arthury Posted November 19, 2009 Share #1 Posted November 19, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) ChromaSoft: Vignetting Correction Issues on the Leica M9 ChromaSoft: Vignetting Correction Issues on the Leica M9 Part II So, my question are these did the QA Dept in Solms pick this up when they were testing the M9? does Leica needs to wait for a third party outside the company to show them what's wrong? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted November 19, 2009 Posted November 19, 2009 Hi arthury, Take a look here QA Dept did not pick this up?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
JMacD Posted November 19, 2009 Share #2 Posted November 19, 2009 Ah, you have been reading TOP tonight. It's been reported here for awhile. such as http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m9-forum/103223-good-news-m9-cv12-cornerfix.html Problem is especially noticeable on non Leica super wides, which Leica QA probably did not test. I would be surprised if Lecia wasn't aware of the problem before release as this is easier to spot than the magenta problem of the M8. Glad it can be fixed so easily, and that means a firmware update can too. Have you tested your kit to see how bad this is for you yet? I've been shooting mainly B&W on a 35mm 1.4 so I have seen no problem. I guess I am going to have to shoot my WATE at a grey card tomorrow morning. I have already downloaded cornerfix. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
barjohn Posted November 19, 2009 Share #3 Posted November 19, 2009 Even better, why doesn't Leica acquire the rights to corner fix and build it in as its lens correction. It seems to do a far better job than Leica's own software. This doesn't surprise me as I have yet to be impressed with their software development abilities. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
adan Posted November 19, 2009 Share #4 Posted November 19, 2009 1. is probably not something anyone here on the forum would know, except maybe those with connections inside Leica. Sean Reid, maybe. I would say that the fact Leica "missed" the magenta/IR effects in the M8 is a similar situation. Did they see it and figure it was minor? Did they figure, after the M8, that most people would prefer a red shift to cyan shifts? Or did they just not see it at all? It might be a production bug (sensors getting installed off-center, or microlens layers being installed off-center at Kodak) that just didn't exist in the pre-production/beta cameras where the testing was done. The demo camera that I used 9/9/09 showed less(no) red-left effect compared to my production M9 with the exact same Leica 21, so obviously there are some camera-to-camera differences. I could be wrong, but I suspect Leica does not put every one of their 21 current M lenses on each production M9 body to shoot white walls and check for imperfect corrections. Maybe they should, at least with the 16-28 focal lengths, or a subset that would reveal any production anomalies. 2. probably, yes. To borrow from Don Rumsfeld: "There are things you know that you know, and things you know that you don't know - but what always gets you are the things you don't know you don't know." You can test for 1000 things, but the marketplace will always find the 1001st bug you didn't test for. Ask Canon about continuous tracking AF in the 1DMkiii - or Adobe about Flashplayer 10 - or Microsoft about, well, anything. I would guess that Leica is well aware of the red-left issue at this point. The next question is - do they know the source of the problem? Sensor positioning? Sensor QC? Firmware? Even Sandy is uncertain what the core cause is (he lists the same possibilities that I do - and there may be others). Once they track down exactly what is happening, then they can develop a fix. It may, if we're lucky, just be a bug in the corrections written into the firmware (maybe Leica's in-house 18mm lens is badly centered, and threw off their testing and correction-writing). If it is a production issue, then firmware is not a good way to fix it, since not all cameras will have the production problem. It'll require a recall for new sensors, or remounting the existing sensors more accurately. I would imagine Leica is building a "punch list" of things that need fixing, either in firmware, or in terms of physical repairs. Sensor lines (centered), sensor lines (right edge), red-left corners, occasional lockups, etc. It doesn't make sense to issue 7 different firmware fixes (or have cameras sent in 7 different times) to make changes - better to wait and make sure you have all the issues identified, and then fix it all at once. