New Sean Reid Article

[larry]

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What's happening here? At first glance, I thought that we were experiencing some bandwidth leakage from the dpreview Canon forum.

 

Larry

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

[egibaud]

why are some people so agressive here?

 

Has Sean said not to buy Leica?

Has Sean said not to buy non-Leica?

Has Sean insulted anyone here or in his article???

 

For me the article although not finished has helped me see other options, some probably interesting other less interesting. And many people who want to buy an M8 and may not be able to afford Leica only lenses or want to use other lenses they already have can have a good idea of what to expect.

 

But seriously. before shooting at Sean why don't you make a nice article yourself comparing all the lenses he has compared?

 

You are such a great photographer and expert that you could do the same work as Sean with, let's say, 35mm lenses. It would be more useful to all of us that reading how you bark like a dog writing comments that have no serious basis to come to your agressive conclusions....

 

but I'm afraid that with your attitude you are limited to animal photography in the category selfportrait!!

[fotografr]

A Honda will get you from point A to point B just as easily as a Bentley but the ride won't be the same. You buy what you want and I'll buy what I want. No need to justify anything to anyone.

 

If you are my competition, please, by all means, do not buy Leica lenses. In fact, don't buy Leica cameras either. Too expensive. Buy Nikons and Canons, maybe even Fujis and Sigmas. And stick some Tamron glass on them. You'll be doing me a favor.

[sean_reid]

A Honda will get you from point A to point B just as easily as a Bentley but the ride won't be the same. You buy what you want and I'll buy what I want. No need to justify anything to anyone.

 

If you are my competition, please, by all means, do not buy Leica lenses. In fact, don't buy Leica cameras either. Too expensive. Buy Nikons and Canons, maybe even Fujis and Sigmas. And stick some Tamron glass on them. You'll be doing me a favor.

 

Any chance we can get off the lens brand battle train?

 

Sean

[sean_reid]

why are some people so agressive here?

 

Has Sean said not to buy Leica?

Has Sean said not to buy non-Leica?

Has Sean insulted anyone here or in his article???

 

For me the article although not finished has helped me see other options, some probably interesting other less interesting. And many people who want to buy an M8 and may not be able to afford Leica only lenses or want to use other lenses they already have can have a good idea of what to expect.

 

But seriously. before shooting at Sean why don't you make a nice article yourself comparing all the lenses he has compared?

 

You are such a great photographer and expert that you could do the same work as Sean with, let's say, 35mm lenses. It would be more useful to all of us that reading how you bark like a dog writing comments that have no serious basis to come to your agressive conclusions....

 

but I'm afraid that with your attitude you are limited to animal photography in the category selfportrait!!

 

Thanks very much but I don't think anyone has shot at me this time.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[Dan States]

Troll on crazy diamond.

[marknorton]

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So, Sean's results show that while the cyan colouring increases with decreasing focal length, it's also dependent on lens design. Sean, a couple of questions:

 

- Am I right that working aperture doesn't change things very much? If so, this is good news because the correction will not know the working aperture.

 

- Do you have a feel for how the cyan colouring changes with IR filter make or type? Leica will presumably be optimising for use with "their" filters and I'm wondering if the results will be different with other types of filter.

[robsteve]

That approach shows us what effect these lenses can have on effective DR in the actual picture. One can shift the loss to one end or the other. In other words, one can increase exposure with a contrasty lens to bring up the shadow detail but then the highlights will get pushed off the scale.

 

When I first put this idea forward two years ago, some people questioned it. As many R-D1 photographers can now attest, this whole "sunny day" lens argument is real and does make a difference in pictures made in contrasty light. That doesn't mean that everyone will prefer a lower contrast lens for contrasty subject lighting but its interesting, at least, to know about the option.

 

In flatter light, I prefer the more contrasty lenses, esp. the newer Aspherical Leicas.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

 

Sean:

 

Have you tried the highlights and shadows tool in Photoshop to see if the shadow detail on the 28mm Summicron can be brought up in processing. I noticed that Jamie had shown quite a bit of lattitude in bringing up the shadows in one of his posts.

[Jean LeBlanc]

 

- Am I right that working aperture doesn't change things very much? If so, this is good news because the correction will not know the working aperture.

 

There's no reason why it should. The field of view doesn't change with aperture, so the angle at which light contacts the sensor doesn't change with aperture either. Aperture is therefor not a variable.

[Guest guy_mancuso]

I would say it is not a varaible unless the lens already vignets to begin with before you use the filter. Is that what is being asked.

