiré with modern high-resolution cameras.

Canon's engineers understand all of this, they make good lenses, and they sell their gear to critical users, and apparently their sensor design is dominated by their engineering staff. Hence, all Canon DSLRs have AA filters. Nikon's and Leica's engineers understand it as well, but their marketing people know that people who don't understand discrete sampling don't know enough to care whether they are getting accuurate rendering or imaginary detail generated by the sampling procedure. Nikon has enough professional pride (and volume) to sell the D800 in both a professional version (D800) and an amateur-bling version (D800E). Canon does not make this concession.

Finally: you will note that the world's leading manufacturer of both CCD and CMOS sensors is Sony. Like Canon, Sony does not sell DSLRs without antialiasing filters. It is telling that the only two major camera manufacturers that design and fab their own sensors always use antialiasing filters. By the way, the XTRANS sensor from Fuji aliases as well (this is readily detected with good technique and carefully chosen subjects), but its design does seem to do a good job of suppressing color moiré, the most visually objectionable form of aliasing. It's an interesting compromise, if not a complete solution.

 

[maitani]

after having a closer look now, I'm rather underwhelmed, puzzling why leica put such pics on the corporate site, iso6400 looks hopelessly de-noised in camera and details fall completely apart, looks like my old E-P1,
on my photokina hands on pics on display looked great up to 3200, even zoomed in to the max... but of course, display is display, on monitor now it's different.

why do they post a light-room de-noised iso2500, already this should be 'suspicious' if you have nothing to hide, post full quality un-denoised stuff, also M9 iso 2500 looks great lightroom denoised, and remains very strong in detail ans shaprness.

my plan of selling the M9 for one is 'on ice' I will test one for myself when the M hits the dealer shelves.

if I gain one stop of noise over the M9 there's no way I'm going to buy one, only reason to buy would be great up to 3200 performance for me in order to replace my nikon FF system completely, but it seems, for now, not going to happen...

hope they didn't shoot themselves in the foot, with this new sensor...

also the snow landscape at base iso looks 'good' but has artifacts (like a m4/3 or nex...), and lacks the CCD almost foveon look of M8/M9 files at base iso, something I was afraid of, when I heard they're going CMOS(IS)...

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

after having a closer look now, I'm rather underwhelmed, puzzling why leica put such pics on the corporate site

That's why I always wait until a competent consumer/user posts shots with one of their new cameras. Most people are unskilled at post-processing, and everybody has an opinion as to what "good post-processing" means.

If I were Leica, I would hire a good photographer (not one who is friends of a buddy at Leica or a Leica dealer, or one whose name is "famous" or "highly-paid", for those just ride on that and are not out to impress anybody except perhaps a clique) that can produce a boring-yet-clinically-good set of photos using the whole range of the camera that could be taken apart and analyzed.

Some of these shots demonstrate capabilities under hand-held "true-life" conditions, but beyond that, this batch is lacking.

I am, however, slightly impressed (can't tell yet since these shots are one cat short of a cat test shot) by the high ISO DNG files.

I wish Leica relied less on buddies and/or hype-elevated testers and more on someone who would be eager to produce some inspiring shots.

 

[cam]

That's why I always wait until a competent consumer/user posts shots with one of their new cameras. Most people are unskilled at post-processing, and everybody has an opinion as to what "good post-processing" means.

If I were Leica, I would hire a good photographer (not one who is friends of a buddy at Leica or a Leica dealer, or one whose name is "famous" or "highly-paid", for those just ride on that and are not out to impress anybody except perhaps a clique) that can produce a boring-yet-clinically-good set of photos using the whole range of the camera that could be taken apart and analyzed.

Some of these shots demonstrate capabilities under hand-held "true-life" conditions, but beyond that, this batch is lacking.

I am, however, slightly impressed (can't tell yet since these shots are one cat short of a cat test shot) by the high ISO DNG files.

