Leica M240 review

[thompsonkirk]

Thank you very much, Roger, for this info.

Kirk

PS, when you built new profiles for M9 (& other cameras), did you use the Adobe camera profiler software, or a spectrophotometer?  (I have the former, not the latter.)
K

[hjulenissen]

+1 about what theguywitha645d said about colors:

Mr Dubovoy is pleased with the colors that Lightroom4 produces from M240 files and likes them better than those that the same software produces from D800E files. Which IMO says a lot more about the Adobe-Leica cooperation than about the qualities of the Leica sensor.

I am seeing a red tint all over my D800E files when I develop them in CaptureOne 7. That is quite compareable to what the example of Mr Dubovoy is showing. NX2 on the other hand produces more pleasing (I am tempted to say "realistic") colors from my D800E files. And RPP is - again: IMO - also more accurate, at least at low ISOs.

Why this is, I cannot explain. My thinking would be that every software company should produce a really good profile for each camera before shipping their updates, so that the color accuracy should be indistinguishable between softwares. But it seems that the software companies that work in closer cooperation with certain camera producers always have an edge in color rendition.

Which is a pity, since CaptureOne surely has an edge over NX2 in terms of rendering details from D800E files …

I use Colorchecker passport profiles for my Canon DSLR/Adobe Lightroom. I feel that reds are now reproduced a lot more neutral than before. I stress "feel". In prior discussions it seems that Adobe has "one guy in Boston" doing all of the color profiles, often working on only one (commonly pre-production) camera from the manufacturer. While one might assume that this guy has the equipment and know-how to do a "better" profile than I will ever be able to do, if his camera deviates substantially from mine, I will have a head-start in creating profiles for my camera...

It would be interesting to see e.g. D800 vs Leica raw files developed in ACR/Lightroom using Colorchecker profiles of each. My gut-feeling is that visible color differences would be a lot smaller. There would probably still be some visible differences, especially for challenging lighting/surfaces.

-h

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I got the impression that Adobe uses a monochromator to measure sensor data. I don't know what kind of variation there is on CGAs and I also don't know how camera profiles are used. Are adobe profiles used on top of camera profiles or instead of camera profiles.

Color rendition is subject to taste. Accurate color rendition is seldom the objective.

Best regards
Erik

I use Colorchecker passport profiles for my Canon DSLR/Adobe Lightroom. I feel that reds are now reproduced a lot more neutral than before. I stress "feel". In prior discussions it seems that Adobe has "one guy in Boston" doing all of the color profiles, often working on only one (commonly pre-production) camera from the manufacturer. While one might assume that this guy has the equipment and know-how to do a "better" profile than I will ever be able to do, if his camera deviates substantially from mine, I will have a head-start in creating profiles for my camera...

It would be interesting to see e.g. D800 vs Leica raw files developed in ACR/Lightroom using Colorchecker profiles of each. My gut-feeling is that visible color differences would be a lot smaller. There would probably still be some visible differences, especially for challenging lighting/surfaces.

-h

[Rob C]

Erwin Put's take on the review.

http://www.imx.nl/photo/blog-2/the-value-of-camera-reports.html

The funniest thing! Made my morning, to be quite honest.

I've know a few millionaires in my time, cruised the Med with them etc. and realised long ago that they are not like other folks. There is a mixture of innocence with huge helpings of enthusiasm and the inability to see what others (me!) can clearly see as obvious pitfalls. That's why they are millionaires and I not: they just do the impossible and don't understand that it can't be done... isn't life perverse?

Rob C

[HSway]

As long as the article says nothing bad about the splendid Nikon D600's sensor and the camera I quite agree with it 

It’s scientifically proved that articles written by humans are likely to get reactions written by humans. Something even feels right about it. And yes, photography reduced to a science would be pfff. Good to defend it time to time.

Hynek

[hjulenissen]

I got the impression that Adobe uses a monochromator to measure sensor data. I don't know what kind of variation there is on CGAs and I also don't know how camera profiles are used. Are adobe profiles used on top of camera profiles or instead of camera profiles.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=74039.msg591968#msg591968

Adobe profiles are used instead of camera manufacturer profiles, but the list of profiles includes what appears to be approximations to the manufacturer profile:

Color rendition is subject to taste. Accurate color rendition is seldom the objective.