 

BTW folks my 2 55mm IR filters came and i can try a few more experiments with my coded 21mm and my non coded 24mm

 

I have 2 more 55mm coming in the next day or two and I am Fed -X ing one to Sean to get him going on even wider than the 28mm and also Fed X ing one to Chuck Jones in Mexico to get a test target shot for Brian at Raw Developer for Profiles. So There is a lot going on here that some folks don't understand we are trying to get people working and getting answers and fixes to our needs. So Sean being a reviewer is one thing but let's remember he is also in the same boat as the rest of us current users. We need profiles and need to know what lenses are working or not with these filters and what the effects are. Carry on back to testing

[albertwang]

The latest in the series of lens-testing article from Sean Reid is now on-line. My assessment of the article (and my close-held view) is that Leica lenses, while tic better than the competition, may not be worth the price. LeicaNuts will bombard me with their opinions that one line/mm resolution or microcontrast on a test bench means Leica is better, I am sure. But in the real photography world, I have said it makes little difference, and now easy lens testing by the M8, IMHO, proves it. Leica lenses are great, but not worth the $1500 to $2500 addtional price tag (for me) over CV or Zeiss lenses. LeicaNuts, unleash your unjustified anger! Let the games begin! Deny reality and objective lens testing! Sidestep your purchase price! While you grown-up camera nerds will be doing that, I will be take virtually EQUAL pictures with my CV and Zeiss lenses, and I will bet you can't tell the difference! Keep taking the drugs that Leica sends you! Its Leica or nothing! If we build it, LeicaNuts will come! And pay any price for no real-world effective performance difference!

 

Well said, I love my voigtlander lenses

[Zurenborger]

I don't have any VC lenses yet. I ordered a 12 and a 15 recently. Not for digital use however.

 

The 12 and 15 I see as the "fun" range, quite affordable and supposably pretty good.

 

I once used a 28 1.8 is it, I'm not sure but this was a pretty good lens taking the purchase price into account.

[wparsonsgisnet]

I have just finished Sean's 28mm comparison article.

 

I am really sorry that he didn't include the 24/25 lenses with this set -- because I bot the 24mm based on images in his earlier WA review and I would like to see its images again in comparison to the images of the two Leica 28's (ok, and the other lenses, too).

 

I agree with him that it would be nice for Leica to have a manual menu option to input the lens length and turn on the cyan correction. It's clear from the article that different lenses would still behave differently, but it would be a step in the right direction.

 

With regard to corrections for WA lenses, I posted some time ago that it would be really nice to have this correction available in SW (PS, C1, RAW-Dev, and so on). While this would add to the post processing, if the functionality were variable then each of us could profile the lenses we use -- doing exactly what Sean did in the beginning of the review -- and create automated workflow to correct for vignetting and cyan drift.

 

To take a different tack: I believe Leica should be more open in their press releases as regards the M8 and the various "options" they suggest to us. Specifically, when they said that coding of lenses was required to correct some of the problems, it was not clear (at least not to me) that this was really in reference to the cyan shift. I didn't understand the cyan shift problem until I read Sean's M8-part-4 article.

 

I was confused because there was already a lot of crowing in the Leica descriptions of the new M8 that the thin cover glass and the offset microlenses on the sensor both helped with vignetting. So, I didn't understand why coding was also required.

 

I don't mind getting my lenses coded, and am preparing to begin that process. Where I am going with all of this is that I would have preferred to have ALL the information made clear to me, so I could do some up-front coding before the M8 body arrived.

 

I've been using Leica's -- exclusively -- for my photography since 1970. These lenses make the kind of images I prefer. I've continued to upgrade my portfolio of lenses. I'm just the kind of guy Leica wants standing at the counter at the camera dealers.

 

Leica should be more forthcoming. In fact, they should take my advice and ignore all the blather that has come from the nitpickers over the past few weeks and engage in full disclosure so that the regular customers can prepare properly.

[sean_reid]

So, Sean's results show that while the cyan colouring increases with decreasing focal length, it's also dependent on lens design. Sean, a couple of questions:

 

- Am I right that working aperture doesn't change things very much? If so, this is good news because the correction will not know the working aperture.

 

- Do you have a feel for how the cyan colouring changes with IR filter make or type? Leica will presumably be optimising for use with "their" filters and I'm wondering if the results will be different with other types of filter.

 

Hi Mark,

 

These are good questions. Some people have come to some conclusions about these effects based on theory but the reality is more complex. Here are some of the variables:

 

1) Not all lenses that are marked 28 mm show the same FOV

2) Lens contrast has an effect on the prominence of the cyan drift

3) Color saturation relayed by the lens has an effect on the prominence of the cyan drift

4) Vignetting can tend to emphasize the cyan drift

 

Lenses often deliver differing amounts of contrast, saturation and vignetting at different apertures. As such, despite theory to the contrary, the actual appearance of the cyan drift does change somewhat as aperture changes, largely due to these interactive factors. Aperture, in isolation, should not affect cyan drift but when one looks at the whole system, there is an affect.

 

Guy is selling me one of his extra 55 mm 486s (thanks Guy) and that will allow me to test two kinds of filters on the 21s and 24/25s. Leica's filter may well be a bit different from the 486, there's no official word on that yet although I've asked. So there may be some difference seen with the Leica filters or they may behave much like the 486s.

