Nightshots M8 / 75-lux; Banding...

[Nitnaros]

We had a quite rainy evening in northern New Jersey today - snow/rain mixture coming down.

Took the M8, and strolled around in the parking lot of one of the many strip malls. All images taken in raw format, processed in the most recent C1 Pro version. Saturation has not been bumped up in C1, contrast sometimes. ISO most of the time 2500. (The last two images in the gallery have been made today on a plane.)

Parking lot night shots:
SmugMug - Peter Sorantin (psorantin) : Leica M8
SmugMug - Peter Sorantin (psorantin) : Leica M8
SmugMug - Peter Sorantin (psorantin) : Leica M8
SmugMug - Peter Sorantin (psorantin) : Leica M8


Camera got pretty wet by the way, but no problem.
The only consequence I did not like was that water got on the expandable lens hood of the 75-lux and it seemed to sit between the two hood segments. After shooting I kept the hood sitting and drying in the fully expanded position. What is nice with rangefinders in rainy conditions: You can keep the lens cap on most of the time due to the separate viewfinder. With SLR's your lens front gets wet immediately, since you need to keep the lens cap off in order to see.
--

Question:
- Several of the shots show BANDING - a straight band, running vertically always at the same frame position top to bottom. See for example the 4th shot in the gallery (file L1000893): Above the left side of the shopping cart, there is the band. There are several other shots that show the same effect.

The M8 is very recent, had already the updated electronic board and firmware 1.9.

Has this been observed in this form and discussed before?

Greetings,
Peter
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M8, 75-'lux, 35-'lux

[guy_mancuso]

Yes Peter it has . It is a verticl band just right of center, it is a firmware issue that Leica is working on in Version 1.10

[marknorton]

Yes, this band has been seen before and is supposedly fixed in 1.10.

Guy beat me to it!!

[Nitnaros]

Thanks, Guy;
...So let's see how 1.10 will perform...

What else: Handling:
- Camera handling superb
- 75-lux ... I have troubles shooting it at 1/60 or slower; how slow can you go handhelp with the 75-lux?

Noise at 2500 for color shots:
I still have to print the shots on my Epson-4800 to see how ISO 2500 looks in print on a 16x24". On my monitor, the C1 output does not look that great. My impression with C1 is (also from my Canon work) that its noise handling capabilities are not that great. I clean up most of the time in NoiseNinja in Photoshop.

Pete

[rvaubel]

Originally Posted by psorantin

Thanks, Guy;
...So let's see how 1.10 will perform...

What else: Handling:
- Camera handling superb
- 75-lux ... I have troubles shooting it at 1/60 or slower; how slow can you go handhelp with the 75-lux?

Noise at 2500 for color shots:
I still have to print the shots on my Epson-4800 to see how ISO 2500 looks in print on a 16x24". On my monitor, the C1 output does not look that great. My impression with C1 is (also from my Canon work) that its noise handling capabilities are not that great. I clean up most of the time in NoiseNinja in Photoshop.

Pete

Peter

I have had really good luck cleaning up M8 shots with Neat Image. Your shopping cart/banding picture cleaned up really well but I didn't save it. Neat Image is such a versital but complex program that I have only begun to exploit it. But so far my results have been sooo much better than any in-camera noise reduction could be.

BTW the banding that 1.10 is supposed to fix is a high ISO thing so alot of people never see it. But I want it fixed too.

Rex

[guy_mancuso]

Peter bottom line the M8 is not a ISO 2500 camera , it's noisey. But this comes from someone that has been fighting noise for 15 years in digital , don't like a lot of it. I find ISO 640 very good and ISO 1250 good , but i have a strong dislike for a lot of noise. For fine art it maybe fine but for commercial work like I do , i just can't deliver high noise shots. Now B&W i love ISO 1250.

Well your 75 Lux is now a 100 mm focal length, so shutter speed is important versus blur. I have had trouble at a 1/60 with the 75 mm Cron also. For me it took some practice of not pushing down the shutter but a more softer touch. I came from electronic releases for the last couple years so at first with the M8 i was banging down on the shutter and I have gotten much better at releasing it instead. Been a long time since I had a analogue release