Red edges and new firmware......

[sandymc]

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Do you have feedback from anyone with two cameras who says that it varies? Because it's very much a function of post processing, and of course of the lens.

 

Jono,

 

I do know of one individual who tested both his M9 and a dealer's M9 with his lens. Not a scientific test, of course, and it is possible that some kind of difference crept in, but I'm inclined to accept the data point as valid till proven otherwise.

 

Re Leica not knowing about this - well, I hear you, but honestly, for me to believe that, somebody would need to explain how Leica could possibly have missed it. I just don't see how any vignetting test could have been done on e.g., the 18mm, and not picked this up. To my way thinking, this is a very different situation to the M8's IR issue, where if you didn't happen to point the camera at the right target under the right lighting, and then compare colors, you wouldn't pick up on it. This really should have shown in any normal set of pre production acceptance tests. And I specifically say Leica here, not the beta testers. Beta testers jobs are to test camera in real use, and shooting evenly lit blank walls isn't real use. Vignetting testing is a job for a lab with acetate diffusers, etc.

 

Regards,

 

Sandy

[Mauribix]

No, I have an e-mail from Stefan saying this. If you don't believe that just wait 4 weeks I feel no need to post a private e-mail on the forums.

 

If people would rather complain instead of take pictures for the next 4 weeks far be it from me to question them. But don't say Leica haven't acknowledged or aren't working on the issue. Why not e-mail Leica or your Leica dealer if you need affirmation.

 

In the meantime if anyone wants to sell me a 35 cron asph, 18 Super Elmar or 21/2.8 asph because they don't think Leica will ever fix it, I am offering premium prices from the perspective of these being redundant lenses

 

I find a lot of the hypothesising as to the cause very interesting though, and that seems to be the way the conversation is going which is encouraging. How many of you have set the lens detection to off and shot your wides? Non-uniform cyan drift would more indicate a physical difference rather than a correction asymmetry.

 

Daniel, I'll try and post the "uncorrected" picture as soon as I can.

Meanwhile I've got both a 35cron ASPH and an Elmarit 24 ASPH ready for a new owner!

Oh, there's a 35cron IV as well!

[ArtZ]

Ok, so now I'm posting some samples of the 24lux on an M9 showing the threaded "red edges issue".

Ok, these were caught in Oslo, so the snow is more than an "alley" in this case, but that's just to say that even the snowy landscapes are often a "real world" environments for those who live not in the sunny south.

 

Jeff, I'm glad to know that your copy of the 24lux doesn't show the issue, I'd like to know why it behaves differently from those two samples I've tested.

One was kindly borrowed to my by my mate Jason in Oslo.

 

Here we are:

24lux @ f1.4 M9

DNG are available under request.

 

Maurizio,

 

They're horrible! Especially the first two. I hope Leica finds a solution soon (otherwise no M9 for me).

 

Maurizio, non dimenticare il rosso è un colore vietata in Italia. Silvio odia rosso!

[Mauribix]

Maurizio,

 

They're horrible! Especially the first two. I hope Leica finds a solution soon (otherwise no M9 for me).

 

Maurizio, non dimenticare il rosso è un colore vietata in Italia. Silvio odia rosso!

 

Yep, let's say this is not what someone could expect from a 10.000€ gear...

but if that irritates Silvio, well, then it could be ok!

[Mauribix]

OK, and this is a 24elmarit ASPH shot...

(you know, it's a bit less visible than with the 24lux, but the issue is still there.

This was shot against a white roof with artificial light, which in my experiences is the worst situation.

Then we'll see, I trust Leica to solve the problem as I said before.

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[jonoslack]

Jono,

 

I do know of one individual who tested both his M9 and a dealer's M9 with his lens. Not a scientific test, of course, and it is possible that some kind of difference crept in, but I'm inclined to accept the data point as valid till proven otherwise.

