Erwin Puts Part 3 on the M8 is up.

"The IR issue.

I will skip this topic until the filters will be available. It has been discussed ad nauseam on many internet forums (by the way: the best information can be found in the non-leica user groups) "

Interesting comment. Wonder if which group/groups he referencing?
 
His straight-into-the-sunset shot is totally OOF in infinity-see the in-focus branches in the foreground. So he "proves" that he can make red artifacts. Small wonder. All lenses made are only corrected for CA in the plane of focus.
I really don't understand what has happened to him. His lens opinions were sane and knowlegeable. But now - he "demonstrates" sharpening artifacts in a totally oversharpened eye - which is neither here nor there. He uses oof shots - for what? It seems he doesn't even know himself. I read a Dutch magazine where he tested the M8. In one sentence he claims Leica built the M8 because of the succes of the RD1 and the M7 allegedly was developed under pressure of the advent of the Hexar RF.
 
He compares the M8 with a 75 prime to an EOS 5D with a zoom set at 75. Am I alone in thinking that's a bit of a nonsense when canon makes two very good 85's and a good 100 f2 prime?
 
Bananas and Pineapples

Jaapv, be all that as it may, the M8 images were far and away better IMO then those from the 5D (look at the detail around the eye) and Toby yes it's not apples and apples however how many 5D users shoot with primes and how many Leica users shoot with zooms (Tri-Elmar). I'm sure there are cross-overs however zooms and SLR's go together like Leica's and primes.
 
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No Apples

No Apples

I would have to agree that the 25-105 does not seem like a fair comparison. And I don't see how anyone can claim that the M8 is better after reading that. He should have used comparable lenses, like one of the Canon Primes. Or use the Elmarit 28-35-50 and compare.

And to say that DSLR focus has problems? Try comparing a 1D series focus accuracy. Somehow I think he's lost his focus. I get tack sharp series of images from my 1D markII that a rangefinder couldn't touch. But in some situations I'm sure the M8 focus would be better (low light without flash). In low light, I also get excellent focus when I have a flash attached because the focus assist does an excellent job.

Don't get me wrong, I think the M8 is an awesome camera, but this review seems a little sloppy to me.
 
Sailor Ted said:
Bananas and Pineapples

Jaapv, be all that as it may, the M8 images were far and away better IMO then those from the 5D (look at the detail around the eye) and Toby yes it's not apples and apples however how many 5D users shoot with primes and how many Leica users shoot with zooms (Tri-Elmar). I'm sure there are cross-overs however zooms and SLR's go together like Leica's and primes.
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Don't get me wrong - I'm all for favourable reviews of the M8, or any good camera for that matter, but being enthusiastic in an article that as full of holes as an Emmenthal cheese does not serve to be very convincing.
 
Sailor Ted said:
What do you think about the close up of the "eye?" Is this difference primarly due to the prime?
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It looks like software over-sharpening, plain and simple. Either in camera or in raw conversion software. It looks DIGITAL, and I don't mean that in a good way.
 
ZlatkoBatistich said:
It looks like software over-sharpening, plain and simple. Either in camera or in raw conversion software. It looks DIGITAL, and I don't mean that in a good way.
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That's what I thought, one file looks more processed than the other
 
Toby said:
That's what I thought, one file looks more processed than the other
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It looks like way too much unsharpmask to me. It is not as Mr. Puts puts it, "on the edge," but the usm is jacked-up too high.
 
mwooten said:
It looks like way too much unsharpmask to me. It is not as Mr. Puts puts it, "on the edge," but the usm is jacked-up too high.
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Sorry to interrupt, but isn't it that the M8 has no AA-Filter? And therefore needs no sharpening to compensate the softening effect of the AA-Filter?

That would explain why the Leica-Image looks over-sharpened and shows artifacts, while the Canon-Image is just about sharp with the same mount of sharpening; The Leica-Image actually IS over-sharpened.

Maybe Mr. Puts has fallen for some thinko when applying the same amount of sharpening to both an anti-aliased and a non-antialiased file.
 
HansDerHase said:
Sorry to interrupt, but isn't it that the M8 has no AA-Filter? And therefore needs no sharpening to compensate the softening effect of the AA-Filter?

That would explain why the Leica-Image looks over-sharpened and shows artifacts, while the Canon-Image is just about sharp with the same mount of sharpening; The Leica-Image actually IS over-sharpened.
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The absence of low-pass filter wouldn't produce shaperning artifacts. In the samples of the review artifacts are quite visible and suggest a USM pass. It could be done by camera though, not in post-processing.

BTW, I liked his model shots *much* better this time.
 
varjag said:
The absence of low-pass filter wouldn't produce shaperning artifacts. In the samples of the review artifacts are quite visible and suggest a USM pass. It could be done by camera though, not in post-processing.
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Please take some time to read again.. :rolleyes:

To put what I said another way:
"AA-Filter = softening effect" .. "needs sharpening to compensate" .. "no AA for Laica -> no need for sharpening to compensate" .. "in review sharpen anyways" .. "in review overdone with effect: looks oversharped & has artifacts"

Nowhere I stated that the absence of an AA-Filter would introduce artifacts. While the purpose of of low-pass filtering is to prevent visual artifacts (namely moiré) at the cost of lost resolution and the need to "re-"sharpen in camera and/or in post-processing it won't produce artifacts seen in the review - at least I guess so. What I said is that sharpening an image that hasn't been softened by a low-pass filter before will introduce artifacts.

Mr. Puts clearly states:
"Both pictures were raw-processed by ACR with sharpness set at 25% for both images. No additional postprocessing in Photoshop."

I just suspect that "25% sharpness" (whatever that means; guess it means a certain amout of sharpening done by ACR) for a lowpass-filtered image might be about right while "25% sharpness" for a non-lowpass-filters image might be overdoing it. That might be a little bug in Mr. Puts review.
 
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Definitely the pictures out of the Leica look oversharpened, still the M8 seems to be able to produce slightly more detail, how much of this is due to the fact that he compared a zoom lens with a top of the class prime, and how much to the absence of the AA filter in the Leica is not easy to judge.

He should have used the Canon 85mm 1.2, a lens quite popular with portrait photographers, which on full frame gives a field of view comparable to the 75 cron on the m8.
Also for some reason he cut off 20% of the sensor on the 5D, thus negating any advantage due to the bigger sensor.
I am sure if you take a 10d and a 5d and compare them negating any pixel advantage of the 5d you'll find that they are very similar cameras.
 
It seems to me he negated the 5d's major advantage -sensor size and bigger pixels (less demanding on optics) and maximised leica's advantage lens sharpness (zoom vs. prime). If I was to shoot an eos like an M8 I'd use a 24/1.4 a 50/1.2 and a 85/1.2 mounted on an Eos 5d. The test I would like to see is getting the best print by whatever methods necessary by both cameras an a measurement of how long this takes.
 
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