M8 Detail,Dynamic Range and Color

[Guest guy_mancuso]

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Just a couple more

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[woodyspedden]

Hi Uwe nice to see you here . No that is the DMR and the 80 lux lens, great combo

 

Uwe

 

Since returning from the Digital Printing Summit I have spent considerable time with Lightzone. I find there is much to like about the product. However Fabbio needs to provide support for the DMR and the M8 and have a plan to provide CA lens adjustments.

 

Please plead with Fabbio to provide such features as it would give us a really neat Raw Converter.

 

Really enjoyed the Summit and looking forward to next year in Zion

 

Cheers

 

Woody Spedden

AKA "Liecaman"

[Jamie Roberts]

Uwe

 

Since returning from the Digital Printing Summit I have spent considerable time with Lightzone. I find there is much to like about the product. However Fabbio needs to provide support for the DMR and the M8... {snipped}"

 

Woody--

 

LightZone 2 already supports the DMR and M8, doesn't it? I mean, I'm using it with the M8 now.

 

I still like C1, but I have to say LightZone intrigues me. I just wish the darn thing had a curves control. Sometimes I don't want to have to move a bunch of "zones" just to lighten a midtone; I hate not being able to quickly set blackpoint and whitepoint...

 

For those who haven't tried it, Lightzone is very cool--it lets you make selections like Photoshop and every action you take in your file is layered (like in PS) with full layer overlay operations (like mulitply and soft light, for example).

 

You can save your "stack" as a template and apply the template to lots of shots, but the workflow isn't really geared for processing, say, 1000 images the way C1 is...

 

But it's cool!

 

Here are two M8 shots processed with Lightzone 2, where I've made multiple selections and mostly pushed and pulled the exposure in different places. The m8 file lets you do this easily!

 

The colours seem a wee bit off to me (not much though). These shots were balanced with gray card.

 

The second shot is just a little bit soft, but that's my fault and doesn't reflect on the M8 or (of course) the lenses.. It's still good to print, but not too large.

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[Micha67]

They are 100 percent crops. i blow them up on screen to 100 percent than crop out a 900 pixel wide section to post. Scary stuff. i do have some from the golf tourney that i got off before the M8 died. i have a dead duck on my hands. i posted a thread about it, bummed

That is really bad luck. Hope you will get a replacement soon.

 

Concerning the crops, I am a little bit confused. Assuming that the original picture has been downsized to 900 pixels, the crop is an about 2.75-fold magnification and has again 900 pixels in width. Thus, the overall pixel size of the original would be about 900 x 2.75 = 2475 pixels. Where is my mistake? Has the original picture already been cropped? Did you shoot the M8 at lower resolution (e.g. 2952 x 1972)?

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Michael they are not downsized. All I am doing is taking a 900 pixel wide section from 100 percent viewing. 900 because that is as big as I can post. I shoot raw

[nachkebia]

Absolutly awfull, sorry but I am happy everytime I see how awfull digital is, nothing againts pictures itself, colors and textures are awfull...

[Guest guy_mancuso]

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Very strange comment, why would you not want digital to look good. Also we are in need of new profiles which has been said all along.

[Riley]

Absolutly awfull, sorry but I am happy everytime I see how awfull digital is, nothing againts pictures itself, colors and textures are awfull...

 

sorta oversaturated for my tastes, but i figure Guy knows what hes doing

i see other qualities too, like the glass reflections at right in the shot of Bldg 55

i really like that, but i cant verbalise what it is

 

Riley

[kevin m]

I think what Vladimer is trying to say is that digital shooters sometimes get so lost in their pixel-peeping that they forget to step back and look at the big picture.

 

Jamie, those shots and Guy's show amazing resolution and clarity, but to a film shooter, they still look a bit lifeless and, well, digital on the screen. I wouldn't dream of trying to make a 30x40 print from my 35mm negs, and that's an amazing accomplishment for the M8. But OTOH, I would never accept the skin tones and generally flat look I see in the images on these pages, either.

 

I have yet to see it, so I'll keep asking: Is there anythingg you very experienced digital shooters can do to get skin tones like those in my attached image with digital capture?

 

Again, it's just an Fuji Pro 400 snapshot with minimal post-processing.

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[Guest guy_mancuso]

Part of it Kevin is the soft light and the other issue is the color right now. It's off and right now any adjustment we make is global. I think I said this awhile back we need to tame the beast becuase it does have everything going for it but the color and smoothness is still a work in progress. The shots of my son awhile back at least gave me the nice light but Leica in digital is warm tone and i think your looking for more of a cool tone like the image of the little girl . maybe that is part of it also is you may like the cooler tones, i come from that Kodachrome warm tone world. I think after some profiles are made and we don't have the cast from the IR filter we can get this better under control. Right now it is varying a lot and really not easy to control

[nachkebia]

Excellent image, with excellent tonality!

