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The Leica S2 System and Image Quality

Here are a couple more shots from yesterday. They are dng straight from the camera. These files are from the same setup as Paul's shots. I did do a quick ISO test, but it is pretty much worthless because those shots were hand held without lighting and I ended up with some very low shutter speeds (e.g., 1/30 and 1/60) - not something that would be meaningful to post. My observation of the crappy files - looking at noise only - is that ISO 640 does have some noise, but it is not objectionable to me (more of a grain look than noise), however, ISO 1250 would take some heavy handed noise reduction to be useable. It is no better than ISO 1250 on the M8. I also noticed and odd noise/artifact thing going on in dark background in a couple of the studio lit model shots (see left side of file no. 165). I am not sure what is going on here. Some of the problem could be due to background itself as it was not pure black and had some signs of wear in it.

https://rcpt.yousendit.com/759530971/f61ae1202f96529136bab3d81491cff7

Mark
 

carstenw

Active member
One thing to keep in mind while evaluating results from the S2 is that everyone seems to be taking them hand-held, something most MF shooters wouldn't normally dream of doing, except perhaps at noon in the desert ;)
 

carstenw

Active member
Thomas, Lightroom 3 is meant to be Adobe's attempt at fixing the noise reduction algorithms. Once it is out we can compare to Capture One and see if they have really made any improvements.
 

ptomsu

Workshop Member
Do not know what you all think, but I find these results - especially at higher ISO - absolutely unimpressive.

BTW - LR3.0 Beta can be downloaded and used by everyone after registering, the official version will not be out before Q1/2010. I am currently testing it.
 

thomas

New member
now the DNGs posted look much better.
As to moire... in the hair there are color artefacts so I expect there will be moire in patterns.
Attached screenshots of conversions from ACR/CS4 (first) and C1 (second); in C1 the arefacts are more obvious, still they are visible in ACR.

Carsten: of course, let's wait and see what Adobe improved in LR.
I wouldn't expect too much from C1 with the S2 DNGs as C1 supports DNG files quite good but not as good as native RAW files with dedicated profiles.
 
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Greg Seitz

New member
Thomas, Lightroom 3 is meant to be Adobe's attempt at fixing the noise reduction algorithms. Once it is out we can compare to Capture One and see if they have really made any improvements.
Sharpening and chroma noise reduction are significantly improved already. Clumpiness and the watercolor look with sharpening which plagued the old processing engine seem to be gone. They haven't activated luminance noise reduction yet so have to wait and see what improvements they have there. Here's a thread showing some of the differences:

http://forum.getdpi.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11163
 

robsteve

Subscriber
now the DNGs posted look much better.
As to moire... in the hair there are color artefacts so I expect there will be moire in patterns.
Attached screenshots of conversions from ACR/CS4 (first) and C1 (second); in C1 the arefacts are more obvious, still they are visible in ACR.

Carsten: of course, let's wait and see what Adobe improved in LR.
I wouldn't expect too much from C1 with the S2 DNGs as C1 supports DNG files quite good but not as good as native RAW files with dedicated profiles.
Thomas:

I think that is moire in the hair. In C1, the moire adjustments fix it up a bit.

Robert
 

robsteve

Subscriber
I also noticed and odd noise/artifact thing going on in dark background in a couple of the studio lit model shots (see left side of file no. 165). I am not sure what is going on here. Some of the problem could be due to background itself as it was not pure black and had some signs of wear in it.

https://rcpt.yousendit.com/759530971/f61ae1202f96529136bab3d81491cff7

Mark
Mark:

When I opened it in C1, the odd thing was there until C1 did its magic and it disappeared. Where you using C1 or Lightroom?

Robert
 

thomas

New member
Thomas:

I think that is moire in the hair. In C1, the moire adjustments fix it up a bit.

Robert
not quite sure if it's really moire. This is a kind of color artefact I've only seen with microlenses sensors.
Anyway...
The C1 moire tool destroys details, so be careful. Best way is to clone a variant and adjust the moire tool (and color NR) for the variant. Then put them both together in Photoshop and delete all areas of the second variant that don't show moire (so that in effect you correct moire only on the affected areas). Finally set the moire corrected layer to layer-mode "color" (if it's not a strong pattern moire).
 

LJL

New member
Just downloaded the shots taken by Paul and Mark, and opened them in C1. There is some color difference between the two sets. May be attributable to exposure, not sure. The tonality looks pretty good. There is a lot of detail captured also, and the roll-off from focus looks line a nice smooth transition.

I also saw the colored artifacts in the hair that Thomas mentions. At first, I thought moire also, but they do not change with magnification, and do not show the more characteristic close spaced striping that moire tends to exhibit. So I am not sure if that is moire, or some masked moire from in-camera process, or as Thomas mentions, some other microlens artifacting of some sort. Does not show up anywhere but the hair, from what I can see. The fabric pattern may be too color saturated, or not of fine enough grid to produce issues.

The detail around the diamonds on the ring is pretty good, and there appears to be some suppression/good control of any blooming or CA or any of the other stuff one might see around those sorts of light points. There is a very slight pinkish tinge around the diamonds going down the band, and that looks like a bit of CA of some sort, but it too is suppressed nicely. (Too hard to tell, and not trying to "see" stuff that may not be there.)

There is some scary good detail captured, but hard to tell how that compares to anything else right now without a side-by side comparison under the same light. Looks like there is more than enough detail in the files to hold up very nicely for printing large.

Thanks for sharing the files, guys. It is nice to finally see something like this and be able to go over it how one normally might look at things.

This is looking pretty good so far. (I did not look at the other shots posted in the top link yet, as I really wanted to see DNG files.)

LJ
 

carstenw

Active member
Yes, I think that what is seen so far is promising, but it doesn't clinch anything yet either. I am not sure about that hair. Is it possible that her hair just has a reddish tinge under certain light? More examples should tell us more about this.
 