Agreed. But if the color appearance of Camera A using out-of-camera JPEG or some color profile is more appealing to me than the appearance of Camera B using out-of-camera JPEG or some color profile, then it is very relevant to me to know if (or to what degree) this difference can be removed by using a profile. Especially since the time and money I have invested in my own profiles is minimal.

Further, it seems to my untrained eyes that the (often significant) differences in color profiles/WB/tonecurve that may be seen between two different raw development paths can make it difficult to spot the more elusive differences (that may be more inherent to the camera and harder to "remove" in processing).

Note that I am not saying that "all cameras really look the same" here. I am saying that some visible differences can be removed or diminished with little effort, while other differences cannot.

I believe that for broad-band ("smooth") spectral input, the color appearance of most cameras can be brought very close to that of other cameras. Once you throw in spikey lighting, man-made objects that have very saturated colors, and cameras with nasty spectral sensitivity (Foveons, Bayer CFAs that "cheat" to get better luminance sensitivity etc), it gets harder. This may be where generating color profiles cross over from science into art, and where obtaining "similar colors" means having substantial more noise-amplification in one camera - warranting tests where all aspects of image quality is visually inspected simultaneously for scenes and settings that are deemed "relevant".

-h

[marcmccalmont]

I would like to compare images with the aperture optimized for the pixel pitch of each sensor not just f8.0 which limits the D800's resolution.
I have several Leica R's with Leica to Nikon Leitax mounts fitted, it would be interesting to shoot the same scene with the same lens at optimized apertures!
Seems that Leica engineers can extract a lot out of a sensor, there implementation is certainly world class.
Marc

[mouse]

In the section entitled "How about high ISO?"

Is it possible that the side by side images from Photoshop are mislabeled?

It states that the left image is from the Leica, and the right from Nikon.  However the file names (upper left corner) show that the left image is a .NEF (Nikon) and the right image is a .DNG (Leica)?

As for the conclusions drawn from a comparison of these images, I leave that to others with sharper eyes.

[PierreVandevenne]

I've know a few millionaires in my time, cruised the Med with them etc. and realised long ago that they are not like other folks. There

Millionaire is really nothing these days. Won't go into details about my life and my social circles, but I can tell you that there's the same variety among them than there is among photographers, teachers, doctors, etc... Most of them happened to be at the right place at the right time (a reasonably frequent occurence) , recognized it (slightly less frequent) and avoided big mistakes (again a subset of the previous set). That's all it takes. When, later in life, they are free of monetary worries, they often adopt strange hobbies such as driving a Morgan, trying to create a new kind of rose, hunting trophy wives and mistresses (OK, not that strange ;-)), etc... Most of them do it for their aura. They want the world around them to think that they are slightly different from the commoner and that this is that difference that explains their success rather than dumb luck and decent work.

It really gets funny when they start to believe the fairy tale themselves, or when they show off their new Lambo to a guy who could buy a different versions of Veyron for each day in the week...

[Telecaster]

I guess we're straying well off-topic here. But here's a short description of the typical American millionaire, as provided by The Economist magazine a couple years back: owns her/his own business, lives in an average-sized home and drives a Ford. The Economist article also made the distinction between folks with a total net worth exceeding $1,000,000 and folks with invested or investable assets (cash, that is) exceeding $1,000,000. The latter are a small-ish subset of the former.

In my experience the posturing, Ferrari-driving types are in the minority. Here's the more typical modus operandi: hiding in plain sight, flying under the radar. These are people whose sense of self and of self-worth is derived internally.

-Dave-

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

Mark's review is interesting and has it merits. As pointed out by Mark himself, it is not a scientific review.

Best regards
Erik

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the Leica write up.

There is just one thing I was very surprised about, perhaps you can clarify the claim. You wrote that the Leica print was superior "Less noise (particularly in the shadows)".

I am just puzzled by this, since I have made countless prints from D800 of scenes much more challenging that your outdoor shots, scenes in which I did lift shadows very significantly, and I am yet to see a print where shadow noise is visible at all. I am not saying noise is invisible on screen, it can be if significant lifting is done, but I have never seen it in print.

Would you mind adding scans of the 2 prints to the article to clarify these findings?

One more thing regarding detail, you write the 2 following sentences a few paragraphs away:
- The Leica prints and the Nikon prints were tied in terms of resolution
- The Leica  outperforms the D800E by a good margin

Which is it?

