Guy Mancuso
Administrator, Instructor
Awesome John look forward to seeing some great images. Also congrats on getting one.
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Bob,Guy,
Almost all modern digital cameras have a color space that is larger than sRGB and some larger than Adobe RGB.
ALL rendition of color involves some degree of compression and occasionally expansion, or perhaps lets call it remapping, of the color space to some gamut that the display device (monitor, paper, or whatever) is able to reproduce.
So lets not confuse the raw file encoding of the numerical values in raw files to perceived color saturation.
24 bit color (8bit r g b) gives us 16777216 potential colors to work with. Complicating this is that the human visual system has a color gamut (the colors we are capable of perceiving) that is brightness dependent. At very low light, in fact, we have no color vision at all. At high levels we have no color reception either since our eyes saturate very much the same way that a sensor can have a blown highlight.
Simply encoding 14 or 16 bits linearly as the data exits the ad converters does not necessarily guarantee any perceptual difference whatsoever. Now linearly here, to digital engineers, is that the next higher order bit represents twice the value as the bit below it. That means it might have (color gamut/profile remapping aside) twice the brightness.
So in conceptual terms and using an 8 bit file as an illustration, there are only two levels (on and off) at the minimum brightness level. With three colors that gives you only eight colors at minimum levels. The interesting thing is that is fine with us humans, since when things are really really dark, we can't see color anyway.
The argument in favor of some other non-linear encoding method is that at the lower half of brightness levels there are 2097152 colors. that leaves 14680064 colors available in the bright half. Now if the sensor is "stretched" or digitally amplified, and I have my suspicions about which cameras do which, by shifting all of the available sensor data right one bit, the available number of colors in the high end remains the same, but the number of levels available in the low end drops in half. This is what some perceive as a reduction in dynamic range, which is indeed what it is. Even with additional analog amplification, random noise, or worse, non-random noise, enters the low bit positions. The M8 suffered badly from non-random noise since internal camera noise which is synched with internal clocks, could actually be seen as noise patterns imposed in the low "high iso" levels. This is usually mor obvious with ccd based camra with off-chip ad converters and poor electrical noise design. CMOS based integrated converter cameras don't have this problem, but they have more inherent conversion noise due to on-chip noise coupling and variability in terms of the integrated a/d converters. A different sort of problem. Companies with limited R&D resources tend to opt for ccd sensors and low integration levels.
thanks
-bob
JonoHi Roger
I'm with Riccis on this one. All the side by side testing and report reading (and writing), and technical discussion in the world doesn't match shooting.
For me, I can shoot 2500 ISO with the M9 and get reasonable COLOUR results from it, and as long as the focus is good and the exposure is good they will print relatively large. I couldn't do this with the M8 at 1250 ISO . . . I could (sometimes) at 1000 ISO. I can't easily prove this, but experience tells me that it's so.
What, you didn't get the flight on Leica's private Gulfstream to their chateau on the Wannsee Lake for the private test shooting session with the Ukrainian swimsuit models? I heard that was what all the other reviewers got >Well Leica just called me . I WILL have a M9 and several lenses here Thursday for a long week end and actually put it to use on a golf tournament job on Friday. So there you go plus I will do some testing as well. Guy
Well . . . I've been doing testing for a few months, and then I've been methodical - and of course, with different firmware versions things have changed.I am ok with your POV that for your typical subjects ....you can shoot comfortably above 1000 . I am sure others will feel the same way . However to understand the capabilities of the equipment .....we need side by side comparisons. We need to know that the M9 performs like an M8 plus one EV. The easy way to see this is compare a series of images that scale by changing ISO.
Actually, the girls were Azeri, not Ukranian, the lake was the Caspian, and there wasn't a swimsuit in sight. We missed Guy though:ROTFL:What, you didn't get the flight on Leica's private Gulfstream to their chateau on the Wannsee Lake for the private test shooting session with the Ukrainian swimsuit models? I heard that was what all the other reviewers got >
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Your POV may not necessarily be an exclusive idiosyncracy.Hi Roger
Well . . . I've been doing testing for a few months, and then I've been methodical - and of course, with different firmware versions things have changed.