 

Re Leica not knowing about this - well, I hear you, but honestly, for me to believe that, somebody would need to explain how Leica could possibly have missed it. I just don't see how any vignetting test could have been done on e.g., the 18mm, and not picked this up. To my way thinking, this is a very different situation to the M8's IR issue, where if you didn't happen to point the camera at the right target under the right lighting, and then compare colors, you wouldn't pick up on it. This really should have shown in any normal set of pre production acceptance tests. And I specifically say Leica here, not the beta testers. Beta testers jobs are to test camera in real use, and shooting evenly lit blank walls isn't real use. Vignetting testing is a job for a lab with acetate diffusers, etc.

 

Regards,

 

Sandy

Hi Sandy - I think I said that I was sure that they didn't know about it as an issue which isn't quite the same thing. Let's face it, for most lenses it only shows up obviously in the real world under some conditions (grey skies and snowscapes under artificial light are obvious ones).

 

Nice of you to let me off the hook, but I'm learning to take it! Seeing things that may be obvious later isn't the same when you aren't looking for them!

[sandymc]

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Hi Sandy - I think I said that I was sure that they didn't know about it as an issue which isn't quite the same thing. Let's face it, for most lenses it only shows up obviously in the real world under some conditions (grey skies and snowscapes under artificial light are obvious ones).

 

Jono,

 

Yes, that may be the case. Bit of a miscalculation though!

 

But probably there was some aspect of wanting to hit the 9/9/9 date in there as well. Perhaps decisions were rushed that shouldn't have been. Just hope the the new firmware solves it for most people.

 

Regards,

 

Sandy

[ho_co]

... I've looked at some of these lenses on 3 different camera bodies, and the results were pretty much identical. (Of course, this is hardly a statistical sample!)

Jono, I'm sorry you took my post as showing ignorance of your previous list of problem focal lengths. Both there and here, you're doing what I was trying to suggest: Compare the same lens on different bodies or the same body with different lenses.

 

... One thing which might be more relevant than different cameras is the way people process their photos - do an auto-levels and this sort of thing can suddenly appear in a picture where it wasn't visible before.

Excellent suggestion, as is Noah's to consider monitors.

 

The suggestion I made covers these points: Maybe one person will process all the lenses and find no problem, while another will find problems with them all--simply due to individual postprocessing differences. That's my main complaint with what's happening now. We're seeing images that prove that in some cases, the problems exist, and in others they don't. Duh! We knew that.

 

Actually, nothing we can do is going to affect the work Leica is already doing. Improvements are coming. If we can pin down problems (as Tim Ashley did in the 35/1.4), we can be of assistance. That's why having so many bodies and lenses already in use can be such a benefit. There are more M9s and lenses in users' hands than Leica can ever have access to in-house. We can help them leverage that advantage.

[ho_co]

... I was sure that they didn't know about it as an issue ...

I agree. Having worked for the company (as if that mattered), I know their dedication. They wouldn't release a camera they knew would draw flak for an issue like this. Period.

 

It's a small company. One tester would have one sample of a body and of a given lens. He might send feedback along the lines of "what do you suppose caused these red edges?", but there were probably bigger issues at the time. And if no one collected all the red-edge reports, they would have been buried.

 

Remember Sean's M8 firemen? We all--you and I and Sandy and Maurizio and Sean and Jono and everyone else--looked at the picture the first time without noticing they were wearing magenta.

 

 

This is a perfect example of Diane Arbus' motto:

And a thing is not seen because it is visible, but conversely, visible because it is seen.

--Plato, EUTHYPHRO, Part 04

[jonoslack]

I agree. Having worked for the company (as if that mattered), I know their dedication. They wouldn't release a camera they knew would draw flak for an issue like this. Period.

 

It's a small company. One tester would have one sample of a body and of a given lens. He might send feedback along the lines of "what do you suppose caused these red edges?", but there were probably bigger issues at the time. And if no one collected all the red-edge reports, they would have been buried.

 

That's certainly my impression as well - What makes it worse is that one person's 'Red Edge' report is another person's 'Colour Shift' . Sometimes it's hard to put varying reports of the same thing together!

Remember Sean's M8 firemen? We all--you and I and Sandy and Maurizio and Sean and Jono and everyone else--looked at the picture the first time without noticing they were wearing magenta.

