M9 Firmware Update - When and what may we expect?

[mby]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

(...) Personally I use Aperture (...)

 

Me too but I'm not too excited by the standard results of its RAW engine...; any specific settings you prefer for your M9?

 

Thanks for your kind help!

 

Best regards,

Michael

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[Jamie Roberts]

{snipped} Or are you saying that the M9's IR contamination is so much less that the effect on other colours (eg, true magenta) would be minimal? If so, I'm still rather puzzled, because in the shots I made the black was just as magenta as it would've been with an un-filtered M8.

 

Yes, the M9's IR contamination is so much less than the M8s, and seems to be within a normal range of responses from dSLRs out there, that any affect on neutrals--when the camera is properly profiled, of course--would be minimal. Not non-existent, but not important for printing or viewing.

 

That over saturation / magenta spiking of the RAW converter, which looks so much like the initial M8 response, would be shocking, for sure... but then I saw M9 shots come out with downright purple (not just red) skin tones and knew that something was really wrong there.

 

As Jono rightly said, subsequent releases of RAW converters have been so much improved from the initial state when the M9 was released that it's a night and day difference.

 

To me, the M8 is a totally different kettle of fish; I'm not saying you can profile out IR contamination. So I simply use the filters on the M8 all the time... there's no getting around the colour shifting with that camera, except by using the filters.

[jonoslack]

Me too but I'm not too excited by the standard results of its RAW engine...; any specific settings you prefer for your M9?

 

Thanks for your kind help!

 

Best regards,

Michael

 

Hi Michael

I spent a lot of time working on it - and I agree that they aren't perfect (hopefully Aperture X is a reality, and it appears before Christmas). I still like them better than the LR3 files though, even though the colour calibration for the red isn't quite right (pink reds).

 

After lots of complicated ideas (which worked for some shots but not for others), I've made a camera default with only two changes:

 

1. increase the red hue toward yellow by 10%

2. reduce the 'boost' figure to 50%

 

This actually improves things quite a lot. I also have a couple of colour presets for red which I use at higher ISO:

 

hue +10

saturation +1

luminance -10

 

and another gentler one

 

which seems to improve the reds at high ISO - but the most important thing here is to get the white balance right in the first place. I have a camera profile called 'kitchen' which includes a manual white balance set in the disgusting mixed lighting in our kitchen. It actually seems to work quite well in most situations, so I use that in desperate circumstances in low light.

[Guest EarlBurrellPhoto]

Yes, the M9's IR contamination is so much less than the M8s, and seems to be within a normal range of responses from dSLRs out there,that any affect on neutrals--when the camera is properly profiled, of course--would be minimal. Not non-existent, but not important for printing or viewing.

 

The latter is a matter of client's standards If the client is happy, I'm happy. I'm not a primadonna, believe me. In my Canons (last 2 generations) IR contamination is nonexistent.

 

 

That over saturation / magenta spiking of the RAW converter, which looks so much like the initial M8 response, would be shocking, for sure... but then I saw M9 shots come out with downright purple (not just red) skin tones and knew that something was really wrong there.

 

Skin tones were fine in my M9 shots. So were all other colours, including true magenta. Only the blacks were tinged with magenta.

 

As Jono rightly said, subsequent releases of RAW converters have been so much improved from the initial state when the M9 was released that it's a night and day difference.

 

Given that other colours were ok, I can't see where the converter was at fault. My colleague had, according to him, spent great effort tweaking the profile beforehand, so what I used was not the original profile you speak of. (BTW he sold his M9 to a non-photographer recently, and has gone back to the M8 with filters. He too was disillusioned by the M9's IR sensitivity, and also the poor performance of the 12mm and 15mm lenses he specifically bought the M9 to take advantage of. Running all those files through Cornerfix was as uneconomical to him as to me.)

 

To me, the M8 is a totally different kettle of fish; I'm not saying you can profile out IR contamination. So I simply use the filters on the M8 all the time... there's no getting around the colour shifting with that camera, except by using the filters.

 

But with the filters it works a trick. As does the M9 BTW. He and I both agreed that if the M9 had firmware to correct the cyan drift from front filters, it would completely solve the issue.

[mby]

Thanks Jono, will give it a try (and keep my fingers crossed for Aperture X, to)!

 

Best regards,

Michael

[Jamie Roberts]

{snipped}

Given that other colours were ok, I can't see where the converter was at fault. My colleague had, according to him, spent great effort tweaking the profile beforehand, so what I used was not the original profile you speak of. (BTW he sold his M9 to a non-photographer recently, and has gone back to the M8 with filters. He too was disillusioned by the M9's IR sensitivity, and also the poor performance of the 12mm and 15mm lenses he specifically bought the M9 to take advantage of. Running all those files through Cornerfix was as uneconomical to him as to me.)

{snipped}.

 

But there's a *range* of ok-ness in colours, and all I'm saying is, really, that the RAW converters are only now getting to understand the M9 as the M9, and not just some uber-M8. So while the other colours may have looked alright, they weren't "right" in relation to other colours (which is, of course, what proper profiling does for you).

 

As for "great effort tweaking the profile in LR beforehand" you can't really do that without truly skewing other colours because at the time LR simply didn't support the M9's color palette. The newest Beta evidently does: it has the truest color from a Leica camera I've ever seen out of any Adobe product.

 

It's true that when the M9 was announced I saw some perfectly great ways of getting rid of the oversaturated magenta in the M9 from LR, but they all really came down to torquing all the other colours, like making all reds orange, which is unacceptable to me.

 

Same thing goes for skin tones in tough light. While they may have matched the Canon's, all I'm saying is that they would have been even better had the camera been properly supported (and you'd be surprised how overly magenta a lot of Canon files really are with Caucasian skin... or maybe not--depends on how long you've used Canon stuff).

 

In any event, I'm sorry you didn't keep the files. Without them, it's going to be impossible to judge in the final analysis. But I'm looking forward to getting an M9 and putting it through its paces. What I've seen so far is very promising.

 

As an aside, for the CV12s and 15s on the M9, I completely understand why one might not want to use them right now (or at all full-width). I do think Leica is still fine-tuning their full-frame lens algorithms in firmware (for red-shift, etc...) but I don't know if they will ever provide a correction for a 12mm FOV they don't make....

 

Speaking personally, ultrawides on the M are not why I'd use an M9 anyway, any more than I'd use it for telephoto work. 21mm to 50mm would by my main range, so it's just not an issue to me.