The last few weeks (after the release and the official firmware) I've just 'gone with the flow'.
I don't need to see side by side comparisons to understand the capabilities of the equipment . . . because I don't believe they ever tell you more than how the camera will perform in a set lighting environment, and I'm never shooting in a set lighting environment.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticising that kind of information, and I read it avidly. But when I'm shooting, it all ends up back with instinct and experience, and other peoples' experience with bowls of fruit, or rows of bottles ... how ever rigorous it may be, simply isn't terribly helpful.
My photography is the one area of my life where I DON'T need to be rigorous and scientific, and for me the Leica embodies that kind of free spirit. But I realise that's my idiosyncracy.
JonoHi Roger
Well . . . I've been doing testing for a few months, and then I've been methodical - and of course, with different firmware versions things have changed.
The last few weeks (after the release and the official firmware) I've just 'gone with the flow'.
I don't need to see side by side comparisons to understand the capabilities of the equipment . . . because I don't believe they ever tell you more than how the camera will perform in a set lighting environment, and I'm never shooting in a set lighting environment.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticising that kind of information, and I read it avidly. But when I'm shooting, it all ends up back with instinct and experience, and other peoples' experience with bowls of fruit, or rows of bottles . . however rigorous it may be, simply isn't terribly helpful.
My photography is the one area of my life where I DON'T need to be rigorous and scientific, and for me the Leica embodies that kind of free spirit. But I realise that's my idiosyncracy.
Roger and Juno .... I think both of you would agree that there is some value in both rigorous clinical tests and real world response in the hands of skilled users. It is just a matter of degree how one personally weighs one verses the other.Jono
Not trying to be a smart ***....but you were the beta tester and shot 6000 images in all kinds of situations. You have the perfect test..your own work.
But ....I am in this case the reviewer of your report? I would hope you are satisfied and don t need side by sides. No reviewers test is a substitute for your own work.
But ..I started the thead with an observation about Sean Reid s tests and how to interpret them. I consider Sean s tests the gold standard for testing equipment. He busts his butt to give you the same tests he uses...along with his real world experience. I have already given my POV but hey ..what do I know? That was the point of the thread.
I sure hope you are correct and even conservative in the improvements. Its easy to see a step up in resolution and micro contrast in your images....which are excellent examples of the true Leica photographer.
Lets see what Marc says after he uses an M8 and an M9 on the same wedding...this is a perfect test for my concerns.
IF you remember, the reviewers were well aware of the IR issue, just chose not to let us know. Its a question of where do their loyalties lie, with their readers or the companies? They lost their credibility for me.However, we must remember that this is not infallible ... it took about two days for the IR contamination to be discovered after the launch of the M8 .... a camera that was both clinically tested, and beta tested by skilled hands in the real world for months.
I guess you can judge a camera without spending months with it, !I do NOT need to shoot this camera side-by-side with anything including my M8 at a wedding to know it delivers. I've shot so many weddings and related assignments I can immediately tell if a camera is going to cut it, and how well it'll do against what I already have in my gear closet.
The minute I opened yesterday's assignment and looked at the Browser full of over 200 M9 shots I was sold.
For me, for my applications, Leica has produced a real winner.
Not a perfect camera, not an end-all camera, just the best digital rangefinder in the world (depending on how long it stays reliable ). I'll go one step further ... again "for me and my uses" ... short of my 39 meg MFD camera this is now the best " image maker" I have in the bag.
I then did something I very, very rarely do ... I called my friend Irakly and told him to dump everything he could and go for a M9. In his incomparable hands this camera will sing a full opera with endless standing ovations
Well, we will have to wait until he gets one to shoot, and it ain't gonna be mine ... :ROTFL:Marc, tell Irakly to post his M9 images here. I would be very interested to see his take.