My New M9 & Lightroom

[Wonka]

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This is probably a very basic question, but I can't seem to find the answer anywhere. My M9 arrived two days ago. So far so good, however, I do have a learning curve ahead of me as this is the first rangefinder camera I have ever owned and the focusing, while not terribly difficult, will take some practice (I'm very slow right now!). So far (maybe I will do a full review from a new user's perspective later) I have loved the camera, except I'm not a big fan of the rear screen at all. Coming from a Nikon it's like going from HD TV back to SD TV, or as us Texans might say, it's like going from the New Dallas Cowboys Stadium's gargatuan HD video board to a mid 1980's scoreboard! I guess I will get used to it, but for $7,000.00 I cannot understand why Leica did this.

 

Anyway, my question concerns DNG's in Lightroom. Am I supposed to take the M9's native DNG's and simply copy them into Lightroom? Or, am I supposed to take the M9's native DNG's and use the Lightroom "Convert to DNG" function? Or, is there any difference at all? It is also my understanding that with a DNG file, you don't want any type of sidecar file created with it, since it's unnecessary and defeats one of the DNG size advantage issues. Is this correct?

 

Also, I keep reading about how profiles for the M9 will be added in the new release from Lightroom. I vaguely understand what a profile is, but could anyone explain how you would use this in your workflow? Is it like having a preset?

 

Thanks in advance.

[doug_m]

I am not a tech guy so will I leave the Lightroom answers to others. However, in regard to the LCD screen, please be aware that the M9 seems to grossly out perform the LCD screen. Therefore you may want to down load most images and review them on your computer rather than deleting in camera- at least to start. This discrepancy is much bigger on the M9 than the M8.

[hoppyman]

Either import option will work. I recommend the "convert to DNG" option. The reason is tht the program then losslessly compresses your files on import. It is truly lossless but you save a lot of disk space. For example an uncompressed (14 bit) DNG in the camera is around 35MB. After the lossless compression you still have a 14 bit file but the file size is around 18MB.

Sidecar files are irrelevevant with your DNG files.

 

Finally the profiles that are available in Camera calibration vary according to the camera type. Right now in LR2.5 there are no native specific profiles for the M9. This is about to change. However the profile for the M9 is available as part of the LR3 beta.

Sandy here, one of our resident experts, has made an excellent M9 profile available and you can just copy that to your LR installation and it is then available

Have a browse through the post processing forum where these are discussed quite a bit.

The very basic idea is that you can develop your images and then try different profiles according to your preferred colour rendering BUT the Raw file is not altered, just as you can go back and alter exposure, WB etc.

[Bo_Lorentzen]

Geoff,

 

OK... that is interesting, talk to me here, you are saying convert to DNG, from the camera DNG.? Does that include when shooting DNG.? ( I am currently shooting compressed DNG which is roughly 18meg also.)

 

Just downloaded LightRoom 2.6 RC... works great and show the estimated f.stop

 

.

[ho_co]

Bo--

Geoff is correct. If you run the M8/9 DNG through Adobe's "Convert to DNG," you get a more compact file which still contains all the original data. It's now an ACR DNG, no longer a Leica M DNG.

 

If I'm not mistaken, the M9 won't recognize the lossless-compressed Adobe file (as if you cared, since you've now got it in the computer and won't be looking at it in the camera again ).

[hoppyman]

Geoff,

 

OK... that is interesting, talk to me here, you are saying convert to DNG, from the camera DNG.? Does that include when shooting DNG.? ( I am currently shooting compressed DNG which is roughly 18meg also.)

 

Just downloaded LightRoom 2.6 RC... works great and show the estimated f.stop

 

.

Bo if you are using the compressed DNG option in the camera then the camera is applying non-linear compression from 14 bit and you get an 8 bit file, however the compression method means you are losing little actual data. This is the same system the M8 adopted. People more expert than I have said that there is no discernible benefit to maintaining the full 14 bit file if you are shooting anything other than the base ISO. Personally I choose to throw NO information away and my camera is set to uncompressed DNGs. I can live with 35MB files! (There's a new generation of Sandisk cards on release that should cope nicely).

But I digress;)

In your instance your 18MB DNGs will be reduced to ~9MB using the Convert to DNG option (dependant on content, busy detailed files are larger and those with plain areas smaller).

Important to note that the in-camera compression is discrete and different from what the Adobe software is doing. The last is truly lossless and simply more efficient than the camera firmware. Zero downside except for a little processing time on import.