 

I think what Vladimer is trying to say is that digital shooters sometimes get so lost in their pixel-peeping that they forget to step back and look at the big picture.

 

Jamie, those shots and Guy's show amazing resolution and clarity, but to a film shooter, they still look a bit lifeless and, well, digital on the screen. I wouldn't dream of trying to make a 30x40 print from my 35mm negs, and that's an amazing accomplishment for the M8. But OTOH, I would never accept the skin tones and generally flat look I see in the images on these pages, either.

 

I have yet to see it, so I'll keep asking: Is there anythingg you very experienced digital shooters can do to get skin tones like those in my attached image with digital capture?

 

Again, it's just an Fuji Pro 400 snapshot with minimal post-processing.

[Jamie Roberts]

{snipped}Jamie, those shots and Guy's show amazing resolution and clarity, but to a film shooter, they still look a bit lifeless and, well, digital on the screen. {snipped}.

 

Kevin, I'm sorry, this is getting old fast.You're welcome to your opinion, and your lab's interpretation, of course.

 

I am--or was--a film shooter, and have logged thousands of hours in the darkroom with many different films. I've also done my own printing--archival and throwaway--for many years.

 

To be blunt, I have hundreds--if not thousands--of prints from digital sources that have better tonality and color than what you are generally posting as exemplary film images, IMO. I resent your implication we don't look at the big picture.

 

And I'm not sure what part of "the color is off here" you don't get. I wasn't posting those shots from LightZone to be subtle either; they don't have film tonality--I didn't want them to, actually. I posted because this is not a "film is better than digital thread" it's a thread talking about processing the M8 for dynamic range and colour.

 

LightZone is the first RAW converter that lets you, say, vignette and play with selective exposure, white balance and so on. It's like the way I could dodge and burn a print, but it's also like having different developers for different parts of the frame.

 

So those last ones were not posted to look like film. FWIW, I don't ever judge anything on the screen, except processing options.

 

But the other thing here is I'm getting quite sick of this debate. You want to shoot film? I'm glad it makes you happy, because you know what? I have no idea how you profile your monitor or if it's the same or different than mine. I don't know how you print or judge things. Heck--we might be arguing over monitor drift, here on the net.

 

In Marc's high contrast stuff, and elsewhere, I see the signature of film. In the stuff you're posting, I honestly don't see anything I can't do with a 5D.

 

And I'm not trying to sound surly here either I just am not getting what you're needing to see...

[ustein]

Woody wrote:

 

>However Fabbio needs to provide support for the DMR and the M8 and have a plan to provide CA lens adjustments.

 

Strange my version of LZ supports the DMR and M8 DNGs.

 

Not sure that what you see on the M8 is always CA. It is purple fringing (means bleeding from overexposed area into the other pixels.

 

Uwe

[reven]

Same here at @ sorry, but some of the shots you posted are really nothing special. I mean if you want that look you can do it. in PS. It s just a question of taste.

[carstenw]

I think what Vladimer is trying to say is that digital shooters sometimes get so lost in their pixel-peeping that they forget to step back and look at the big picture.

 

Jamie, those shots and Guy's show amazing resolution and clarity, but to a film shooter, they still look a bit lifeless and, well, digital on the screen. I wouldn't dream of trying to make a 30x40 print from my 35mm negs, and that's an amazing accomplishment for the M8. But OTOH, I would never accept the skin tones and generally flat look I see in the images on these pages, either.

 

I have yet to see it, so I'll keep asking: Is there anythingg you very experienced digital shooters can do to get skin tones like those in my attached image with digital capture?

 

Again, it's just an Fuji Pro 400 snapshot with minimal post-processing.

 

Well, here is a 5D shot, since I don't have my Leica M8 back yet. The pictures are sufficiently similar (within the limitations of the size and format you have posted) to compare. To my eyes (the girl is gorgeous by the way), the colour and detail in your picture look flat, whereas in mine they look alive. The skin on your girl looks more plastic, whereas on mine you can see the inner warmth in the skin. There is an incredible subtlety of tone and detail in this digital image, which your film image completely misses. IMO.

 

In my mind, the superiority of film has long ceased to hold for colour film. Cameras like the DMR get colour as good as Kodachrome out of the box. And that, to me, *is* the big picture, of which you speak.

 

I have taken the liberty of reposting your picture so that the two may be viewed side-by-side.