 

I certainly missed it -

 

This is a perfect example of Diane Arbus' motto:

I'd not heard (or perhaps noticed ) that before

Excellent

[poe-bear]

Contacted leica germany about red-edge problem

 

This was their reply:

 

"we are preparing a firmware update to fix this. we have a beta-version which still needs to be tested, hopefully it can be ready within 3-4 weeks."

 

Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Kind regards

Stefan Daniel

Leica Camera AG / Director Product Management/ Product Manager M-System/ Oskar-Barnack-Straße 11 / D-35606 Solms / Leica Camera AG / / Telephone +49(0)6442-208-163 / Fax +49(0)6442-208-410

[Ario Arioldi]

Contacted leica germany about red-edge problem

 

This was their reply:

 

"we are preparing a firmware update to fix this. we have a beta-version which still needs to be tested, hopefully it can be ready within 3-4 weeks."

 

Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Kind regards

Stefan Daniel

Leica Camera AG / Director Product Management/ Product Manager M-System/ Oskar-Barnack-Straße 11 / D-35606 Solms / Leica Camera AG / / Telephone +49(0)6442-208-163 / Fax +49(0)6442-208-410

This is good news. Can you pls tell us when you got the quoted reply?

Cheers,

Ario

[poe-bear]

This is good news. Can you pls tell us when you got the quoted reply?

Cheers,

Ario

 

 

today

[xtoph]

Hi Sandy - I think I said that I was sure that they didn't know about it as an issue which isn't quite the same thing. Let's face it, for most lenses it only shows up obviously in the real world under some conditions (grey skies and snowscapes under artificial light are obvious ones).

 

Nice of you to let me off the hook, but I'm learning to take it! Seeing things that may be obvious later isn't the same when you aren't looking for them!

 

i think this still amounts to letting leica off a bit too easy. on my m9 and brand new 28/2, i found the problem on my own (no peeking at the interwebs) after less than a week with the camera. and i found it not in test photos, but in real-world shots (none of which involved snow or white walls), and not just one or two, either, and yes, it severely compromised many of those photos. these are not problems that could easily be missed by anyone working with the camera in any serious capacity. if it were only with off-brand lenses, or even only lenses wider than the built-in finder, somehow i could imagine being more understanding. but for fundamental lenses such as the 28s and 35?

 

so i, too, have trouble believing that leica was unaware of the problem (and aware that it was a serious problem) prior to the release of the camera. (i won't even speculate as to why m. reichmann over at LL hasn't commented on this matter, esp as it is a really big deal for folks who might want to use the camera for landscape shooting like he suggests. you'd think after his embarrassing episode about the ir sensitivity issue on the m8, he'd have been extra careful not to give leica a pass the next time around. guess not.) it is also disturbing to me that evidently the only path leica plans to offer for correcting edge effects is to bake them into the raw file. i frankly do not understand why they cannot work with adobe or whatever to offer a module for doing these corrections after the fact--which would have the advantage of being easily fine-tuned to different lens-sensor combinations, and even different lighting conditions. oh, i understand that they didn't want people to see the sausage-making (or deal with customer complaints of 'how come my $10k camera-lens looks terrible in the corners' from people who didn't read the manual). and i suspect they also wanted to retain exclusivity of corrections for leica lenses. but it would help a great deal to have the option (bury it in menus if need be) to shoot in raw with lens corrections off, esp for those of us who shoot in very low light a lot and don't want to raise all the corners all the time. and if we knew that corrections were going to be available in the standard workflow pp later, i could stop ruining my pictures in the meantime while we wait for a firmware upgrade.

[jonoslack]

i think this still amounts to letting leica off a bit too easy. on my m9 and brand new 28/2, i found the problem on my own (no peeking at the interwebs) after less than a week with the camera. and i found it not in test photos, but in real-world shots (none of which involved snow or white walls), and not just one or two, either, and yes, it severely compromised many of those photos. these are not problems that could easily be missed by anyone working with the camera in any serious capacity. if it were only with off-brand lenses, or even only lenses wider than the built-in finder, somehow i could imagine being more understanding. but for fundamental lenses such as the 28s and 35?

