M9 and Red Edge Redux--Part II, with 28mm Elmarit?

[photolandscape]

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I am sorry to beat the red edge issue to death. But it is really driving me mad. It's the inconsistency from one 24mm Elmar to another, and one M9 body to another when it comes to red edges that is pushing me to the brink. While I am very, very happy for him, how is it that our friend Hoppyman can make a beautiful red edge-free shot with his M9 and 24mm Elmar, yet anything I shoot with the same setup resembles the Italian flag--red bar, left side?

 

As you may recall, I recently bought a beautiful 24mm Elmar to replace a beautiful 25mm Zeiss Biogon, in hopes that it might do better with red edge issues. After doing some tests, on my M9 at least, my 24mm Elmar, 25mm Zeiss, and a friend's 25mm CV all produce very similar results when it comes to the "Italian flag" effect.

 

I wanted to see whether anyone with a 28mm Elmarit (coded, lastest version), has had good or bad experiences with red edges. Would it be too much to hope that the red edge issue might become a non-issue using the 28mm Elmarit? If so, I might wind up selling my Elmar and my 35mm Summmicron ASPH and replace them with a 28mm Elmarit (great lens) and a 50mm Summicron, even though I have always been most fond of the 35mm Summicron. Or maybe I'll just have to get out of the ultra-wide lens segment altogether, though I love a 24mm focal length.

 

As always, any thoughts would be appreciated.

[richfx]

I have the new 28mm f/2.8 Elmarit ASPH and have not experienced any red edge at all with it on the M9. I have experienced red edge / fringing with the CV 15mm f/4.5 Super Wide Heliar (which I sold) and to a much lesser / manageable degree with the Zeiss 18mm f/4 C Biogon T, which replaced the CV 15. I've had better results coding the Zeiss as a Leica 18mm f/3.8 than as the 18mm WATE f/4. Tried CornerFix, but couldn't get it to work in Aperture 3.1.

Rich

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[hoppyman]

Your friend hoppyman here

My Summicron 28 ASPH does not exhibit any red edge at any aperture in any shot I have made either. Neither my Elmar 24 nor that one did even with the first M9 firmware either (as shown in my earlier sample). I tried an Elmarit 24 and the Summicron 35 ASPH and the new Summilux 35 ASPH as well. A friend brought the CV Ultron 28 around to try too. That one also behaves as do my wides on his M9, although we haven't shot extensively in those swap arounds.

I think you must have bad karma from a previous life or something

 

Just one final diagnostic thought. You never answered which Raw processer you are using? Also any chance you are applying some CA correction setting in your processing?

Edited December 2, 2010 by hoppyman

[k_g_wolf ✝]

That´s very rare with the LEICA 24mm-Elmarit. My sample doesn´t do it.

I had it coded and it was calibrated but it didn´t show any colourshift

even before.

 

If your M9 is an early one it might be more likely. Perhaps they changed

some specifications during production.

 

Don´t be too frustrated, try another Elmarit at your dealer and change it

if possible. There should be plenty around. Lenses, not dealers ...

 

 

 

Best

GEORG

[jrh68uk]

This is the one thing that is preventing me from putting down the cash for one of these. It's the inconsistency that gets me more than anything - the fact that some are lucky and some aren't. It's not a fault that Leica will acknowledge, it seems, and so if I were unlucky in the draw and had a M9 which showed this with my 28 Elmarit (let alone my 21) I'd be gutted.

 

I wouldn't mind quite so much if the red effect were uniform. But, without exception, on the LHS and sometimes with an accompanying bottom edge? This is a camera/sensor issue that needs to be sorted out, unless it quietly has been with later M9s.

 

Edit: to the OP, I meant to say that I have seen examples on Flickr of M9 + 28 El ASPH with red edge. Have a scan through the M9 group photos if you can.

Edited December 2, 2010 by jrh68uk

[theno23]

I have the latest Elmarit 28mm, and I have no red edge issues with it.