Thanks.

Regards,
Bernard

[BJL]

I guess we're straying well off-topic here. But here's a short description of the typical American millionaire, as provided by The Economist magazine a couple years back: owns her/his own business, lives in an average-sized home and drives a Ford. The Economist article also made the distinction between folks with a total net worth exceeding $1,000,000 and folks with invested or investable assets (cash, that is) exceeding $1,000,000. The latter are a small-ish subset of the former.

Getting even further off-topic, but The Economist is playing word-games there, to greatly expand its pool of "millionaires". The most commonly accepted definition of "millionaire" is closer to the second one, excluding things like the primary home from the count. Otherwise, real estate booms and bubbles can make "millionaires" out of middle income families, and even of retired people with quite modest incomes and savings, who simply do not want to move from the home they have been in for decades.

[Telecaster]

Well, the Economist article was about small business owners rather than real estate but, yes, lots of folks have much of their equity tied up in their homes. The "fly under the radar" folks I was referring to are millionaires by anyone's definition.

I think I'll call it quits on this tangent before Michael & Co. tell us to can it.   

-Dave-

[Rob C]

Well, the Economist article was about small business owners rather than real estate but, yes, lots of folks have much of their equity tied up in their homes. The "fly under the radar" folks I was referring to are millionaires by anyone's definition.

I think I'll call it quits on this tangent before Michael & Co. tell us to can it.  

-Dave-

Why would they? People are more interesting than pixels.

The difference that's the most marked - AFAICS - is that those with the first million are full of it, whilst those with many millions are almost normal, in as far as the rest of us allow them to be. Hiding in plain sight was a great way of putting it; the only difference is with the boats - you can't hide them, but neither can you get onto them just like that. In Porto Cervo I saw security guards sitting on chairs with small burp guns. You wouldn't try to go up the passerelle uninvited; in St-Tropez, several large black men straight from the A-Team serving the same purpose. It's a serious business, being rich.

In that marina at Porto Cervo, I remember being trailed by a Mercedes as I did no more than walk along the quayside with my camera case slung over my shoulder, a tripod in my hand. Rocket launcher? Who'd live like that?

Rob C

P.S. Worth noting is that several have made and lost and remade their fortunes. That takes something extraordinary.

[Rocco Penny]

this post officially attains big mouth status for me, so here it goes;
I've had very wealthy clients through the years,
it's the ones that generally don't really have cash flow worries beyond doing what's best
FOR THE REST OF US
that scare me.
So income dependent money is very different from the guys that do start ups and those type things,
here there are many more progressive thinkers than bottom line thinkers,
so
a guy that has 500,000,000 and asks me how I am today scares me more than the sharks that are trying to maximize some corporate return,
besides who'll care in the end?
Your ungrateful kid?
Guys that rich just are scary,
they are!
What they do is start crazy foundations dedicated to giving real artists a break, and junk like that
and enjoy eating peaches out of a tin while leaning on their tractors and charging 7 bucks a bale
Losing money is the sport,
not making it

[thompsonkirk]

I'm sorry this thread got lost – it could have remained interesting.

Kirk

[Rocco Penny]

I'm sorry this thread got lost – it could have remained interesting.

Kirk

especially if you had something interesting to add

[PierreVandevenne]

I'm sorry this thread got lost – it could have remained interesting.

Hasn't Erwin Put essentially closed the threat anyway? :-)

[llamallama]

Amazing... and disappointing.

I have no Ph.D, have never been involved in leading edge research, and I'm not a professional photographer.

In my unqualified opinion, MarkD appears to be a quack. This is just my feeling, I don't have 3 years to prove this. You can if you want to, and share with us afterwards.

Erwin Puts' take on the review.

http://www.imx.nl/photo/blog-2/the-value-of-camera-reports.html

[nutcracker]

He is a very very enthusiastic enthusiast. My reading of his article is that he declares himself thus, and does not seek to pretend otherwise.
He has not persuaded me to invest in the Leicas, any of them that have appealed to him at times, but he has persuaded me in another enthusiastic article to buy Alpa FPS. I have no regrets.

It is in the nature of enthusiasm that opinions alter with experience beyond initial pleasure.
Phrases that might be interpreted as implying intentional or reckless misinformation are misplaced on this generally very lively and informative site (bravo Michael and team) seem to me to be regrettable.