A few thoughts on the Leica M240

[noisycheese]

Have a read and post your reactions:

http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2014/...ca-m-240-softer-than-the-m9-by-george-sutton/

I will be interested to hear what folks think of the M240 - as will others, I'm sure. 😉

 

[tomtofa]

Hard to say from those examples. I think he has over-processed them - halos around the building in pic #1 and lots of noise in the sky; overly crispy (to me) b&w shots...from his comments in the thread following the pics he gives some of his PP settings - Clarity and Vibrance seem awfully high to me; those are both tricky controls.

In general, I haven't seen many convincing examples of M240 shots - It seems to be a good mainstream camera, but the shots from the M8, X100, etc., are more appealing to me (online, anyway). But then I don't have an M240, so I probably shouldn't comment.

 

[Doug]

I would agree in general with his comments. When talking about a "soft" look, I think that comes from the lower contrast output due to the higher dynamic range. Adding contrast in post is usually necessary, and as another clue to this, LR lowers the black point during a Auto-Tone import.

The writer didn't mention White Point or color balance... some say the M output is a bit on the warm side, and maybe so. And some say the magentas & reds are oversaturated and need to be pushed a bit toward orange.

And it could be that this is related to the M letting more IR through the cover glass than an M9 (yet less than an M8). I have been using UV/IR Cut filters with lenses on the M, and I'm happy not to see any IR contamination. And, since these cut filters obviously reflect some visible red, I'm convinced this reduces recorded red, at least a bit, as well as reflecting the IR.

FWIW, all my Gallery uploads for the past several weeks were shot with the M typ 240. If they're not very convincing either it's probably my fault. 🙂

 

[tomtofa]

I would agree in general with his comments. When talking about a "soft" look, I think that comes from the lower contrast output due to the higher dynamic range. Adding contrast in post is usually necessary, and as another clue to this, LR lowers the black point during a Auto-Tone import.

The writer didn't mention White Point or color balance... some say the M output is a bit on the warm side, and maybe so. And some say the magentas & reds are oversaturated and need to be pushed a bit toward orange.

And it could be that this is related to the M letting more IR through the cover glass than an M9 (yet less than an M8). I have been using UV/IR Cut filters with lenses on the M, and I'm happy not to see any IR contamination. And, since these cut filters obviously reflect some visible red, I'm convinced this reduces recorded red, at least a bit, as well as reflecting the IR.

FWIW, all my Gallery uploads for the past several weeks were shot with the M typ 240. If they're not very convincing either it's probably my fault. 🙂

Just had a look at your gallery, and that's more what I would expect from a FF camera with good glass. Nice shots and processing. They don't look like the ones the OP linked to - maybe you haven't added as much clarity/vibrance/sharpening? More convincing to me, but I'm afraid my wallet has a more hard-nosed attitude 🙂

You're right about the IR - Leica says it's similar to the M9.

 

[Doug]

Thanks... In Lightroom 5.3 just a small bit of clarity as more seems unnecessary with such high resolution. And just a minor amount of vibrance. Usually no extra saturation. I do bump up the contrast to 25 (often from something negative) for most. Noise reduction on default settings except for some extra color noise control for higher-ISO pics. Just the default sharpening in LR, and a bit applied after scaling the output TIFFs to JPEG. With other controls and effects like the Adjustment Brush I keep the changes subtle. I have not stretched the capabilities of either the camera or the software.

 

[ChrisLivsey]

Interesting that the 7 Sony pair have such a very short mount to sensor distance but I have seen no reports of IR problems. Why does this plague Leica even as they squeeze the M body ever bigger (relative I know).

 

[Doug]

Hi Chris -- The short mount-to-sensor distance only affects lenses made for the system, as all adapted lenses find themselves at the same distances from the sensor as on their "home" systems. And this effect relates to the corner performance, as lenses with a short back-focus have corner problems like color shifts, resolution smearing, etc, all due to the optical effects of the thick IR-absorbing sensor cover glass, and the nature of the tiny lenses over the sensor sites.

The Leica M8 has a very thin sensor cover glass, at 0.5mm IIRC. As we know, this provided insufficient absorption of IR, necessitating the UV/IR Cut filters that reflect-away the unwanted IR. And for the M9 (and M-E) the cover glass is made thicker at 0.8mm, again IIRC. This still doesn't take out all the IR but enough so that IR contamination is low enough to be mostly unnoticed. I hear from the Leica experts that the M240 is slightly less effective than the M9 in removing IR (but still far more than the M8), so perhaps the cover glass is a bit thinner.

So the IR enters through the thin sensor cover glass, and this unwelcome IR must be balanced against the optical benefits in the corners. It would seem some other "mirrorless" cameras have a thicker IR filter, some also with an anti-aliasing filter not used by others including Leica, and a sensor micro-lens array optimized for the vendor's own lenses.

Worth noting too is that these digital sensors are much more sensitive to IR than mainstream photographic films. So this contamination has not been an issue for film. OTOH, the IR sensitivity makes it feasible to do IR photography with digital.

 

[ChrisLivsey]

Doug, A succinct and accurate summation which is appreciated. The point of sensor/mount distance is well made.
The conclusion is then that thicker IR glass contributes to the "smearing" effect. As the A7r has no AA filter I would conclude the less glass would help with reducing the smearing v the A7 but that is not the case it appears. Is this because of the higher resolution/smaller pixels in the A7r or perhaps different microlenses. Certainly the new "native" Zeiss glass, obviously tuned to the sensor, gives spectacular results.
There is a trade off in making an universal body/sensor and one tuned to a "home" lens system.
Is the A7 more universal and the A7r tuned?

Re the IR on Leicas I read this is the explanation v film sensitivities for the "superior" M8 B/W results over the newer bodies. (monochrome being a special case of course).

 

[Doug]

Thanks... I don't know enough about the Sony cameras to discuss them specifically, and this is an M240 thread. But I seem to recall the cover glass is different between the two Sony models, as one has AA and the other not... further, as you say the microlens arrays are different due to the different resolution.

The M240 sensor has unusually shallow wells on the photosites, better allowing for light arriving at an angle, aided by some fancy aspheric microlenses. Pretty trick, all in all.

Yes, some of the early users of the M8 remarked on the nice B&W tonality. The IR sensitivity brightens scene objects with higher IR reflectivity, often raises shadow detail, giving some of what folks like about the semi-IR Ilford B&W film. The downside to this is that most lenses image IR at a different focus point than the visible spectrum, so overall sharpness is affected. But the way it's affected may be attractive in itself... And the user has the choice of eliminating the IR effect by using a cut filter.

At first I struggled with the IR on the M8, in denial on the color contamination. On a vacation trip, examining the "take", it became undeniably undesirable! This led to giving in on using the cut filters, and this led to the need for lens coding, a big adjustment for my thinking. Later, with an M9, I saw the same color contamination, though to a lesser degree, and resumed using the UV/IR cut filters. Same with the M240, convenient as I can just leave the filter on the lens whether used on an M8 or M240.

I believe the Monochrom M has the same cover glass as the M9, so should share its IR characteristics.