Do you get better pictures from your M9 than you did from your M8?

[stunsworth]

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IAnswer ...Obviously not currently!

 

There's nothing to stop someone creating their own profile for the M9, Adobe supplies the tools for free, all that's required is a colour checker card.

 

If I'm wrong - and it won't be for the first or last time - then I'm happy to be corrected.

[tjphoto]

Can the M9 files be processed with Aperture?

I use it for all my digital cameras and i

like it. A lot!

Thanks,

Tim

[adan]

Top: M9 skin tones under blue dusk lighting (now profiled in ACR)

Bottom: M8 skin tones (IR filtered) under blue dusk lighting (profiled in ACR)

 

And the M9 is worse - how?

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[epand56]

so, only a matter of timing on decision...

 

And money, for me...

[Guest BigSplash]

Top: M9 skin tones under blue dusk lighting (now profiled in ACR)

Bottom: M8 skin tones (IR filtered) under blue dusk lighting (profiled in ACR)

 

And the M9 is worse - how?

 

I am not sure that these images (although excellent as great shots) are showing what is critical in the magenta debate.

 

• The M8 image has the ladies skirt with a range of colours and large areas of Black that are indeed black and with detail amongst the black
  
• The M9 image has two areas of black hair (no detail within that black area on my monitor at least) and what I see as Black on the sides of the boat....Critically speaking is that due to compressing the dynamic colour range?
  

I agree that the M9 shots do not show magenta tint and hopefully that is indicative that the plug in has fixed the issue......but has that constrained the dynamic colour range?

 

Please take these comments as observations from an amateur, hopefully objective observer . I have no professional experience in a world that is expecting a Leica image to be displayed on calibrated monitors etc etc. and several pros have posted here that they are not getting the results yet that they would expect from a Leica

[stunsworth]

I agree that the M9 shots do not show magenta tint and hopefully that is indicative that the plug in has fixed the issue......

 

What plugin? As far as I'm aware there's no reliable post processing way of removing the magenta tint caused by IR contamination.

[adan]

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Steve - I expect he means the profile in Adobe Camera Raw, which is a "plug-in" of sorts for Photoshop.

 

Obviously, I'm no substitute for Avedon or the Kodak "Shirley" - but here is an M9 studio-flash self-portrait. No color adjustments from what came out of the camera except white balance and color neutral adjustments for brightness, contrast, etc. And a profile based on the ColorChecker, rather than the default embedded M9 profile (which DOES produce pinker skin).

 

75 Summilux, ISO 200

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[wlaidlaw]

Steve - I expect he means the profile in Adobe Camera Raw, which is a "plug-in" of sorts for Photoshop.

 

Obviously, I'm no substitute for Avedon or the Kodak "Shirley" - but here is an M9 studio-flash self-portrait. No color adjustments from what came out of the camera except white balance and color neutral adjustments for brightness, contrast, etc. And a profile based on the ColorChecker, rather than the default embedded M9 profile (which DOES produce pinker skin).

 

75 Summilux, ISO 200

 

Andy,

 

What a fine figure of a man!

 

On a serious note, do you find the mini colour checker is good enough. Somehow my bigger checker got lost/thrown out by accident about two years ago. There is quite a difference in price between the mini checker and the standard one. The big 140 patch SG chart is now over £200.

 

Wilson

[adan]

It gets the job done, at least relative to the larger but otherwise identical version. There are times when the larger one would be useful, as in including it in shots of large works of art where the small one can get rather tiny in the frame. But the small one fits in an M-sized camera bag.

 

Lost my big one when I left it out and the snows came. It curled up like a dead thing once wet.

[redbaron]

What's all the fuss about? Maybe I'm missing something, but when I was shooting digital colour the colour balance for every shot was set in post processing. Lightroom makes it easy to match the balance for an entire batch of images. Just sample a neutral tone and paste the settings across a group of images. This necessity isn't peculiar to the M9. Every digital camera requires this. It just means all parts of the system must be calibrated to the same colour space. Adobe RGB 1998 is most of my editor's choice. The others don't have one, they want RAW.

 

Of course, if you use jpegs in an un-calibrated system you'll have issues. But who spends AUD$10,000 to shoot jpegs?

[Guest BigSplash]

Steve - I expect he means the profile in Adobe Camera Raw, which is a "plug-in" of sorts for Photoshop.

 

Obviously, I'm no substitute for Avedon or the Kodak "Shirley" - but here is an M9 studio-flash self-portrait. No color adjustments from what came out of the camera except white balance and color neutral adjustments for brightness, contrast, etc. And a profile based on the ColorChecker, rather than the default embedded M9 profile (which DOES produce pinker skin).

 

75 Summilux, ISO 200

Andy ...in my view this is an excellent photograph, the subject included.....I see excellent detail, full colour range, and NO MAGENTA TINT.....

 

I am wondering if the profile you have used based on ColorChecker is effectively correcting for the magenta tint seen on so many other images....I also wonder if in other images a poor white balance is playing a part ?

 

Certainly your photo blows apart and comment about magenta tint!

[adan]

The short answer is: Yes, all the M9 needs to avoid pink skin tones is a better profile than the one that is "embedded" in the .DNG files, or provided thus far by Adobe products (I can't speak for C1 or Apple Aperture). Good white balance is necessary, but not sufficient, to getting the best color out of any digital camera.