 

For comparison, I tried a wide Zeiss (18, or 21, I forget which), and had serious red-edge issues with that.

 

- Steve

[thighslapper]

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I appreciate your frustration.

 

There seems to be a lot of groping in the dark over this.

 

As no one to date has come up with any rational explanation of the actual effect itself it's even more difficult to explain the variability of it's manifestation.

 

As I pointed out in some other posts, the fact that it is persistently one sided (or at least different colours on each side) seems to exclude an optical cause (as we have a spherical lens and any aberration should be uniformly spread around the periphery of the field).

 

That points to the sensor, microprisms and arrangement of the Bayer array. My rather simplistic stab at explaining it as a product of the bayer grid was shot down by my more knowledgeable forum members .... but no one yet has come up with any alternatives.....

 

Understanding the mechanics of the cause should unlock the explanation of why some lenses and cameras are worse than others......

 

Thinking caps on, chaps.....

Edited December 2, 2010 by thighslapper

[thighslapper]

maybe misalignment of the microprisms in relation to the underlying bayer array which varies from sensor to sensor.....?????

 

it's obviously related to the extreme obliqueness of the light rays which varies in design even within the same wide angle focal lengths ...

Edited December 2, 2010 by thighslapper

[Shootist]

I am sorry to beat the red edge issue to death. But it is really driving me mad. It's the inconsistency from one 24mm Elmar to another, and one M9 body to another when it comes to red edges that is pushing me to the brink. While I am very, very happy for him, how is it that our friend Hoppyman can make a beautiful red edge-free shot with his M9 and 24mm Elmar, yet anything I shoot with the same setup resembles the Italian flag--red bar, left side?

 

As you may recall, I recently bought a beautiful 24mm Elmar to replace a beautiful 25mm Zeiss Biogon, in hopes that it might do better with red edge issues. After doing some tests, on my M9 at least, my 24mm Elmar, 25mm Zeiss, and a friend's 25mm CV all produce very similar results when it comes to the "Italian flag" effect.

 

I wanted to see whether anyone with a 28mm Elmarit (coded, lastest version), has had good or bad experiences with red edges. Would it be too much to hope that the red edge issue might become a non-issue using the 28mm Elmarit? If so, I might wind up selling my Elmar and my 35mm Summmicron ASPH and replace them with a 28mm Elmarit (great lens) and a 50mm Summicron, even though I have always been most fond of the 35mm Summicron. Or maybe I'll just have to get out of the ultra-wide lens segment altogether, though I love a 24mm focal length.

 

As always, any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

I'd say it is not a lens problem but a camera problem. I would send the camera back to Leica with test images, printed out and on CD along with a very detailed letter and links to images that do not have the red edge that your camera produces, showing the exact problem (by the way using only Leica coded lenses) and tell them to fix it.

There is no reason for you to have a camera, that costs $7000, you can not use, to your satisfaction, while other people that have the same camera and lenses have no problems (red edges).

 

Personally I would of done it long ago and stated to fix it or send me another camera that doesn't have this problem.

[photolandscape]

Thanks one and all. I got a note from Leica, and they say to send it to them with documentation, samples of the problem, etc. I am going to send along my lenses--might as well have them check/adjust my rangefinder, which has always been off a touch. Here in Oregon, where I live, it's rainy, dark and dreary and will be much of the time for the next several months, so now is the time to send it all back and concentrate on a back log of processing from the work I did over the past few months. If I get it back and everything is good, or vice versa, I'll be sure to post on the subject.

[neli]

Thanks one and all. I got a note from Leica, and they say to send it to them with documentation, samples of the problem, etc. I am going to send along my lenses--might as well have them check/adjust my rangefinder, which has always been off a touch. Here in Oregon, where I live, it's rainy, dark and dreary and will be much of the time for the next several months, so now is the time to send it all back and concentrate on a back log of processing from the work I did over the past few months. If I get it back and everything is good, or vice versa, I'll be sure to post on the subject.

