The M8 at work

[guy_mancuso]

Hi folks wanted to post just how easy this camera really is to get dead on and show some images from a Model and talent convention that I am working and i put the M8 into some heavy service and pushed it to places i thought would certainly fail and that is stage lights right in the the camera and frankly there is not one image were it blew apart, no vertical nband , no streaks and the color was extremely easy to WB in C1 . I loaded about a 1000 images in C1 took a Wb off the back wall and apllied to all images and bam , dead on. Now i expect this from the DMR which i also shot today but the M8 acted exactly like the DMR. The DMR i shot at ISO 400 and i will post some of those later but these are all M8 at ISO 640 with the 28, 50, 35 and 75 cron. All about f2 to f 4 on different lenses. No noise no banding , just perfect looking images. Now let's forget the models and talent here they are all wanna be's and this is competition stuff so the images are not what counts here but the use of the M8 and how well it can handle a situation like this. i will just post the images and not put the lens in use at the time just becuase i need to get back to work but i thought this would be of interest to some folks that this camera can perform beyond what i thought it was capable of and for stage work this thing rocks. i had a battery issue where it was close to dying and image transfer came up on the LCD , looks like the battery could not handle the buffer on this and i lost a couple shots but new battery and good to go. So anyway herer are some shots of a singing competetion and maybe a few of dance

[guy_mancuso]

Nice whites and no nasty color shifts. i shot all of these on AWB and mostly on A mode since the light was varying on different teams. I had IR cut B+W filters on everything and no flare or ghosting. This is 1.09 version with a hardware fix

[robert irvin]

Guy...its obvious your lenses are broken. Send them to me and I will check them out for you<vbg> Might as well send the M8 too...!!

Bob

[guy_mancuso]

Just for grins and a little color compare here are some DMR with the 180 F2 at ISO 400. The beauty is i can get at least a stop or more with the M8 and i can shoot these side by side and deliever almost indentical images.

[jrc]

I dunno, Guy. These are good, but I think you really need the new Rollei Hy6 if you want to reach your full potential. They'll be out in six months, body, back, half dozen lenses -- you could cover anything. You might be able to squeeze by with a Hassy H3D, but I think it's really the Rollei with your name written all over it...8-)

JC

[guy_mancuso]

Thanks John better put that Porsche up for sale too. LOL

[khanosu]

Hey Guy, good colors, good tones, good exposure; excellent job! I can not imagine how new C1 profiles made for IT cut filters could improve this type of work any more; the results are already very good.

Furrukh

[guy_mancuso]

I agree looks really dead on. That back wall is white and just WB off that and they look great. Now maybe some colors may have more or less intensity and fidelity with a profile for the IR filter but in this case looks like even the cyan cast is not showing . So makes you wonder a little. Daylight i need a better profile but here looks like it does not matter. I was expecting something would be off . I'm impressed by the lens flare with big spots goiong right into the lens and there holding very well. I have a bunch of shots like this and all seem to be holding. There is more to leica glass than color and micro detail, that is obvious in these type of shots

[sean_reid]

Originally Posted by khanosu

Hey Guy, good colors, good tones, good exposure; excellent job! I can not imagine how new C1 profiles made for IT cut filters could improve this type of work any more; the results are already very good.

Furrukh

Hi Furrukh,

These look good but take a look at the spectral response graph on the page I linked in the "M8 Updates" article and you'll see one reason why the new C1 profile should be an improvement. Actually, here it is: Tipps u. Tricks: UV-IR Cut Filter B+W 486 , Jos. Schneider Optische Werke GmbH

Hi Guy,

Glad to see that this stuff is all working out well for you. Have fun with it.

Cheers,

Sean

[nemeng]

(I can't resist...)

Just to be cheeky, how many keepers did you have from the 1000 shots? Ie. how many actually went to the client?...

:?)

[rvaubel]

Originally Posted by nemeng

(I can't resist...)

Just to be cheeky, how many keepers did you have from the 1000 shots? Ie. how many actually went to the client?...

:?)

I don't wanna be mean, but it doesn't look like there are any Hollywood threats here.

[marknorton]

Originally Posted by rvaubel

I don't wanna be mean, but it doesn't look like there are any Hollywood threats here.

Ouch!