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mby Posted November 19, 2009 Share #5 Posted November 19, 2009 Word from Leica at the Leica Erlebnistage last weekend was that they are working on a new firmware and the current focus there is the magenta cast problem. Best regards, Michael Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted November 19, 2009 Share #6 Posted November 19, 2009 About the "de-centering issue" there is a phrase I took note of in the ChromaSoft article : "every M9 image I've analyzed regardless of lens shows it" That's a bit worrying... "random" decentering of lens' assembly could be understandable (but there is the question of the "18 - red on LEFT"), but if it is not tied to lenses is a question of body/sensor assembly... the article does not specify if it is always at the same side or random... I would like to know some more detail on this... About Barjohn suggestion of Leica "embedding" Cornerfix into a M firmware...well I think it's hardly feasible, and not only for a question of intellectual rights to buy... porting and managing a Software developed for PC into a camera's processor, with its very tightly limited and fiely tuned resources, could prove an impossible task... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ario Arioldi Posted November 19, 2009 Share #7 Posted November 19, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) About the "de-centering issue" there is a phrase I took note of in the ChromaSoft article : "every M9 image I've analyzed regardless of lens shows it" That's a bit worrying... "random" decentering of lens' assembly could be understandable (but there is the question of the "18 - red on LEFT"), but if it is not tied to lenses is a question of body/sensor assembly... the article does not specify if it is always at the same side or random... I would like to know some more detail on this... About Barjohn suggestion of Leica "embedding" Cornerfix into a M firmware...well I think it's hardly feasible, and not only for a question of intellectual rights to buy... porting and managing a Software developed for PC into a camera's processor, with its very tightly limited and fiely tuned resources, could prove an impossible task... I don't think it is a Leica specific issue, I've seen the same occurring with wide lenses on Nikon and Canon FF. There are also examples of this on the Digilloyd review of the Zeiss Distagon 21mm (accessible by subscription only). Cheers, Ario Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
UliWer Posted November 19, 2009 Share #8 Posted November 19, 2009 The issue with red shifts on the edges - which very often seems to be left bound, but which can be very regular left and right under equal lighting - is not specific to the M9. It is also present with the 3.8/18 Elmar or the WATE and even - but only visible under rare conditions and in lesser extent - with the 2/28 Summicron on the M8. It is never present without lens detection. It can be corrected safely with the newest version of CornerFix and in many cases just by a slight adjustment of white-balance. The issue is well known at Leica. We shall see if they are able to find a solution for it when we have the new firmware (for M8 as well as for M9). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpattinson Posted November 19, 2009 Share #9 Posted November 19, 2009 Just crop down to the M8 sensor size and you will be fine M8.3 anyone? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
UliWer Posted November 19, 2009 Share #10 Posted November 19, 2009 Just crop down to the M8 sensor size and you will be fine No, Sir. It is just a rumour without any facts in it, that only the M9-sensor does show the issue described here. What I have seen yet about it yet, I can only say the M9 has it to a lesser extent than the M8. The funny thing about it is, that we all only started to see the issue, when the M9 was out. I bought the 3.8/18mm in July when I thought it would take years until we saw a full-frame digital M. I took many photos with it during the summer and did not notice the red shift. I only saw it after reading Sean Reid's first review about red edges of a 15mm-lens with the M9 and then I started to compare and to test... The first reaction I got, when I asked about it in this forum was, that the WATE showed it as well on the M8.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpattinson Posted November 19, 2009 Share #11 Posted November 19, 2009 No, Sir. It is just a rumour without any facts in it, that only the M9-sensor does show the issue described here. What I have seen yet about it yet, I can only say the M9 has it to a lesser extent than the M8. The funny thing about it is, that we all only started to see the issue, when the M9 was out. I bought the 3.8/18mm in July when I thought it would take years until we saw a full-frame digital M. I took many photos with it during the summer and did not notice the red shift. I only saw it after reading Sean Reid's first review about red edges of a 15mm-lens with the M9 and then I started to compare and to test... The first reaction I got, when I asked about it in this forum was, that the WATE showed it as well on the M8.... Yes, but if you crop your M9 image down by 1/3.... you won't see the edges any more Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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