 

I also just did a new round of white wall tests that I'll look at later today.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[sean_reid]

Sean:

 

Have you tried the highlights and shadows tool in Photoshop to see if the shadow detail on the 28mm Summicron can be brought up in processing. I noticed that Jamie had shown quite a bit of lattitude in bringing up the shadows in one of his posts.

 

Hi Rob,

 

I haven't but, as you know, one can usually salvage some shadow detail in post (if desired) but as one does that he or she gets closer to the noise floor. In contrasty light, the higher the macro contrast of the lens, the narrower the effective dynamic range in the final file. One can try to salvage information from either end of the scale (esp, the shadows) but he or she has less information to begin with if the contrast delivered by the lens exceeds that which can be recorded by the camera. The M8 does, however, have a fairly impressive dynamic range.

 

So, in a nutshell, one can try to pull shadow detail from any file but a file that begins with a longer tonal scale gives one more and better data to work with from the start. I was an exhibition printer at one point (silver process) and this was always true of the film I printed as well. *If* one wants detail at both ends of the scale (and thats a big if) nothing beats a long-scale negative (film or digital).

 

As I mentioned in the review, when I first began discussing this idea two years ago, many photographers questioned its validity. Then a lot of them (some on this forum) just tried it and saw for themselves what I was talking about. It somewhat flies in the face of years of advertising and articles that have told us that more lens contrast is always better. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[wparsonsgisnet]

Lenses often deliver differing amounts of contrast, saturation and vignetting at different apertures. As such, despite theory to the contrary, the actual appearance of the cyan drift does change somewhat as aperture changes, ...

 

Sean, I noted in your 28mm review that the degree of cyan was somewhat different at different apertures.

 

This is exactly why I think the correction for the cyan shift and vignetting should be in SW that we can all use during our post processing.

 

Thanks for your very clear and readable reviews.

 

Regards,

[sean_reid]

Well said, I love my voigtlander lenses

 

Hi Albert,

 

I love mine too but I'm hoping the thread can stay on focus and away from the brand battle that started this morning.

 

Best,

 

Sean

 

Thanks to everyone here who have been keeping us on topic and away from a brand war.

[fotografr]

Any chance we can get off the lens brand battle train?

 

Sean

 

It seems to me that was the subject of the thread in the first place when the question was raised whether Leica lenses were worth the price relative to other brands. To me, they are, and I was simply suggesting that I don't mind at all if my competition uses other than Leica glass and cameras. In fact, I prefer it. That has been my attitude for 25 years and I'm not about to change it now.

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[Guest stnami]

At this stage it seems that the the M8 /lens relationship with output leaves a bit to be desired. .... straw clutching if you think you can use a lens to its optimum capacity

[sean_reid]

I have just finished Sean's 28mm comparison article.

 

I am really sorry that he didn't include the 24/25 lenses with this set -- because I bot the 24mm based on images in his earlier WA review and I would like to see its images again in comparison to the images of the two Leica 28's (ok, and the other lenses, too).

 

I agree with him that it would be nice for Leica to have a manual menu option to input the lens length and turn on the cyan correction. It's clear from the article that different lenses would still behave differently, but it would be a step in the right direction.

 

With regard to corrections for WA lenses, I posted some time ago that it would be really nice to have this correction available in SW (PS, C1, RAW-Dev, and so on). While this would add to the post processing, if the functionality were variable then each of us could profile the lenses we use -- doing exactly what Sean did in the beginning of the review -- and create automated workflow to correct for vignetting and cyan drift.

 

To take a different tack: I believe Leica should be more open in their press releases as regards the M8 and the various "options" they suggest to us. Specifically, when they said that coding of lenses was required to correct some of the problems, it was not clear (at least not to me) that this was really in reference to the cyan shift. I didn't understand the cyan shift problem until I read Sean's M8-part-4 article.

 

I was confused because there was already a lot of crowing in the Leica descriptions of the new M8 that the thin cover glass and the offset microlenses on the sensor both helped with vignetting. So, I didn't understand why coding was also required.

 

I don't mind getting my lenses coded, and am preparing to begin that process. Where I am going with all of this is that I would have preferred to have ALL the information made clear to me, so I could do some up-front coding before the M8 body arrived.

 

I've been using Leica's -- exclusively -- for my photography since 1970. These lenses make the kind of images I prefer. I've continued to upgrade my portfolio of lenses. I'm just the kind of guy Leica wants standing at the counter at the camera dealers.

 

Leica should be more forthcoming. In fact, they should take my advice and ignore all the blather that has come from the nitpickers over the past few weeks and engage in full disclosure so that the regular customers can prepare properly.

 

Hi Bill,

 

The 24s and 25s will be their own article (still finish up the 28s right now) as will the other focal lengths. The idea of having the cyan drift correction in a RAW plug in might be very useful so long as one could remember what lens he used for each picture. That's the one catch.

 

Best,

 

Sean