The impact of Leica's sensor technology on aesthetics

sig said:
Based on the assumption lower ISO forces you to take better pictures I guess the M8 is a better camera than M9?

Anyways if the low ISO and no IS limitations forces you to take different/better pictures, it is not unique to Leica. You can turn off IS and set ISO on many if not most digital cameras.
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Having to use lower ISO with the M8/M9 (in comparison to N/C) does not guarantee or force you to take better pictures. But it will place restrictions on how you can shoot and still make a useable picture and therefore will result in a certain aesthetic.

As an example, if anything over 1600 on the Leica is too noisy you will end up shooting a lot at f1.4 and 1/30th or 1/60th. That right there will restrict your shooting style and preclude certain things about your image. In this case you will end up with shallow DOF and anything moving quickly will be blurred.
 
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I would question the assumption that being forced to use a lower ISO leads to better pictures. If anything, good high ISOs allow you to more accurately execute your vision regardless of lighting conditions. If you see a night time shot where a large depth of field, frozen motion, or both would be required to accurately capture what you see, you simply won't be able to get the shot without a high ISO. The thing that causes photographic quality to suffer, IMO, is the photographer's overreliance on things like program AE, not because of things like IS or high ISO capability.
 
Merkin said:
If anything, good high ISOs allow you to more accurately execute your vision regardless of lighting conditions .... The thing that causes photographic quality to suffer, IMO, is the photographer's overreliance on things like program AE, not because of things like IS or high ISO capability.
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+1 Better tools + trained operators = better products

I shoot rangefinders because I like them. The small amount of work I do for pay I do with DSLRs. Because I need high ISO, autofocus, high frame rates, etc. It's that simple, for me.
 
Yes, sensor stabilization, fast lenses, CCD vs CMOS--take a look at the photos now being published as part of the documentary project of the Gene Smith NY Loft photos [catch some of the music, too]. There was no Acufine, no f1.2 lenses, the light was whatever was "available," and some of this work, besides documenting a remarkable period of creativity on the part of large numbers of musicians, is also a reminder of the image content superseding the absolute image qualities that we have come to expect with digital.

Yes, we can argue the merits of a D700 w/ 85 1.4 vs an M8 w/ say, 50 Summilux, but look at Smith's work, and realize that, for him, it wasn't just available light, but sometimes available gear....Of course the gear has affected our way of portraying the subject matter, but without the subject that moves us...

http://jazzloftproject.org/

Cheers,
Norm

www.normsnyderphoto.com
 
Don't forget Gene Smith's post processing skills with potassium ferracyanide or his previsualization in the darkroom fascilitated by the influence of Scotch.
 
Leica Sensor Technology???

Leica Sensor Technology???

My understanding woul d be that Leica does not have or develop any sensor technology. Don't they buy their technology from Kodak? Furthermore, considering Kodak's notable achievements in sensor technology, it seems clear that Leica is NOT purchasing the best that Kodak has to offer.
 
I think there is a certain aesthetic associated with fast lenses shot wide open but would not agree that this is necessarily anything to do with Leica. Just go to Flickr and type in Nikkor 85mm f1.4 (or a similar fast lens) and you will see that the use of fast lenses wide open to produce a shallow depth of field and nice bokeh is a widely accepted technique in many genres of photography. Indeed Nikon makes lenses specifically for this (I am thinking of the 105 and 135mm f2 AF DC lenses which allow you to accentuate bokeh by fiddling with a control on the lens.)
 
Peter,

I have used a 105mm f/2D DC Nikkor a lot - and that lens allows spherical aberration control even at f/5.6 - so there is nothing to suggest that it is designed to be shot wide-open all the time. If anything, its design (like the 135mm) suggests that it is designed to preserve background blur when stopped down to get more of the main subject in focus.

Be that as it may, using a Nikon DSLR, you have the option to shoot stopped down because the ISO capability would more readily support it.

Plug that lens into a digital M (if you could focus it), and you would be shooting wide-open all the time - because you can't jack the ISO through the roof. This is, I think, where the shallow DOF is effectively being forced on users.

Dante



peterm1 said:
I think there is a certain aesthetic associated with fast lenses shot wide open but would not agree that this is necessarily anything to do with Leica. Just go to Flickr and type in Nikkor 85mm f1.4 (or a similar fast lens) and you will see that the use of fast lenses wide open to produce a shallow depth of field and nice bokeh is a widely accepted technique in many genres of photography. Indeed Nikon makes lenses specifically for this (I am thinking of the 105 and 135mm f2 AF DC lenses which allow you to accentuate bokeh by fiddling with a control on the lens.)
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While I think that the impact of images seen as a whole (including those from SLRs) has a greater impact, within the RF world, I think that the sensor technology has probably had an effect.

RF users at the transition period to digital have had limited options for a few years. And those options have been cropped-sensor cameras. After shelling-out cash for one, many folks simply had to learn to use their existing lenses within a narrower crop - effectively forcing them to play more within a longer focal length aesthetic. Alternately, they swap/sell/etc...

On that front, manufacturers have an incentive to focus efforts on wides that compensate for the cropped sensors. Well, now those with the cash have a FFS in the M9. Likely, they now have some nice wides, because they (almost by definition, having an M9) have the cash. Will they find that the lenses at their disposal entice them towards wider shooting?