 

so i, too, have trouble believing that leica was unaware of the problem (and aware that it was a serious problem) prior to the release of the camera. (i won't even speculate as to why m. reichmann over at LL hasn't commented on this matter, esp as it is a really big deal for folks who might want to use the camera for landscape shooting like he suggests. you'd think after his embarrassing episode about the ir sensitivity issue on the m8, he'd have been extra careful not to give leica a pass the next time around. guess not.)

 

Well - congratulations on being so observant - I had the camera for five months before I was made aware of the problem in October - and I thought I was working with the camera in a serious capacity.

 

However, I didn't see it, and still I've only seen it very rarely. Perhaps I was taking the wrong kind of pictures, or doing the wrong kind of post processing, or, even, using the wrong kind of lenses? Hence my remark.

 

With respect to landscape shooting and Michael Reichmann - that is exactly how I've been using it (for landscape shooting) and it is exactly where I have not seen the issue (I haven't used it with the 18mm SE, but mainly with the WATE).

 

I think that Howards quote of Diane Arbus's motto:

 

And a thing is not seen because it is visible, but conversely, visible because it is seen.

 

Is very pertinant.

 

As for fixing it in software - of course, you can already do this with Sandy's excellent Cornerfix software. However, let's hope that Leica's upcoming firmware update will solve the problem.

[xtoph]

Well - congratulations on being so observant - I had the camera for five months before I was made aware of the problem in October - and I thought I was working with the camera in a serious capacity.

 

However, I didn't see it, and still I've only seen it very rarely. Perhaps I was taking the wrong kind of pictures, or doing the wrong kind of post processing, or, even, using the wrong kind of lenses? Hence my remark.

[...]

As for fixing it in software - of course, you can already do this with Sandy's excellent Cornerfix software. However, let's hope that Leica's upcoming firmware update will solve the problem.

 

my comment wasn't in any way meant as a personal comment about you or your work. of course, it's possible that there really are significant differences between copies of cameras/lenses; that is why catching it is up to leica, and not you personally. no need to be snide; in fact i did not have to be particularly observant to catch the problem, because it is not a subtle problem. that was basically my point: unless my camera/lens is some kind of outlier (which would be a problem for qc and anyway doesn't seem likely from the posts that are cropping up here), this should have been caught by leica.

 

as i said, i am not talking about 18mm lenses here; i am talking 28 cron, which is what's mounted on your camera in your website photo. many others are complaining about the issue with a 35 cron. these are not obscure, oddball, niche lenses, or even all that fast, they're bread and butter.

 

it does look from your website like you're doing a lot of bw landscapes and other photos. also, your website warns that you were using beta firmware and not to take iq as final; i assumed this might have been one of the issues you were referring to. and i have no way to know how serious or not you are about taking photos--again, i wasn't talking about you personally, my comments were directed at leica, and what we can/should expect of them.

 

i'm aware of cornerfix. i am grateful that someone has put in the effort to create that tool. but my previous post referred to a fix from within standard raw workflow, not an extra (and slow) step. with the combined resources of leica and adobe, i assume they could make processing considerably faster, ideally transparently applied over the raw file, and thus non-destructive, reversible, and upgradeable later. i think all that would be desirable to anyone.

[D&A]

My comments here do not pass judgement as to whether Leica during their testing phase or others who had pre-production cameras and used lenses like the SE 18 that have clearly shown in most all cases red edge effect, should have caught and duly noted such anomalies. I would need additional info to access this personally. I know for myself, it was only until I used the 18mm, that something was amiss...and I have been shooting digital long enough (almost since its inception) to have caught it, if one of my other lenses used with the M9, exhibited this trait. The lenses owned and used clearly has a big influence whether one encounters "red edge".