I wish Leica relied less on buddies and/or hype-elevated testers and more on someone who would be eager to produce some inspiring shots.

he is a *very* competent photographer.

i think that Leica chose these images for precisely what i bolded above... i'm sure he has many more images that would suit your aesthetic -- let's just hope Leica allows them to be released soon.

(i think they got burned a bit on the Jacob Aue Sobol pics and so decided to go the opposite direction here... Jonathan Slack -- the very same photog who took these shots -- had a better set, imo, with his pics from China.)

 

[furcafe]

With all due respect, perhaps not all photographers have the same requirements as those engaged in scientific imaging, i.e., maybe we are willing to take the trade-off of more moiré for aesthetic reasons. Also, for the record, many professional photographers own & use the D800E, digital Ms, &/or have had the anti-aliasing filters removed on their Canons/Nikons, so it's not just a matter of "amateur bling." It may be a "non-trivial engineering problem," but that doesn't mean it's a non-trivial photographic problem for all shooters, even the odd pro. As you write, "f you're shooting handheld in available light and seldom achieving truly critical focus, you won't often need to worry about moiré with modern high-resolution cameras" (I would also add "shooting with lenses that have aberrations"). If you're implying that shooting that way renders someone less than professional, in the sense of producing professional-quality work, I would humbly disagree.

One final point: if you have a discrete sampling system and it is not aliasing, your input is by definition limiting the resolution (i.e., you are oversampling, which is a good thing). In an audio system this means that the microphone or pre-amp do not pass frequencies higher than about 1/2 the digital sampling rate (often 44 kHz), or there's a low-pass filter in the sampling system; in an optical system it means that a lens has aberrations, there is motion blur, focus is imperfect, etc.

This is why, in scientific imaging, we either take care to over-sample the diffraction-limited resolution of our optical systems, or we employ some sort of low-pass filter.

If you aren't seeing moiré with a D800E or a digital M, you are oversampling. In other words, resolution is not limited by the sensor, but by your lenses, your RF calibration, or your shooting technique (critical focus; motion blur). If you're shooting handheld in available light and seldom achieving truly critical focus, you won't often need to worry about moiré with modern high-resolution cameras.

Canon's engineers understand all of this, they make good lenses, and they sell their gear to critical users, and apparently their sensor design is dominated by their engineering staff. Hence, all Canon DSLRs have AA filters. Nikon's and Leica's engineers understand it as well, but their marketing people know that people who don't understand discrete sampling don't know enough to care whether they are getting accuurate rendering or imaginary detail generated by the sampling procedure. Nikon has enough professional pride (and volume) to sell the D800 in both a professional version (D800) and an amateur-bling version (D800E). Canon does not make this concession.

Finally: you will note that the world's leading manufacturer of both CCD and CMOS sensors is Sony. Like Canon, Sony does not sell DSLRs without antialiasing filters. It is telling that the only two major camera manufacturers that design and fab their own sensors always use antialiasing filters. By the way, the XTRANS sensor from Fuji aliases as well (this is readily detected with good technique and carefully chosen subjects), but its design does seem to do a good job of suppressing color moiré, the most visually objectionable form of aliasing. It's an interesting compromise, if not a complete solution.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

he is a *very* competent photographer.

i think that Leica chose these images for precisely what i bolded above... i'm sure he has many more images that would suit your aesthetic -- let's just hope Leica allows them to be released soon.

(i think they got burned a bit on the Jacob Aue Sobol pics and so decided to go the opposite direction here... Jonathan Slack -- the very same photog who took these shots -- had a better set, imo, with his pics from China.)

They need to hire an editor, then. Not a curator, but somebody with high-brow universal appeal (i.e. National Geographic) not high-brow five-or-six-figures print to match my studio humidor appeal (i.e. New York gallery of mohdern photougraphee) or technically-good-but-so-snapshottish-it-must-be-art (i.e. Foam Magazine).

Maybe I'm just cranky 'cause I got sick last night. 😱