has lousy high ISO prevented what fast M lenses can really do?

[gavinlg]

This is my 2c. I seriously can't justify having a camera that's better in low light than my 5d. I know that the 5d mkII is about a stop better, and the d700 is about 1.5-2 stops better - better meaning cleaner.
The thing is that I actually really like the look of portra 400 pushed to 800 with a bit of grain and deep blacks and skewed colors etc. Or Natura 1600 which is fairly grainy and not accurate in colors at all - soo nice!:

When I shoot night I don't want a perfect clean accurate picture, I want a bit of the mystery of the night in my picture. Those photos above wouldn't be as good if they had fully opened up shadows and absolutely no grain and perfect accurate colors - they'd be dull. A lot of the time I'm already adding grain to my 5d photos just because how smooth they can be can really feel a bit... perverse.. if you know what I mean..

I really think that if all development for high ISO stopped at this point I wouldn't mind one bit. Looking at m9 pictures at high ISO, I think I would be completely content to shoot it at ISO1600 all night long. To be honest, it looks damn good at that level.

Think for a second about the pictures you've made with film in the dark, and then ask yourself if you'd prefer those pictures if they were clean as a bar of soap with full shadow details and perfectly accurate colors....

 

[eleskin]

My thoughts: Who would not want a Noctilux ans 6400 ISO? I would!

My thoughts: Who would not want a Noctilux ans 6400 ISO? I would!

I too have pushed my M8 to the limit and have gotten decent High ISO at times. And yes, I am a heavy CS4 user with various noise eliminating software packages that have worked well.

Lets be honest though. A clean 6400 ISO at F1.0 would be a whole new world for any digital M shooter. Everyone has to admit to this. And it would increase productivity for those of us who actually make money with our digitlal M cameras.

And you kind of have to ask questions like why does the Fuji X100 give better high ISO and skin tones and is a hell of a lot cheaper than a used M8 and new M9?

I think for 7K and other multiples of K ($$$$$) we really should have great ISO 6400. This is 2011 after all!!!!!

 

[Paul Luscher]

gdi: You make using an M9 sound as difficult a challenge as learning to fly an F-22. Maybe I'm a twit, but I don't find using an M9, and processing its images, to be such acts of unbelievable complexity.

I just shoot, and quite often, I don't do much to the images in the processing. And they look just fine to me. Nice and sharp--sometimes amazingly so.

We aren't buying into the idea that if you're a Leica user, somehow you're that much more sophisticated a photographer than everyone else, and that therefore everything you do requires that much more effort, because your standards are so much higher than those of everyone else?

I remember a magazine article referring to the M6 as a "two-handed" camera, and implying that you had to have the skill of a Formula One race driver to use the thing. Bet that scared a lot of people off. Yet I never found an M6 all that hard to use...

But, then, as I said before, I come from dinosaur times in photography, so maybe my standards just aren't high enough...

 

[robert blu]

When I shoot night I don't want a perfect clean accurate picture, I want a bit of the mystery of the night in my picture. ...
..Think for a second about the pictures you've made with film in the dark, and then ask yourself if you'd prefer those pictures if they were clean as a bar of soap with full shadow details and perfectly accurate colors....

I agree, pictures should not be not only a mix of clean pixel but should have a soul...
robert

 

[Paul Luscher]

eleskin ,you may have a point. BUT, I look at it this way:

You may be right about shooting at ISOs above, say, 1600. But most shooting is not gonna take place in situations where you absolutely need such high ISOs. In some ways, your position reminds me of guys who get p.o.ed because Car X only has a top end of 125MPH, while Car Y has a top end of 135 MPH--most driving is never going to occur at those speeds.

Frankly, I've hardly ever shot above ISO 1600, and I do tend to shoot a lot in some fairly low light situations. I consider ISOs above 1600 as an "emergency reserve," to be used only as a last resort. Generally, I can deal with most situations by use of fast lenses, and waiting for just the right moment to shoot. And sometimes a little blur adds something to a picture....as I've said before, coming from the dinosaur days of low-light shooting, I'm not all that bothered by the high-ISO noise an M9 might have.

Hey, let's remember: we got it good. The folks we worship at the altar of, like Eisenstadt and Frank, were shooting their low-light work using film with ridiculously low ISOs, and somehow they pulled it off...

