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The All New More and More Fun With Digital M Images

C

C_R

Member
Re: The All New More and More Fun w/M9 Images

Carsten, Jonathan, Steve, and Lloyd - thanks for your kind welcome ! The CV shows quite heavy vignetting and red corners, I tried cornerfix but was not completely satisfied.
The best way to fix color shift is LAB color. Re coding: yes, I use the WATE 16 setting but got heavy shifts and vignette nevertheless

Another with the CV 15:
 
Lloyd

Lloyd

Active member
Re: The All New More and More Fun w/M9 Images

C_R said:
Carsten, Jonathan, Steve, and Lloyd - thanks for your kind welcome ! The CV shows quite heavy vignetting and red corners, I tried cornerfix but was not completely satisfied.
The best way to fix color shift is LAB color. Re coding: yes, I use the WATE 16 setting but got heavy shifts and vignette nevertheless

Another with the CV 15:
Click to expand...
Another really nice image. LAB color? What's the process... I'm clueless (on this, and a truly staggering array of other subjects as well. ;))
 
Last edited:
P

Paratom

Well-known member
Re: The All New More and More Fun w/M9 Images

Hi Carsten,
I dont feel the M9 is more complex than he M8. Just used the M9 one week during vacation every day and it was easy going.
I didnt bring the WATE but the 21/2.8asph as widest lens (together with 35/2.5, 50/1.4asph,75/2.5 and 135/3.4) and everything has worked quite well.
You write its not the sharpest in the corners but I havent experienced any problem in the corners.
Cheers, Tom




carstenw said:
No question, I am not saying that I think it is a bad or flawed camera. It is just that it is a much more complex solution, where the M8 was simple, almost naïve. Send it in for the sensor fix, slap a filter on every lens, done.

I pretty much have to sell my CV15, not because it isn't sharp enough, but because the IR correction in the M9 is more complex than before, and no truly satisfactory tool exists for fixing it. CornerFix might get there with time, but I am very reluctant to buy a camera contingent on future improvements (I learned that in the MF world ;)). Similarly, the Zeiss 18mm is probably out, and that was going to be my next choice. Even the Leica 18mm, my new choice, still has corner problems, and the whole magenta left-side-with-wides issue is something that I am watching very carefully.

To be sure, the M9 looks like it is several steps ahead of the M8 overall, but right now my M8 is working really well and I get great colours in almost every situation. The M9 introduces more complexity where what I want is simplicity. I just don't want to go through the improvement mill again, but just to buy in once the cake is properly baked.

I am not expecting a perfect camera, and once the magenta cast and various corner and side casts have been dealt with, I would buy immediately.

I do trust Leica to get it right, so once it is right, I will definitely buy in. For now, I might hold off on the purchase, unless I get offered a camera which behaves well with the 18mm and has a shutter as quiet as my M8u.
Click to expand...
 
C

C_R

Member
Re: The All New More and More Fun w/M9 Images

Lloyd, Dan Margulis book on "Photoshop LAB color" is heavy stuff, but very useful. The process: convert to LAB mode in PS. Make an adjustment layer, as curves adjustment, in white = transparent mask. With the pipette tool look what your a and b values in the corners should be (test in the upper margin region, or the center as appropriate). Then tweak the a and b curves to get the corners right, aiming at the worst colored corner. After that, the image looks bad (except the corners, of course). Then invert the mask (Ctrl-I), and use the gradient mask tool with white color to unmask the corner region, as appropriate (for less intense shifts you can reduce opacity of the gradient mask there). Voila, flatten the image. The tricky part is how to tweak the a and b curves right. A quick and dirty way is simply to lift the a curve and b curve on the lower left end about 5 to 15 points, as appropriate. Sounds complicate, but can be performed partially as PS action. The great advantage of LAB is that you have separate control over color and contrast, and the by far largest color space -

Cheers


Carsten
 
carstenw

carstenw

Active member
Re: The All New More and More Fun w/M9 Images

t_streng said:
Hi Carsten,
I dont feel the M9 is more complex than he M8. Just used the M9 one week during vacation every day and it was easy going.
Click to expand...
The camera itself is not complex, but the corrections it applies are. The IR filter is now only on the sensor, and the corrections for the Leica lenses are built-in, in the sense that you cannot experiment with an alternative lens and Heliopan, B+W and Leica filters, along with various codings to find the best solution. You can only experiment with coding.

It is probably not that big a deal in the end, but when Leica's own 18mm lens, coded, still has a magenta cast on the left-hand side, and this is after built-in corrections have been applied, the result is no longer as simple to correct as if it hadn't been coded at all.

I guess in the end Leica will get it right, and the lens will work flawlessly, but the situation is not all that simple at the moment. I am tempted to wait a bit, at least until the 18mm gets sorted out, because I am pretty sure I will buy that lens.


I didnt bring the WATE but the 21/2.8asph as widest lens (together with 35/2.5, 50/1.4asph,75/2.5 and 135/3.4) and everything has worked quite well.
You write its not the sharpest in the corners but I havent experienced any problem in the corners.
Cheers, Tom
Click to expand...
I suppose there is some copy-to-copy variation then. I don't own the lens, but was considering it at one point, and there was a thread on it on l-camera-forum. Wide open, the corners weren't all that strong, and that is on the M8. In the end I bought the WATE, which was sharp (but which I ended up selling due to the workflow on the M8).
 
Lloyd

Lloyd

Active member
Re: The All New More and More Fun w/M9 Images

C_R said:
Lloyd, Dan Margulis book on "Photoshop LAB color" is heavy stuff, but very useful. The process: convert to LAB mode in PS. Make an adjustment layer, as curves adjustment, in white = transparent mask. With the pipette tool look what your a and b values in the corners should be (test in the upper margin region, or the center as appropriate). Then tweak the a and b curves to get the corners right, aiming at the worst colored corner. After that, the image looks bad (except the corners, of course). Then invert the mask (Ctrl-I), and use the gradient mask tool with white color to unmask the corner region, as appropriate (for less intense shifts you can reduce opacity of the gradient mask there). Voila, flatten the image. The tricky part is how to tweak the a and b curves right. A quick and dirty way is simply to lift the a curve and b curve on the lower left end about 5 to 15 points, as appropriate. Sounds complicate, but can be performed partially as PS action. The great advantage of LAB is that you have separate control over color and contrast, and the by far largest color space -

Cheers


Carsten
Click to expand...
Thank you, Carsten. I'm looking forward to trying this.
 
G

Gary P

Member
Re: The All New More and More Fun w/M8 Images

Beautiful images Arne and Lloyd! Thanks Lloyd for your assistance, it really helped.

Gary P
 
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stevem8

New member
Re: The All New More and More Fun w/M8 Images

good to see all of these fantastic M8 images still being posted. Great shots here and I check them out daily! Keep 'em coming!
 
S

steflaurent974

Active member
Re: The All New More and More Fun w/M9 Images

Lloyd said:
These really are so nice Stef. My wife and I have been running ultras for years, so these speak to me especially. And, the light in that last one is magic. Well done.:salute:
Click to expand...
I've been running too, but now I wonder how I did ? :ROTFL:

Anyway Jono, steve, Lloyd thanks for your comments and for all the stunning or delicate light of the pictures you send ...I do see them all, and love to see other's photo, it helps me building my own picture culture !!!
 
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gero

New member
Re: The All New More and More Fun w/M8 Images

I like that photo Loyd, the whites and blacks look really good.
 
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