I only looked at the S2 images I shot very quickly in Lightroom. It was late at night and I posted a quick link this morning so others could look at the files more critically. I am at PhotoPlus now so won't get to look at the files again for a while. I may try to get with David Farkas (he has his laptop here at the show) and look at them in C1. I already mentioned the noise/artifact issue to Stephan Schulz today so it would be good to confirm whether this is a camera or software problem.

Mark
 

woodyspedden

New member
Do not know what you all think, but I find these results - especially at higher ISO - absolutely unimpressive.

BTW - LR3.0 Beta can be downloaded and used by everyone after registering, the official version will not be out before Q1/2010. I am currently testing it.
Now you know why Leica is so adamant about releasing images taken with pre-production gear! Folks are looking at these shots and making bottom line conclusions about the camera. Plus we have no idea as to the skill of the photographer!

I am staying open minded about this system as I have seen many files which are extremely good. Certainly they are better than what I could achieve with my H3DII-39 (but that probably speaks more to the photographer and his skills)

I'll wait until I see files taken by the likes of Guy Mancuso (since we all know his style and skill level) or ones I got a chance to take myself before rendering judgement. At that point the camera will be final production and it will be what it will be.

What we have seen so far should be viewed as early days and on the way to a final solution

Woody
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
I agree Woody early days and until a couple processing engines are optimized for the files than we just don't know. Totally agree keep a open mind some things are or will be unavoidable like moire and some artifacts just like any back out there. Just taking a few snaps at a show is maybe better to think it is real and nice to see it outside the production walls but that is about it. Just like the M9 I said within 2 hours of release don't even think about using LR until it has the correct plugin and even C1 we see the saturation is a little high on it. So one baby step so far. Not sure others will see it like that but I am.
 

LJL

New member
Just went over the DNG files that were posted again. Even without a good tuned profile, the C1 renderings that I have been looking at are pretty decent. All look a bit underexposed, but when you do boost there a stop or so, things still look really good. The shadows under the models hair do open up nicely, though they are still out of focus, so no details to really see there. The colors look pretty good (the neutral DNG tint in C1 still seems better than other options, so it may only get better from here), and there is smooth transition. That last part is kinda hard to really tell, as the range of things is more limited in this shot, but the skin tones do not look bad at all.

I went back to the odd color artifacts in the hair, and remain unconvinced about moire. To me, these look like some odd conversion artifact or something. The details are lost and smeared in the red/green color blobs, so something is being done there, but not sure what. Would be nice to see some normal challenging things like the A/C compressor fins, shingles on roofs, and other places where moire usually jumps right out. That will come in time.

The setting for these shots is pretty much in the sweetspot for what the S2 as pitched for....fashion/portrait/studio shooting. So far, to my eyes in these quick shots, it looks to be holding its own. Until we start seeing some real side-by-side comparisons with more color range and shadow transitions and stuff, folks will not really be able to judge what the overall capabilities are. As for doing this kind of shooting (studio lit portraits), these shots are making the S2 look pretty good....even without properly tuned processing profiles. I, for one, am not disappointed.....but there are only a couple images, from the same setting and lighting and at f9.5-11 or so, so I would expect things to look pretty darn good under those controlled conditions anyway.

I did go back to the first link with the high ISO images.....not as impressive in that setting once you get to ISOP 640 or so. I realize those were not taken with the latest software on a production camera, so I am not going to put much stock in them either way at this point. The details look good, but the noise looks a bit ugly and is coming on strong a bit sooner than I was hoping for. Some of the stuff Guy has shown with his P30+ at higher ISOs looks much better at this point, so it will be worth waiting to see some more serious tests of the final production S2 under a lot more normal shooting situations to see if it really is hitting the marks for what I am wanting.

On balance, the DNGs posted show some of the capability and promise for the S2. Cannot wait to see more once this thing gets into the wild and into more diverse and challenging lighting situations. Some of the shots folks are posting from the Oregon trip would have made a superb test bed for the S2 ;-)

LJ
 

carstenw

Active member
One thing that has struck me from these first images, and a couple of others I have seen, and I hesitate to post this observation so early, but the boke looks different to me than typical Leica boke. It looks more... gentle, or gradual. More Zeiss-like, i.e. more 3D to it than the strong isolation that I associate with Leica. Perhaps it is nothing, perhaps it is just because of the larger format, I am not sure.

Has anyone else made any observations in this area?
 

LJL

New member
Carsten,
That is sort of what I was referring to in my first post above about the roll-off looking smooth in transition. As things go out of focus, it looks more smooth and gradual, versus a sharper jump that actually helps with creating more 3D effect, to my eye. I personally think there is not enough to really tell from just these few images that were shot at f9.5-11 or so. Maybe looking at an entire series from the shoot would tell more, as would seeing a few more aperture settings to better make that call. I think we have too little to go on right now.....at least I know I do.

LJ
 

LJL

New member
Another point....I also imported these into Aperture to see how it would handle them. They came in nicely, took quite a while to render the sharpened previews. The overall appearance, at first blush, is nowhere as good looking as the same import into C1. I could tweak things to get a better rendering, but initially things looked pretty flat and unimpressive compared to C1. This was a bit of a surprise, and I am sure that if Apple ever gets around to creating a good profile for the S2, things will look better. What this does tell me is that the neutral DNG file straight from the camera is boring looking. I would not want to be working on these files in Aperture until a good camera profile is created. That may be the case for all of the processing apps, but C1 is doing a pretty decent job right from the start, and that is good to see.

LJ
 

Christopher

Active member
Are there any images out there shot wide open ? I mean yes the 70 for example looks great but at 8-11 there is no difference to other lenses....
 
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