The GetDPI Photography Forum

Great to see you here. Join our insightful photographic forum today and start tapping into a huge wealth of photographic knowledge. Completing our simple registration process will allow you to gain access to exclusive content, add your own topics and posts, share your work and connect with other members through your own private inbox! And don’t forget to say hi!

Medium Format compared to Leica M11 - night shot

DaveS

Active member
Hi all, we had a (rare so far) clear spring night in Vancouver Canada last night and I did a quick test of a M11 with a M75mm F1.4 lens vs a Hasselblad XCD II with a V 80mm F2.8 C T*. So basically new camera bodies for both, but 'old school' lenses on both. The Leica was set to F5.6 and the Hasselblad was set to F8. The Leica was a 75mm full frame, and the Hasselblad was close to a 64mm full frame equivalent, so slightly different magnification.

Both cameras were set at base ISO. 64 for Leica and 100 for Hasselblad, and I used self timer and electronic shutter.

The Hasselblad is 50MP and the Leica is 60MP.

Basically, I was impressed how both these lenses worked out. In photoshop I balanced white balance to be the same, and did a bit of highlight reduction, shadow increase, clarity increase (to balance out the highlight reduction of the contrast reduction) and some sharpness increase. So not scientific, but how I would normally process these images myself. Anyway, here are the results, first overall images, and then an approximate 100% crop.

Any comments welcome, thanks for looking.

(Hasselblad first then Leica, same with the crops.)

Dave

PS: It's raining again today, if I get a chance I am going to try the same thing again, but with current lenses. (M75mm APO F2 and Hasselblad XCD 80mm)
 

Attachments

beano_z

Active member
So this is a blind test? Just had quick look, I slightly prefer the 0002 over the 0001 and the 0003 over the 0004 crops. The ones I chose seem "crisper" or maybe it's just the aperture stars playing tricks on my eyes.....but indeed, both look absolutely fine.
 

DaveS

Active member
So this is a blind test? Just had quick look, I slightly prefer the 0002 over the 0001 and the 0003 over the 0004 crops. The ones I chose seem "crisper" or maybe it's just the aperture stars playing tricks on my eyes.....but indeed, both look absolutely fine.
Oops, didn't mean to make it a blind test. 1 and 3 are Leica and 2 and 4 are Hasselblad. You are correct though on the crispness, but it might be partly due to the 60MP vs 50MP, the higher magnification (75mm vs 64mm), and possibly the lens itself. But what was interesting to me was when I sharpened them, the Leica show more noise in the sky at base ISO than the Hasselbald did with equal sharpening. So I suspect the Hasselbald file had more 'room' to manipulate it than the Leica might have, at least for dark night shots.

But I agree, I would be happy with both.

Dave
 

vieri

Well-known member
Thank you for the test, I am considering replacing my M10-R with a M11 as a backup for my IQ4, and that reinforced my resolve - you might just have helped costing me some $$$ 😂

Best regards,

Vieri
 

DaveS

Active member
Thanks Vieri, maybe with the M10-R as trade in it might be less of an upgrade difference 😀

Also SrMphoto, for exposure of these shots I dialed in -1.7 since from experience of this view I found that works best. (Matrix metering). But what also impresses me still is how clean ISO 64 files are both as shot and with Lightroom manipulation.

Cheers
 

TimothyHyde

Subscriber Member
Thank you for this. I use both systems (though neither of those lenses). It inspires me to repeat that test myself with the 80 f/1.9 or 65 f/2.8 and perhaps the 50APO. My impression is that there is more malleability by far with the Hasselblad files, as you suggest, but it's an impression, not the result of any careful testing.
 
Top