Leica M8 - M9 direct ISO comparisons

[pieter]

Good comparison.
I 've always found it weird how many people repeated the 1 stop iso performance improvement while there are almost no real comparisons to be found online.
When searched for a good comparison I found one on the Leica forum, which barely showed any improvement at pixel level to my eyes. The biggest improvement seemed to be the extra resolution hiding the iso artifacts.
I mean stitch a couple of M8 files together and it will seem to have better iso performance. 🙂

 

[Ronald M]

Have both so here goes.

M8 is a hair sharper at native sizes. If you enlarge to match M9 picture size, they are even.

Larger sensor rules same as with film. The sensor is the same, just larger. The difference is thickness of the cover and uv/ir supression so the cut filter are much less necessary. I use them anyway.

In my opinion , the M8 is good for 640 iso. Because of larger size sensor, M9 is good for 1250 iso.

If you want to use higher iso regularly, buy the M Type 240 which is much improved over the M9 at high iso. Otherwise noise reduction and edge mask to preserve sharp edges.

Or look at the new Nikon Df which has the D4 sensor & processor.

 

[rivercityrocker]

Which link do you insert? In your browser address bar you will never see a direct link to the image but always a link to a website that displays your image and all that stuff around your image. So if you insert an URL in the IMG tag here that does not end with .jpg, then this just can't work. there were some threads about posting flickr images recently.

I figured it out. The pic is posted just above your post.

 

[rivercityrocker]

If you want to use higher iso regularly, buy the M Type 240 which is much improved over the M9 at high iso. Otherwise noise reduction and edge mask to preserve sharp edges.

Or look at the new Nikon Df which has the D4 sensor & processor.

Some people don't have $7K to drop on the 240. Even if you do there's still a long wait.

The Dƒ isn't a rangefinder. It's a DSLR.

In any case this thread isn't a complaint against the high ISO performance. My test was simply to show the actual difference in performance between the two cameras. Obviously I have both of them too or I wouldn't have been able to do the test.

 

[Michael Markey]

In any case this thread isn't a complaint against the high ISO performance. My test was simply to show the actual difference in performance between the two cameras. Obviously I have both of them too or I wouldn't have been able to do the test.

I have neither but that was a useful comparison.

 

[Kent]

Thanks for this comparison which I surely will enjoy to read.

In my opinion , the M8 is good for 640 iso. Because of larger size sensor, M9 is good for 1250 iso.

If you want to use higher iso regularly, buy the M Type 240 which is much improved over the M9 at high iso.

I agree. That's why I use my M8 up until ISO 640 for colour shots and up until ISO 1250 for black&white. (Much better than with the Digilux-2 which I had before. 😀 And lot better than ISO800 film.)

For ISO level up until 6400 (and even higher) I use my Fuji X-E1. 😉

 

[Snowbuzz]

Sorry to be late to the party, but 'thank you' to rivercity for the very nice comparison. I do notice that Capture One Pro handles the M8 noise very well.

 

[rivercityrocker]

Sorry to be late to the party, but 'thank you' to rivercity for the very nice comparison. I do notice that Capture One Pro handles the M8 noise very well.

You're welcome. Sometimes I do these things to procrastinate. So, it wasn't a totally selfless gesture. 😀