 

My comments here are specifically about Jono and my absolute confidence that there was little, if any chance he would have encountered, observed and ultimately identified "red edge" unless he (Jono) were using lenses (and possibly under specific shooting conditions) that clearly demonstrated it. It also goes to Diane Arbus's quote, that even if there was a trace of it, you'd probably would have to be specifically aware of its existence, and this is especially true with the WATE, which I believe he predominantly used for his wide angle shots. In regards to a 28mm, not all show red edge clearly. If any lens has the propensity NOT to show red edge, its the WATE, where often it's never seen with samples of this lens, or if it is, extremely mild (except for a very occasional sample as a few others have demonstrated). I have no doubt Jono, would have been the first to pass along such an observation during his 5 months of shooting with a pre-production sample, and the preponderance of "red Edge" in images, didn't have to be on the proverbial tip of his nose, for him to recognize it.

 

Anyhow, Jono, your tip of your nose, was probably too busy firmly planted against the camera's LCD most of the time ...taking those wonderful shots you incorporated in your book!

 

Dave (D&A)

[UliWer]

...these are not problems that could easily be missed by anyone working with the camera in any serious capacity.....

 

I used the 35mm since 2007 and 28mm since 2008 on the M8. I did not see the red edges until September 2009, though they are there:

 

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m9-forum/114311-red-edge-lenses-7.html#post1228694

[jonoslack]

my comment wasn't in any way meant as a personal comment about you or your work. of course, it's possible that there really are significant differences between copies of cameras/lenses; that is why catching it is up to leica, and not you personally. no need to be snide; in fact i did not have to be particularly observant to catch the problem, because it is not a subtle problem. that was basically my point: unless my camera/lens is some kind of outlier (which would be a problem for qc and anyway doesn't seem likely from the posts that are cropping up here), this should have been caught by leica.

 

as i said, i am not talking about 18mm lenses here; i am talking 28 cron, which is what's mounted on your camera in your website photo. many others are complaining about the issue with a 35 cron. these are not obscure, oddball, niche lenses, or even all that fast, they're bread and butter.

 

it does look from your website like you're doing a lot of bw landscapes and other photos. also, your website warns that you were using beta firmware and not to take iq as final; i assumed this might have been one of the issues you were referring to. and i have no way to know how serious or not you are about taking photos--again, i wasn't talking about you personally, my comments were directed at leica, and what we can/should expect of them.

 

Well I wasn't intending to be snide, or even particularly personally defensive, but you handed me a hat, and I put it on. I think the same thing probably goes for Leica, I stick to my point that I don't believe that they saw it as an issue until it cropped up here (I have no idea whether they were aware of it at all or not) - I don't think that's necessarily reprehensible either. I'd taken some 10,000 before the comments started to appear here, and although a la the Diane Arbus motto, I can now see it in a few shots, it hadn't impinged at the time.

 

If you have a camera / lens combination which is particularly prone, take photographs in situations which are particularly prone and do post processing which brings out the issue, then you're more likely to see it. Hard to test every possible combination of these factors I'd say. Perhaps you have put yourself particularly 'in the zone'.

 

i'm aware of cornerfix. i am grateful that someone has put in the effort to create that tool. but my previous post referred to a fix from within standard raw workflow, not an extra (and slow) step. with the combined resources of leica and adobe, i assume they could make processing considerably faster, ideally transparently applied over the raw file, and thus non-destructive, reversible, and upgradeable later. i think all that would be desirable to anyone.

 

I do understand what you're saying, but I don't think it's really as straightforward as it sounds - only a few years ago Leica were saying that a full frame M9 was not possible . . . I don't think anyone would be very amused by RAW files with no vignetting correction, added to which it would seriously limit the RAW converter you could use, and probably stop them being able to produce DNG files at all.

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[jonoslack]

Anyhow, Jono, your tip of your nose, was probably too busy firmly planted against the camera's LCD most of the time ...taking those wonderful shots you incorporated in your book!

 

Dave (D&A)

 

Hi Dave - thanks for the kind words, of course, we're all fallable - I'd like to have noticed it (and of course I would have passed it on). The criticism comes with the territory anyway, and I think I'll survive . Of course, the other side of the coin is the things that one did see, and which nobody else sees (because they're fixed)!