 

[ampguy]

I think if you want the "mystery of the night" type image, you might want to go to film with the Noctilux and kodak max 800 film:

I think high ISO performance is a game changer, and folks aren't just satisfied with being better than film performance. I'd expect the M10/M11 to use CMOS sensors with higher ISO capability, as not all M9 owners will have or want to buy the Noctilux.

 

[jsrockit]

I think the one thing people forget about high ISOs is not that it is so dark that you need high ISOs, but you can use shutter speed / aperture combos that you traditionally couldn't in dark situations. That is why I like high ISOs. Shoot at 1/250th at f/8 in a subway car... nice! (just an example).

 

[hteasley]

I'm perfectly happy with my high-ISO shots from the M9, and find that very little tweaking is needed to get an image that compares more than favorably against a 5D. I say this with the assumption that, if I care about showing an image, I'm always going to put the time in to tweak it in some way, or even just to play with different values for a while to see that no, it isn't improved by any tweaking. So I'm never saving time in processing, no matter what camera I use.

What I don't like is mysterious in-camera processing that I have no hook into, and can't affect. I feel like the M9 is giving me the most flexibility in the images it produces, doing the least to them, so I have more options. If I want the lower noise look, I can process the image in Lightroom to have the smoothness and lower detail of the "excellent" dSLRs out there.

 

[gdi]

gdi: You make using an M9 sound as difficult a challenge as learning to fly an F-22. Maybe I'm a twit, but I don't find using an M9, and processing its images, to be such acts of unbelievable complexity.

I just shoot, and quite often, I don't do much to the images in the processing. And they look just fine to me. Nice and sharp--sometimes amazingly so.

We aren't buying into the idea that if you're a Leica user, somehow you're that much more sophisticated a photographer than everyone else, and that therefore everything you do requires that much more effort, because your standards are so much higher than those of everyone else?

I remember a magazine article referring to the M6 as a "two-handed" camera, and implying that you had to have the skill of a Formula One race driver to use the thing. Bet that scared a lot of people off. Yet I never found an M6 all that hard to use...

But, then, as I said before, I come from dinosaur times in photography, so maybe my standards just aren't high enough...

You sure did read a lot into a little. Nothing I said should make you think I believe the M's are as difficult as flying a fighter.

I simply stated what should be obvious - you have to do more with an M8/9 than the P&Ss being discussed, things like manually focusing, learning to live with a single metering mode, etc. And, if you don't investigate the best way to process the raw files (with any camera, not just Leicas), then you simply aren't maximizing their quality - you may not require that extra bit, and there is nothing wrong with that.

 

[gdi]

I think if you want the "mystery of the night" type image, you might want to go to film with the Noctilux and kodak max 800 film:

I think high ISO performance is a game changer, and folks aren't just satisfied with being better than film performance. I'd expect the M10/M11 to use CMOS sensors with higher ISO capability, as not all M9 owners will have or want to buy the Noctilux.

I can't imagine a Max 800 shot will stack up at all to an M9 shot at ISO 800. That film is some of the worst I have ever used.

 

[Paul Luscher]

Fair enough, gdi--but since I've spent most of my photographic life focusing manually, using a single metering mode, etc, guess it wasn't that obvious to me. I come from the dinosaur days, remember....

So, I assumed you were talking about something as esoteric and arduous-seeming as one of those Chris Rainier diagrams I saw in photo magazines back in the 80's, laying out his photo-taking process. Looked like a bowl of spaghetti--made me wonder "so, exactly when does he press the shutter button?" I mean really, he made photography seem like something you needed a degree in nuclear science to do ...

 

[Paul Luscher]

ampguy: "not all M9 owner will...want to buy the Noctilux..."

No kidding. I'd have to sell a lot of blood at the blood bank before I could afford one of those puppies...

 

[ampguy]

well

well

no one says the "mystery of the night" is always pretty 😉

I can't imagine a Max 800 shot will stack up at all to an M9 shot at ISO 800. That film is some of the worst I have ever used.

 

[peterm1]

I think its all relative. We have grown used to the idea that digital cameras can shoot at positively insane ISOs - speeds which film shooters could only dream of. The Leica digital Ms still do pretty well at those lower ISOs that were typical of film. Yes it would be nice if they could match the latest from Nikon of Canons top end cameras but Leica has always trailed in terms of technology adoption.

