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Test your eye for Leica lens "fingerprints"


adan

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Well, Ian - on the one hand I've never really bought the "plastic" description. OTOH the 5D files certainly require a lot more work to delete the fuzzing effects of the AA filter and get the color right, compared to the M8/M9.

 

Add enough sharpening to overcome the AA filter, and the 5D is noisier than either Leica up through ISO 640 (and it is a nasty cloth-textured noise - I can almost see the CMOS circuitry imprinted on my pictures).

 

But for $1000 the 5D is a cheap thrill to hang a Leica 250 on. And with a couple of shorter primes (the reason I was checking out the 90 Elmarit) it will serve as an emergency spare tire if the M9 ever has to go into the shop.

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I had the Elmarit M 2.8/90 mm in mind, so I am not sure how close that one is to the Leicaflex version that Andy used. I will be at home again next week and I'll think about a continuation, see if I have something that could work.

Lex

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Adan,

 

That is an excellent image much to the disappointment of the Leica purists in the house, I would say your combination is more than just a spare tire. You obviously know how to exploit the 5D/Elmarit combo. I have a 90mm Elmarit which I use on my Canon 5D Mark II and quite frankly, I am blown away by what it produces.

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Well, OK - maybe "spare tire" is a bit much. As I'm getting the hang of the 5DmkI's "special needs" for processing, I respect the results more. Obviously 12 Mpixels with an AA filter is going to be handicapped and I knew that going in. And for $1000 I'm not complaining, just commenting.

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Well, Ian - on the one hand I've never really bought the "plastic" description. OTOH the 5D files certainly require a lot more work to delete the fuzzing effects of the AA filter and get the color right, compared to the M8/M9.

 

I think you might have misunderstood my point. I don't buy the plastic criticism either. I have owned the 5D and think it is a very fine camera indeed (and now a bargain at current used prices). Regarding the 'defuzzing', have you tried running the files through Canon's own DPP? This software usually gets a bad rap on forums but I found it capable of some very nice sharp RAW conversions.

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No, I saw through the irony ;) and was agreeing with you that I don't see anything "plastic" (which I interpret to mean "smooth and lacking in surface texture") in the 5D RAW images. And as I said to Wilfredo, I'm moving up the learning curve in processing 5D images - very different assumptions about calibration, saturation and sharpening at the RAW stage than I use for the Ms.

 

E.G. sharpening at the raw conversion stage tightens the edges but avoids the pattern noise better than sharpening in Photoshop.

 

Now that I'm getting a handle on the differences, saving them into the defaults for the 5D cuts down on the workload.

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