Leica d-lux 3

[Guy Mancuso]

The more images i see and it has been a lot the last 4 days of the GRDII makes me starting getting a itch and that is bad news. Nice shots Maggie and Terry . My wife or should I say my daughter has the D-lux 2 . Maybe need to steal that back

 

[ellemand]

Guy - you have to get it back - or buy af d-lux 3

It's such af lovely cam.

Regards

Ellemand.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Well i bought my daughter a Canon SD 870 for Christmas so i am stealing My D lux 2 back from her. LOL

 

[ellemand]

Maggie O wrote:

I'm trying out some new settings on the camera- I got NR at low, sharpening at high and everything else at normal.

Do you care to tell about your experiences trying out your new settings? I shoot mostly in Jpeg when shooting in the streets - and would love som new input about others settings.
I've been using this settings: NR and sharpness in low - the rest in normal - and it have worked fine and given great images after PP.

Have a nice day.

Ellemand.

 

[Maggie O]

Here's a couple of shots with those settings:





A bit of sharpening in iPhoto along with highlight and color tweaking in the M8 photo.

BTW, I just put an eXtreme III 4GB card in the D-Lux 3 and it has dramatically improved RAW write times, down to around three seconds or so, making RAW a usable proposition.

 

[Maggie O]

I timed my shots, per Sean's suggestion, with an online stopwatch and after four or five tries (sorry, it was after dinner and there was wine involved) I got it down to this:

Stone sober and with a bit more practice, I reckon I could shave off another second.

 

[lucridders]

To the D-lux 3 owners. Do you also have to do such lot of PP after shooting with the cam. On the GRDII forum it seems that PP is more important than the cam. I have an other opinion and for me the cam should be as perfect as possible without PP. When later I like to do PP, I always can, but I start already from a quite good image in all situations.
It seems when I all read this that even the brand of PP software becomes more important each time a cam is coming out.
Does anyone can tell me about Dlux3 IQ when everything at 0 and seen under all circumstances, what is the percentage of good shots you have without doing PP?

 

[Sean_Reid]

Luc,

Without a definition of what "good shots" look like, its impossible to answer. People have very different ideas about what their final output should look like and no camera is ever going to automatically produce output that matches what all photographers have in mind.

I test cameras professionally and I don't see any particular relationship between new models and specific software at all. If a camera provides a versatile RAW file then there's a lot one can do with that. If the RAW file itself is problematic then one is more limited.

Cheers,

 

[Guy Mancuso]

I agree whatever the quality of the raw files is that is what counts after that it's up to the user to decide what look there after. Just like any other camera you have to judge it by the RAW that is really the only default state you have to deal with. The best RAW files will come from good sensors, great lenses and algorithms set by the manufacture to optimize the best possible RAW file. Jpegs on the other hand are subject to what the manufacture thinks is best and that is not always the best either. This comes down to why most folks don't like shooting jpegs there not always correct and harder to manipulate to get to the state your after and being limited by the jpeg file. Much better to shoot Raw and work from there in really any direction you want. Raw is what i like to call more stretchable so you can do almost anything to it without killing the file. Jpegs just are not very stretchable and will fall apart very quickly in post. I personally never shoot jpegs but these little sensor camera really don't lend themselves very well in speed to shooting Raw either.

 

[Sean_Reid]

I personally never shoot jpegs but these little sensor camera really don't lend themselves very well in speed to shooting Raw either.

Hi Guy,

That's changing. The GR II is much faster in RAW than most small sensor cameras I've tested. Its one of the improvements this medium has really needed.

Cheers,

Sean

 

[Guy Mancuso]

That is excellent news Sean. That is one area that need a major improvement with all of these cams.

 

[Maggie O]

My Berlin series was shot in JPEG and minimally processed and I'm happy with the results I got. YMMV.

 

[Sean_Reid]

Hi Maggie,

Which camera and which ISO levels? How do the prints look to you?

Cheers,

Sean

 

[Maggie O]

Why the D-Lux 3, of course! The ISO levels are mostly ISO 400, with some ISO 800 and ISO 100 scattered about. It was cold and grey most of the time I was in town.

I haven't printed any of those shots myself (damn worthless Epson 2200 died) but the few I ordered from Kodak (via iPhoto) looked pretty good and I think could print up quite nicely on Illford Gallerie inkjet paper, as long as you stayed under 11x14. What the work prints told me is that there will need to be a boost of contrast and sharpening before they're printable, but that seems to be true for most digital cameras, save the M8 or the big DSLRs (and even then, there's a bit of tweaking).

 

[Sean_Reid]

Hi Maggie,

I'll go look at those later today but what bothers me about prints from that camera is that the smoothing is still very aggressive above ISO 100.

Cheers,

Sean

 

[Maggie O]

Hi Maggie,

I'll go look at those later today but what bothers me about prints from that camera is that the smoothing is still very aggressive above ISO 100.

Cheers,

Sean

Yeah, it definitely has a look about it, but I've actually come to appreciate it and the "painterly" pictures it makes. YMMV.

That said, I'm really leaning towards getting rid of it and picking up a GRD II.

 

[Maggie O]

OK, looking again at some small work prints, you're right Sean; they do look like crap and all smeary. Man, this is really bugging me now. I'm definitely going to have to switch my purse-cam to a GRD II. Grrrrrr.

 

[Sean_Reid]

OK, looking again at some small work prints, you're right Sean; they do look like crap and all smeary. Man, this is really bugging me now. I'm definitely going to have to switch my purse-cam to a GRD II. Grrrrrr.

But...the RAW files from the D-Lux 3 can look much better than the JPEGs. Maybe try the GR II side by side with the D-Lux before selling the latter.

Cheers,

Sean

 

[Maggie O]

True, the RAW files are much, much better, especially above ISO 100.

I'll wait for your review of the GR II before I do anything. But I'm putting the Ricoh on my wishlist for Xmas anyways!

 

[Sean_Reid]

Hi Maggie,

I should have it ready by mid-January.

Cheers,

Sean