 

[tbarker13]

There is nothing wrong with taking the quickest and easiest path to reach the image quality which will satisfy you.

There's also nothing wrong with accepting that low light shooting is no longer the strength of Leica's rangefinders - at least not when compared to DLSRs.🙂

In truth, my experiences are based on using an M8.2 alongside a D700. With the D700 being full frame, it's probably not a fair comparison. Certainly the D700 can't be touched by the M8 - regardless of what photoshop/processing tricks you have up your sleeve. Because those same tricks (or others like them) could likewise be employed with the D700 - further expanding its abilities.

I do not have an M9, so I'm unable to shoot one alongside the D700. I'm curious to know whether its high-ISO performance matches the D700. Perhaps it is just as good.

 

[gdi]

There's also nothing wrong with accepting that low light shooting is no longer the strength of Leica's rangefinders - at least not when compared to DLSRs.🙂

In truth, my experiences are based on using an M8.2 alongside a D700. With the D700 being full frame, it's probably not a fair comparison. Certainly the D700 can't be touched by the M8 - regardless of what photoshop/processing tricks you have up your sleeve. Because those same tricks (or others like them) could likewise be employed with the D700 - further expanding its abilities.

I do not have an M9, so I'm unable to shoot one alongside the D700. I'm curious to know whether its high-ISO performance matches the D700. Perhaps it is just as good.

LOL! Years ago I accepted that the digital Ms were not the equal of DSLR contemporaries if you want the smoothest high ISO images. My comments were obviously directed at the original post and those that seem to imply that M8 and M9 files were unusable or a hindrance to the lenses at high ISO - one even said that ISO 320 was not up to par on the M8.

Naturally we can all agree that the definition of acceptable quality varies with the individual. And if your system meets your needs then what is the point of worrying that another camera can best the one that works for you in a certain area? I was pointing out that you can handle M8/9 files in certain ways that play to the strengths of the files. This results in less obvious noise but does not sacrifice the strength of the high detail.

So yes you can probably find a workflow that makes the Nikon files even smoother and you can pump the ISO up to , what 24,000? That's good for you, but I am largely happy with the M9 files' compromise between good noise levels and high detail.

 

[sepiareverb]

As someone who shot lots of live bands in clubs on Tri-X and occasionally Plus-X I don't see this need for speed as so drop dead important as most. Shooting at 800 seemed crazy fast years ago, and when I shot chromes 400 was the limit for anything remotely usable. Shouldn't one also ask if Delta 3200 or Tri-X are able to deliver the 'best' from Leica glass? I'd say Leica glass allows the film or sensor to deliver the best it can. In looking at what my V2 28/2.8 does on the M9 I bet no film available over ISO 32 when that was a new lens was capable of all the lens was. I doubt there was so much complaining about the quality of films back then...

I shot with the M9 in several VERY dim basements recently at the max ISO, and a quick bit of noise reduction in PS (not even in the raw converter) was plenty to make for a good looking image. Get over the need for digital perfection and embrace photography as it is.

 

[eleskin]

ISO 6400 is a modest request and not extreme by 2011 standards

ISO 6400 is a modest request and not extreme by 2011 standards

What I am asking is for a digital M mount camera that has the performance of the Fuji X100 sensor. I am not asking for ridiculous ISO 20,000, 12,000, etc,,,. My feeling is ISO 6400 clean should be achievable today without sacrificing quality. I only want this to give myself mote options for the beautiful M mount lenses I have invested in for 20 years. One thing is certain: for me, the first company to make M mount full frame with X100 640O Iso will have my business. If it is Leica, fine, Fuji (x200 anyone?), fine.

 

[tstermitz]

Sensor technology marches on.

From 2000 to 2008 sensor resolution increased to 24mpix to the point where it approximately matches lens resolution.

Sensor noise performance also improved as we see in the Nikon D3s, and the new chips in the D7000, K5 and X100. Apparently, we haven't reached the limits low-noise physics, and further improvements will give small sensor cameras and iPhones sufficient quality to challenge low-end DSLRs.

I would expect the next generation of Leica to adopt better ISO chips.

 

[kbg32]

I shoot with my M9 at ISO 1000 and 1250 regularly. Most people who complain about high ISO performance tend to shoot jpegs exclusively, and don't know how to or bother with post processing. Digital photography processing is still about "craft", though the craft has changed.