[scanner]

Originally Posted by guy_mancuso

Hi folks wanted to post just how easy this camera really is to get dead on and show some images from a Model and talent convention that I am working and i put the M8 into some heavy service and pushed it to places i thought would certainly fail and that is stage lights right in the the camera and frankly there is not one image were it blew apart, no vertical nband , no streaks and the color was extremely easy to WB in C1 . I loaded about a 1000 images in C1 took a Wb off the back wall and apllied to all images and bam , dead on. Now i expect this from the DMR which i also shot today but the M8 acted exactly like the DMR. The DMR i shot at ISO 400 and i will post some of those later but these are all M8 at ISO 640 with the 28, 50, 35 and 75 cron. All about f2 to f 4 on different lenses. No noise no banding , just perfect looking images. Now let's forget the models and talent here they are all wanna be's and this is competition stuff so the images are not what counts here but the use of the M8 and how well it can handle a situation like this. i will just post the images and not put the lens in use at the time just becuase i need to get back to work but i thought this would be of interest to some folks that this camera can perform beyond what i thought it was capable of and for stage work this thing rocks. i had a battery issue where it was close to dying and image transfer came up on the LCD , looks like the battery could not handle the buffer on this and i lost a couple shots but new battery and good to go. So anyway herer are some shots of a singing competetion and maybe a few of dance

Dear Guy, all pictures in DNG and then you are work with the WB in C 1 ?
I don't think you are working in jpeg.
With my DMR I work with Photoshop elements and a lot of work to do 1000 images.
Or is there a trick in Elements to do it in one workflow ?


greetings,


Rob

[Cruewell]

I didn't expect to see zero noise at ISO 640. The quality of the images is quite amazing for a Leica dreamer -as opposed to owner- like myself. I entered this forum hoping to find out if the M8 is as good as it's 35 mm predecessors were compared with the competition in the era of digital sensors, and I guess it is!

[khanosu]

Originally Posted by sean_reid

These look good but take a look at the spectral response graph on the page I linked in the "M8 Updates" article and you'll see one reason why the new C1 profile should be an improvement.

Hi Sean, totally agree with you; based on the spectral response of the filter “unfixed” profiles, that have been made without the filter, used with files made with the filters should not be as good as profiles made with the filter. It seems to me that for scenes lit mainly by tungsten/incandescent type of lighting the unfixed profiles are really not that much off as in this work shown by Guy (and others in this Forum) – however “unfixed” C1 profiles seem to be more off in daylight lit scenes made with the filters.

Nice summary of fixed and current M8 issues in your article.

Furrukh

[scott kirkpatrick]

Originally Posted by rvaubel

I don't wanna be mean, but it doesn't look like there are any Hollywood threats here.

I'm not sure I agree, since attitude is 9/10s...

Anyway, for Guy's immediate needs, parents and agents and the kids themselves will be ecstatic about his take. And then he can buy that Hassy.

scott

[guy_mancuso]

Yea be surprised what stars come out of this convention, there all rookies now but they turn into Katie Holmes, Elijah Woods, Ashton Kutcher, Jessica Beal and the list really is quite long all alumni's from this convention . Lot's of top models also both men and women but anyway thanks for the comments. The files do look good and Sean I need to read that article when i get a chance but I do get some weird color in daylight so profiles all around would certainly help all of us. Now it sounds like there is a profile already or did i misread that ?

[guy_mancuso]

BTW the noise at ISO 640 is extremely good and even if you miss about a stop or two on the under side you can squeeze a good file. But if your under with 1250 and 2500 than that margin for error is a lot worse, like i have said many times you need to nail the exposure with the DMR and the M8 is no different but it does have more headroom is what I have been seeing than the DMR so this is all good for M8 users becuase not everyone nails it all the time nor will A mode so having a little headroom is good , I would just watch the highlight clipping and if your over to much there than coming back is not fun. A stop is okay but anymore than that than you may get into a crisis mode. We need to test that limit but right now that would be a good path to follow. The M8 has quite a huge exposure range and much better than a lot of DSLR's out there and another reason i wanted this camera was that alone

[robsteve]

The colour on the DMR shots looks a lot richer. It may just be that these are closer shots than those with the M8. The skin looks perfect on the DMR shots, acceptable on the M8.

Even the denim looks perfect on the DMR. The skin tones being on is probably more important unless the sponsor of the show was a jean company

[wparsonsgisnet]

Guy,

These are terrific shots! The sense of movement and the liveliness is terrific. You really capture the energy of these young models.