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[Guest guy_mancuso]

Frankly i much prefer the look of Carsten by a mile. i like warm tone images and the file looks extremely smooth and well balanced. I have to admit this film debate is getting old also. i don't care what film looks like , have not shot it in 12 years and won't shoot it until they close the lid on me, it is not what i do for money or pleasure. If someone wants to continue to shoot film and not try to make digital there working style than that is up to them. this thread is about detail, color and how we can get our files and profiles in order. That is why i started it. the camera works ( at least for some) but now as i and others have worked with IR filters and profiling and got the hardware stuff out of the way it is time to move on what it takes to get the files looking good. I basically have been doing a DMR monster thread in broken pieces the Cut fillters the ISO 1250 stuff so as we progress and new owners get on board they can refer to this and Seans , Carstons, Mikes, Howards, Jamies and others and start picking them apart to get the info needed to get going. There are lots of folks sitting here learning and enjoying the great info being brought to the table and all of us beta boys know that and reason we are going through the efforts for ourselves and for others . Frankly you can't buy this knowledge . So if film is your thing than i would suggest going to the film forum and talk to other film shooters but 99 percent of digital shooters simple don't care about film anymore. Maybe a high number but the point is made

[rvaubel]

................... So if film is your thing than i would suggest going to the film forum and talk to other film shooters but 99 percent of digital shooters simple don't care about film anymore................

 

Guy

 

I agree that this forum is an innappropriate place to discuss the digital vs film thing ad nausum. Although I still shoot some film it is for purely tactile reasons. I have the luxury of having anough space for a full darkroom and once and a while it's fun to develop a couple rolls of film and make some fiber prints the old fashioned way. Frankly, if you are going analog in the capture media (film) I don't understand the rational for scanning the results to digital and contaminating the analog process. A wet print does have an emotional satisfaction that is different than what one gets in a purely digital mode but to say its better is a bit of a stretch. Anyway, if I was doing this for a living, I wouldn't consider film for an instant.

 

Rex

[kevin m]

To Jamie, Guy and everyone else I'd like to say I've intend no insult or disrespect with what I've been saying here. I appreciate that you're trying to work things out with your M8's in this thread, and I admire your tenacity and creativity in doing so. You guys are obviously knowledgeable, diligent craftsmen well versed in the nuts and bolts of image making.

 

But you were the ones claiming that some of the M8 images posted here look like film, and I'm simply responding to that claim and disagreeing. I have no interest in derailing the good work you're doing here into some generic 'film vs. digital' debate either, as I agree that the subject is pointless.

 

(Jamie, FWIW I certainly made no claim that the film examples I've posted in this thread are "exemplary" in any way. Quite the opposite. I labeled them all as "snapshots" because that's what they all were.)

 

I am grateful that the discussion has continued this long without getting ugly. Thank you, gents, for your thoughtful replies.

[jrc]

The shots of both little girls look pretty good. They're nice shots. You can both be proud. I really don't think this argument has much to do with cameras any more, but has more to do with taste.

 

The discussion of the M8's qualities vs. anything else isn't what we're doing in this thread. What we're doing is, we're trying to figure out HOW to use the M8. For almost all of us, the question of WHETHER to use it has already been settled. We're using it. For us, the film vs. digital question has been settled.

 

JC

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[woodyspedden]

Kevin, I'm sorry, this is getting old fast.You're welcome to your opinion, and your lab's interpretation, of course.

 

I am--or was--a film shooter, and have logged thousands of hours in the darkroom with many different films. I've also done my own printing--archival and throwaway--for many years.

 

To be blunt, I have hundreds--if not thousands--of prints from digital sources that have better tonality and color than what you are generally posting as exemplary film images, IMO. I resent your implication we don't look at the big picture.

 

And I'm not sure what part of "the color is off here" you don't get. I wasn't posting those shots from LightZone to be subtle either; they don't have film tonality--I didn't want them to, actually. I posted because this is not a "film is better than digital thread" it's a thread talking about processing the M8 for dynamic range and colour.

 

LightZone is the first RAW converter that lets you, say, vignette and play with selective exposure, white balance and so on. It's like the way I could dodge and burn a print, but it's also like having different developers for different parts of the frame.

 

So those last ones were not posted to look like film. FWIW, I don't ever judge anything on the screen, except processing options.

 

But the other thing here is I'm getting quite sick of this debate. You want to shoot film? I'm glad it makes you happy, because you know what? I have no idea how you profile your monitor or if it's the same or different than mine. I don't know how you print or judge things. Heck--we might be arguing over monitor drift, here on the net.

 

In Marc's high contrast stuff, and elsewhere, I see the signature of film. In the stuff you're posting, I honestly don't see anything I can't do with a 5D.

 

And I'm not trying to sound surly here either I just am not getting what you're needing to see...

 

Jamie

 

While Lightzone "supports" DNG gemerally they have no specific tone curves for either DMR nor M8. If you look on their site at supported cameras you will find no Leicas.

 

My reason for asking Uwe to intervene with Fsbbio is that I really like Lightzone and think it is heading in the right direction fpr raw conversions.

 

Woody