 

The medium or long answers probably deserve their own thread. But it is almost magic to take a straight-from-the-camera-image (any digital camera - I've had 6 and they all needed personal profiles for best color), set the white balance, look at the still slightly screwy colors, and then apply that camera's profile and watch all the colors "snap" to their correct hues.

[Guest PhotoWebb.co.uk]

Funnily enough somebody hit the nail on the head for me.

 

The M8 was my first Leica and my first M. I've been using it for a couple of years now and have gradually got to a stage where I have a camera and two lens kit that work really well for me (35 Summicron ASPH and 75 Summarit).

 

If I traded up to an M9 I'd have to get myself a 50mm and 90mm lens to get the same field of view - essentially starting over.

 

It's difficult for me to justify starting again unless the image quality is truly staggeringly better than what I can get with the M8. I suspect there are many other photographers out there who feel the same way.

 

I've decided to get myself an 18mm Super Elmar instead of upgrading the camera - perhaps a black M8.2 is on my horizon though....

 

Daniel

[Guest BigSplash]

Funnily enough somebody hit the nail on the head for me.

 

The M8 was my first Leica and my first M. I've been using it for a couple of years now and have gradually got to a stage where I have a camera and two lens kit that work really well for me (35 Summicron ASPH and 75 Summarit).

 

If I traded up to an M9 I'd have to get myself a 50mm and 90mm lens to get the same field of view - essentially starting over.

 

It's difficult for me to justify starting again unless the image quality is truly staggeringly better than what I can get with the M8. I suspect there are many other photographers out there who feel the same way.

 

I've decided to get myself an 18mm Super Elmar instead of upgrading the camera - perhaps a black M8.2 is on my horizon though....

 

Daniel

 

I am one of the "many other photographers" I agee with your thought process. I also plan to get the 18mm but cannot see the point of a M8.2.

 

I shall await the M9 or M10 as I am personally of the opinion that it will be announced end of 2010, and available in 2011. My view is that Leica will in that camera use a more recent technology sensor, will include the Fujitsu Maestro chip set or a derivative of this (as used on S2), upgrade the firmware, and will hopefully shave a few mm of the camera size to approach M7. All of that makes sense to me as the next generation and would offer a camera that offers significantly more than my M8. I will have a 18mm to use on it and meanwhile if I need Full Frame I have my M6.

 

I believe that so many people have fallen in love with M9 due to Full Frame and I can understand that however given the price difference v the M8 and little else ......

[Guest BigSplash]

The short answer is: Yes, all the M9 needs to avoid pink skin tones is a better profile than the one that is "embedded" in the .DNG files, or provided thus far by Adobe products (I can't speak for C1 or Apple Aperture). Good white balance is necessary, but not sufficient, to getting the best color out of any digital camera.

 

The medium or long answers probably deserve their own thread. But it is almost magic to take a straight-from-the-camera-image (any digital camera - I've had 6 and they all needed personal profiles for best color), set the white balance, look at the still slightly screwy colors, and then apply that camera's profile and watch all the colors "snap" to their correct hues.

 

I am in the software business and have managed large software devt teams. Given that background and seeing what you Andy have achieved by tweaking the profiles I am very surprised that Adobe with Leica help have not released suitable profiles.

 

Maybe I am wrong but surely it is a matter of taking a white card, grey card, and red, blue, green, yellow, skin tone etc cards and then using the M9 taking a series of images. The next steps I imagine are:

• Show each image on a calibrated screen
  
• Analysing each screen image with a callibrated meter
  
• Make adjustments to a standard profile such that it corrects the Leica M9 image to yield a perfect result
  
• Capture the Profile built as per above.
  
• Take a bunch of images using the profile in different situations to test for accuracy.
  

If I am correct then how can it take so long....If I am wrong I'd really like to understand what I am missing and learn. Thanks for ny visibility. Meanwhile Andy you seem to have built a great profile for your own usage. ....I also believe that Chris Tribble has achieved a similar level of high quality result.

 

Amasing that Adobe with Leica has not managed it yet!

[carstenw]

There is a huge difference between creating a better profile for one situation, one photo or one camera, and creating a profile which is an overall improvement for all cameras. Even the best profiles posted here so far are not better all the time, that I have seen. Don't be so quick to trivialize the task Leica has to improve things. I am sure that they are working on it, and will post it when they are ready, as they did with the M8.

[redbaron]

Quick Frank, send this to Leica and Adobe! They obviously have no idea what they're doing.

[Guest BigSplash]

Quick Frank, send this to Leica and Adobe! They obviously have no idea what they're doing.

Obviously neither do you.....! Otherwise you would be articulating specifics.

 

I have postulated a methodology of how I would do it, and then asked what is the flaw in that approach, I ask what am I missing? . Your reply is that Leica know what they are doing! Great, thanks a bunch...

 

FYI Carsten has a more meaningful feedback he says: " do no trivialise the task, and that "profiles may be different in different situations"

I certainly do not wish to trivialise any task but at the same time I would like to learn what are the barriers to achieve a plug in (profile) for Adobe ...especialy when both Andy Piper and Chris seem to have built their own profiles already that work very well in their images with the M9 at least in their specific situations.

 

However if a profile ideally varies from situation to situation then I guess many different profiles for a M9 will be required or a generic profile that is a compromise?

[redbaron]

Isn't colour balancing part of the workflow for every shot?

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[Marty]

Exactly. And not only that, but does the profiled result really represent your artistic intention?