As an aside the new Adobe generations will also optionally apply this lossless compression to the second copy (You are making a second, separate copy on import, aren't you:)!). This was not the case previously. I'd get one set compressed from my M8 ~5-6MB and the backup set @10MB.

[Baptiste]

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This is probably a very basic question, but I can't seem to find the answer anywhere. My M9 arrived two days ago. So far so good, however, I do have a learning curve ahead of me as this is the first rangefinder camera I have ever owned and the focusing, while not terribly difficult, will take some practice (I'm very slow right now!). So far (maybe I will do a full review from a new user's perspective later) I have loved the camera, except I'm not a big fan of the rear screen at all. Coming from a Nikon it's like going from HD TV back to SD TV, or as us Texans might say, it's like going from the New Dallas Cowboys Stadium's gargatuan HD video board to a mid 1980's scoreboard! I guess I will get used to it, but for $7,000.00 I cannot understand why Leica did this.

 

Anyway, my question concerns DNG's in Lightroom. Am I supposed to take the M9's native DNG's and simply copy them into Lightroom? Or, am I supposed to take the M9's native DNG's and use the Lightroom "Convert to DNG" function? Or, is there any difference at all? It is also my understanding that with a DNG file, you don't want any type of sidecar file created with it, since it's unnecessary and defeats one of the DNG size advantage issues. Is this correct?

 

Also, I keep reading about how profiles for the M9 will be added in the new release from Lightroom. I vaguely understand what a profile is, but could anyone explain how you would use this in your workflow? Is it like having a preset?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Someone like me Except that I'm still waiting for the camera... I'll be thus interested by your future review of the tool. Not that I doubt it's good, ofc!

 

Have fun, I'm looking forward to see your first pics,

Best Regards,

Baptiste

[Samir Jahjah]

Important to note that the in-camera compression is discrete and different from what the Adobe software is doing. The last is truly lossless and simply more efficient than the camera firmware. Zero downside except for a little processing time on import.

As an aside the new Adobe generations will also optionally apply this lossless compression to the second copy (You are making a second, separate copy on import, aren't you:)!). This was not the case previously. I'd get one set compressed from my M8 ~5-6MB and the backup set @10MB.

 

 

Interesting! Now how do you convert your DNG into Adobe DNG once they have been imported in your Library?

[Steve Fines]

When I import files I like to add metadata, keywords, etc.

 

I've tried two image ingesting programs (ImageIngester which I have used with Canon and Nikon for a long time and PhotoMechanic).

 

Neither of these can write metadata to a Leica DNG file. Both of them can write metadata to an Adobe DNG file.

 

Makes me think that the Leica version doesn't quite adhere to the DNG specs.

 

Accordingly when I import (I use ImageIngester, but LR could do it to) I convert to Adobe's DNG file. Then all the metadata is in the file - no sidecar files.

 

Disk space is cheap - I also keep a copy of the Leica original "just in case", but these are set aside and the Adobe DNG is what I use as a "master".

[Wonka]

Interesting! Now how do you convert your DNG into Adobe DNG once they have been imported in your Library?

 

I second this question. I have attempted to convert my M9 photos already in the library as M9 DNG's to Adobe DNG's and I can't get anything to happen when I click on "Convert to DNG." Maybe you can't convert once they are in the library? I have no idea.

[hoppyman]

Firstly keep in mind of course that the library is not the same thing as the actual location of the files. You should be able to delete files from your library BUT NOT the disk then reimport with convert to DNG if you want.

Depending on how many files you have another workaround is to make some global change, for example change WB on a whole selected group, then update the metadata and previews.

More than one place to select this but In LR3 you can select the group of shots in your library and go to Develop module> go to Metadata drop down menu> select update DNG preview and metadata. This will force the previews to be rewritten and the DNG complete with the new metadata (WB setting in this case). Et voilà !

[Wonka]

Firstly keep in mind of course that the library is not the same thing as the actual location of the files. You should be able to delete files from your library BUT NOT the disk then reimport with convert to DNG if you want.

Depending on how many files you have another workaround is to make some global change, for example change WB on a whole selected group, then update the metadata and previews.

More than one place to select this but In LR3 you can select the group of shots in your library and go to Develop module> go to Metadata drop down menu> select update DNG preview and metadata. This will force the previews to be rewritten and the DNG complete with the new metadata (WB setting in this case). Et voilà !

 

That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the advice. I have learned a lot here. I'm now converting photos to Adobe DNG upon initial import and as described here, they are half the size of the M9 DNG's! I will now delete my "old" M9 photos from the library and reimport from the folder and convert to Adobe DNG's.