 

Hi

I'd love to hear if Leica can sort it out or what they do for you.

I never had red edge with my 35 lux but I read that is a seldom occurrence.

I'm thinking about a 24 elmar and a 24 lux and if my M9 had red edge I'd be livid.

Please do let us know what happens.

 

Regards and best of luck

[ho_co]

maybe misalignment of the microprisms in relation to the underlying bayer array which varies from sensor to sensor....

Also an idea often mentioned. But I don't think the early Kodaks had microprisms, and they're the ones that introduced Italian Flag Syndrome.

 

Of course, that doesn't mean the microprism alignment isn't involved, just that the issue is complex.

[photolandscape]

Also an idea often mentioned. But I don't think the early Kodaks had microprisms, and they're the ones that introduced Italian Flag Syndrome.

 

Of course, that doesn't mean the microprism alignment isn't involved, just that the issue is complex.

 

Hi Howard,

 

I'll be packing up my M9 and a couple of lenses over the weekend and sending them Monday to Leica USA. I really want them to go over it thoroughly, even if I have to go without my camera and lenses for several weeks. I'll report back to the Forum with the results. I love Italy, I respect the Italian flag and the great people of Italy, but I don't want the Italian flag in ever wide-angle shot I take.

[ho_co]

I think that's best. I hope they can respond adequately to the problem. At photokina, Stefan Daniel said he still thinks the red edge problem will be solved by firmware; some of us are less sanguine on that assumption.

 

I'm sure Leica has tried every solution they can, and I don't think they know the cause. Remember the "dreaded green line" on the M8. They were on the ball, quickly figured out what the cause was, and said it couldn't be corrected. I think we'd have heard something from them on the red left edge if they knew the cause, even if they didn't have a solution.

 

Let's hope that the problem with your camera is the worst they've ever seen, and the reason for it pops them over the head with the solution.

 

Good luck, and you know everyone on the forum will want to know how it comes out!

 

 

And in the interim, I still think the best solution is to consider all the M9's to be a commemorative edition in remembrance of Communism, as I suggested at http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/barnacks-bar/151482-homage-la-izquierda-roja.html#post1520764.

[jrh68uk]

Yes, please do let us all know what happens. It will quite possibly be my deciding factor

[viramati]

Don't know about the elmarit but my 28 cron sometimes shows red edge and sometimes is fine. seems to be worse when underexposed and becomes more apparent with the recent snowy wether here in the UK. sometimes it seems to be just in an are on the upper left on horizontal shots!!. Anyway hope it can get sorted with firmware upgrade

[jrh68uk]

I don't see how firmware could fix this, since there seems to be some variation between cameras. Unless, that is, the firmware could have the ability to assess the behaviour of that particular sensor/camera and adjust itself to counteract the effect. Or, have user-tunable parameters (the more feasible, I'd guess).

 

There's a guy whose public photostream on Flickr (search Flickr for "Leica M9 Elmarit28mm" - the latter tag having no spaces) whose images clearly show red edge on the LHS and also along the bottom. It is very clearly visible here and elsewhere and I'd find it unacceptable, especially for such an investment.

 

I understand the difficulty in having a 24x36 sensor for rangefinder optics and accept a tradeoff of having some colour variation that's uniform from the image centre. But this is far from uniform and variable between cameras, it would seem - although I'd suggest it's variable by degree because just about every image I've seen with the 21 Elmarit ASPH, which I also own and would expect to be able to use on an M9, shows this effect.

[parsod]

I recently bought an M9 and four lenses. Fantastic camera and great lenses. I am really amazed over the quality I can get from the DNGs processed in LR. After my fist test of the new equipment during a vacation in Lisboa, I was very happy to see that I seemed to have no problems with red edges or any other defects in my pictures from any of the lenses. Pretty much what I expected though since they are brand new coded Leica lenses.