I guess my point is that the yo-yo of film to crop to FF likely encourages the early-adopters - who are likely pros and leaders within the aesthetic of the RF community - to more-often shoot further outside the dominant 35-50mm aesthetic because they have been forced to live with a longer equivalent focal length (using the lenses they already love) and / or purchase wider lenses (to have the focal length they love under the R-D1, M8).

Broadly-speaking, one might say that ANY sensor technology with the Leica name has an aesthetic impact by making digital images - the digital look - less of a naughty notion to many formerly film-bound Leicaphiles.
 
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Phil--I've been going back and forth between the 35 Summicron on the M6, and the 28 Summicron on the M8. M9's not in the budget right now, and I actually still prefer the "drawing" of my 35 [v.4], even on the cropped sensor. The images that I've been getting are pretty comparable, but I still, at the shooting distances I tend to use for club photos [i.e. jazz club performance in poor light] the 35 seems to have the same "look" regardless of whether I'm shooting film or reduced frame on the M8. This is independent of the camera, because often the shooting distance is limited by the configuration of the club [or how well I know the musicians--and how used they are to have a camera nearly in the bell of their instrument]. The depth of field of the 35mm f2 Summicron will be the same regardless of whether it's mounted on the M2, 6 or 8--only the field of view will change, given the same shooting distance. Only the "space" around the subject might change, and that's very dark, a good part of the time in these photos.

Al--which one was it that was responsible for the highlights in those large, dark areas anyway, the Ferricyanide or the scotch?
 
The ferricyanide brightens the highlights. The Scotch tells you how much they need to be brightened and when they're bright enough. It's safest if the ferricyanide is in a beaker and the Scotch is swigged directly out of the bottle. They'll look about the same under an OC safelight, and after the fourth or fifth shot of Scotch they might not taste all that different either, so don't put them both in beakers or store your dilute ferricyanide solution in an empty whisky bottle.

I doubt if Gene's swigging techniques were ever filmed for posterity but if you don't know the fine art of swigging you might locate a Janis Joplin live concert video showing her techniques with a bottle of Southern Comfort. Actually, swigging from a bottle is rather easy to teach yourself.
 
I think that aesthetics shift in a pattern that first seeks to replicate the thing it replaces. Since exact replacement is impossible (or effectively so due to expense and the market's willingness to bear that expense,) manufacturers slowly give up and, through marketing or feature benefit incentives, massage an acceptance for a new aesthetic into the market - an aesthetic that operates comfortably within the capabilities of the technology as it exists at that moment. Once that aesthetic is accepted, then the companies begin figuring out how to build their market for the technology, sometimes by adding features and sometimes by improving quality.

So in terms of digital camera manufacturers, I think the initial aesthetic target was film. Every camera review of the early DSLRs talked about the look of the files and how close they were to the look of shots on film. More importantly, the conversation was focused on how these cameras failed to duplicate the look of film. Eventually, however, those comparisons fell away as the prices came down on technology, cameras offered more and more features of convenience, first megapixels became a marketable asset, then ISO became a marketable asset, while steadily the market grew for DSLRs. Now, DSLRs have their own aesthetic, referring to but separate from film. And that aesthetic is largely accepted as the standard for what a photograph looks like these days. And the aesthetic of a film image has taken on an element of nostalgia, in look and in process. It is what photographs used to look like.

There are of course variations in this digital aesthetic from camera manufacturer to camera manufacturer (and perhaps from model to model) much the same way Provia didn't look like Kodachrome. But I don't think Leica is doing anything different from what other digital camera manufacturers are doing on a basic level. They aren't so much as forcing the aesthetic to go a particular way as they are admitting the impossibility for an exact duplicate of a preceding aesthetic and then creatively or artfully persuading the market to accept an aesthetic shift that will allow for a much more productive approach (for them) to product development, given the parameters of a specific technology and the demands for profit.

Which is admittedly a nice way to say forcing.
 
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Bill,

Thanks... My feeling is that Leica M photography is stuck in a time where shooting Kodachrome 64 at night with a Noctilux was the latest parlor trick (I wasn't there but was informed it is about 1974). At least in the film sphere, Leica users could benefit from almost annual advances by Kodak, Fuji and Agfa in low-light films; as it stands now, with sensor a permanent part of the camera body, Leica's development choices leave users at an immediate and permanent disadvantage in low-light performance compared to cameras now selling at 1/2 to 1/3 the price.

Regards,
Dante



Bill Pierce said:
First off, thanks to Dante for starting this thread. I hope this answers his original question....

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Sadly, and I truly mean sadly, I am using my Leicas less and less. For the most part it's most often a couple of DSLR's with fast primes in the available darkness and the same DSLR's with slow zooms or a little pocket digital in the good light.
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Dante'--Sorry for my digression into the realm of Gene Smith, and how many "beakers" were needed. I agree, Leica is at a permanent disadvantage, especially in low light photography in terms of the absolute quality of files, at least in contemporary terms. Does this mean that it's now a "vintage" or "alternative process" [when referring to the M8 in low light]? It does have a "look." I also know that many times I've chosen to use a specific film and a specific lens to obtain a kind of "look." An example might be using pushed Tri-X, rather than T-max, and shooting with, say, a 50mm Summitar or a 35 Pre-aspheric Summilux, to obtain a kind of vision that suited the subject. I've certainly done this for some photos of jazz musicians in clubs, in poor light. I used an uncoated Elmar to shot in a train station at night--the flare fit the image I wanted to achieve. I guess I'll be using the M8 with certain optics for a representation of a particular subject that pleases me.
 
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