 

However this weekend I went out to capture some winter landscapes in my home country Sweden. It was a blue sky and quite bright sunshine and to my surprise I could now see some red edges mainly on the left side as others have reported. This was the case both with my 35 Summicron and 24 Elmar. My 50 Summicron and 90 Summarit seems to handle the situation better. However I mainly used the 35 and the 24 during that day.

 

Based on some advice here in the forum I was able to fix it quite well in LR using graduated filters which I now have saved as presets. Very annoying though to see this effect in these snow pictures even if I can't really see it in more "normal" scenes. I am not sure what to do now? If I should live with it and fix it in LR or try to get my M9 replaced or maybe hope for a firmware fix?

 

/Regards - Paer

[hoppyman]

We haven't seen your snow shots of course but that is probably the worst case situation to make visible any vignetting or colour effects of any kind.. Assuming auto exposure, you will typically end up with underexposure there too. That is the 'white' snow rendered mid-toned. When you adjust the exposure in your software any hint of edge problem is made more prominent and a plain white area shows that up worst of all. You would know that some darkening is normal towards the edges/corner (but an asymmetric red edge is not of course).

Consider White Balance variations too. I'm just suggesting that you consider other factors when you judge the extent of any problem.

 

You may like to contact Customer Service and send some samples to them?

These reports of experiences are uneven with some users seeing problems and others (like me) no issues at all. Good luck to you getting everything working well. I hope that you get a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction from your fine equipment.

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[UliWer]

I recently bought an M9 and four lenses. Fantastic camera and great lenses. I am really amazed over the quality I can get from the DNGs processed in LR. After my fist test of the new equipment during a vacation in Lisboa, I was very happy to see that I seemed to have no problems with red edges or any other defects in my pictures from any of the lenses. Pretty much what I expected though since they are brand new coded Leica lenses.

 

However this weekend I went out to capture some winter landscapes in my home country Sweden. It was a blue sky and quite bright sunshine and to my surprise I could now see some red edges mainly on the left side as others have reported. This was the case both with my 35 Summicron and 24 Elmar. My 50 Summicron and 90 Summarit seems to handle the situation better. However I mainly used the 35 and the 24 during that day.

 

Based on some advice here in the forum I was able to fix it quite well in LR using graduated filters which I now have saved as presets. Very annoying though to see this effect in these snow pictures even if I can't really see it in more "normal" scenes. I am not sure what to do now? If I should live with it and fix it in LR or try to get my M9 replaced or maybe hope for a firmware fix?

 

/Regards - Paer

 

Your experience is typical for the red edge effect: it depends very much on the light, the exposure - especially in the corners- and the white balance.

 

I had the worst effects in scenes with artificial light from the top, underexposure of the edges and wide angles lenses (3.8/18mm) already with the M8. The effect for the M9 is different, though not always stronger than for the M8. It is not limited to wide angles, but more obvious with them.

 

In a snow scene you easily run the risk of underexposing the corners of your frame, which results in obvious red shift on a bright background. So the best one can do against it, is avoiding underexposure.

 

Sean Reid has given the advise to use lenses with 50mm or longer without the in-camera lens correction. In his tests - under laboratory conditions - you can see that even lenses with 50 or 75 mm show a very slight "warmness" (i.e. shift to the red) in the edges, which will not be seen normally on your photos but which exists. His assumption that the red edges are a result from the in-camera correction of vignetting and cyan drift (which is applied especially for wide angle lenses) is is the only theory which I have found convincing ever since the issue was discussed.

 

So Leica needs to do some more fine tuning of the lens correction, which seems to be more difficult than they thought, and it may be not very helpful that they are dependant on Jenoptics, who do the electronics for them.

 

In the meanwhile one can try to do something in postprocessing. I tried an example with the 2/28 asph Summicron on the M9:

 

1. Out of camera with obvious red edges:

 

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2. After some corrections of white balance, red channel an vignetting in Capture One version 6:

 

(My corrections are not very subtle, so the edges are much too bright and I got a cyan drift in the center ...)