M9 high ISO saved my life...

[chris_tribble]

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Covering a corporate event - two M9s + Canon 5D2 with 70-200. Used the 28 cron asph and 50 lux asph or 90 cron apo for most of the Leica shots. I thought I had 400 ISO set on both bodies, but in fact had 400 on one and 1600 on the other. Bright light through a lot of the space and shadows in others with halogen spots.

 

It was a classic heat-of-the-moment thing where you turn up and start shooting almost straight away. Although I was getting faster shutter speeds than I might have expected with one body, as the light was very bright in part of the space I didn't worry. I didn't realise the problem until I got back to base and reviewed the set in Lightroom.

 

Inital thought was sh*t - it's not good to screw up on something like this... people had travelled in from some very distant places to make the signing ceremony. Second thought on looking at the images at the kinds of resolution I know they will be used for (A4 publication / web) was that correctly exposed 1600 on the M9 is VERY good. I pulled up the luminance and chroma noise reduction values a bit (40/40) and decided that all was well.

 

I thought it worth sharing this to help those who were unsure about high ISO on the M9. In my experience it's really good in low light - and if you use it in normal lighting it returns very good results and lets you use very high shutter speeds (which ended up being an advantage for a lot of the shots in this set).

 

The moral?

 

1. DOUBLE check everything before you start shooting.
   
2. LEICA - please include ISO information in the main INFO screen - as it doesn't show in the view finder we really need it in one place.
   

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[viramati]

Interesting Chris. did you use LR2 or LR3. the RAW file conversion in LR3 is soooo much better!!

[chris_tribble]

 

These were in LR 2.7 Release Candidate. I completely agree re LR3 for Raw (and a lot of other features) but I'm holding off using it for commercial work. As it was, I was astounded by how well the ISO 1600 files stand up even in LR2.

[wattsy]

Ugly flowers. If you hadn't said otherwise I would have assumed this was some kind of civil partnership ceremony;). (Incidentally, I'd be tempted to clone out the annoying person looking around the door).

[jaapv]

+1

 

Still, excellent results, Chris.

[chris_tribble]

Ugly flowers. If you hadn't said otherwise I would have assumed this was some kind of civil partnership ceremony;). (Incidentally, I'd be tempted to clone out the annoying person looking around the door).

Ian - agreed about the flowers, but given the number of images in the set and the time needed to turn them around, I decided that I'd leave things as they stood. With work like this, if the client's satisfied, then it's OK with me...

[jaapv]

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On second thoughts, I quite like the lady peeping in. It may be less commercial to leave her there, but as a photograph, it adds interest.

[zlatkob]

1. LEICA - please include ISO information in the main INFO screen - as it doesn't show in the view finder we really need it in one place.
   

I agree. The Info screen shows the number of pictures remaining twice, once as a graphical bar and then again as a number. It should just show the number (or combine the number and the graph) and use the extra space to show the ISO.

 

Ideally, there would be an option to display the ISO setting in the viewfinder. ISO is as important as aperture and shutter speed, so it should not require a button press to see it. Many film cameras had a constant reminder of the ISO by way of a dial set by the photographer or even a window showing the ISO number on the film cartridge. On digital cameras, this reminder is arguably even more important as ISO is changed more frequently & more easily, so digital cameras should not make the ISO setting less visible / more forgettable.

[jaapv]

I fully support this, There should be an Iso indication.

[250swb]

I've forgotten to change the ISO back to my preferred default custom setting a couple of times as well, again fortunately without any undue loss of quality. Its strange though, with a DSLR I always start out by going to the custom settings menu, perhaps because there are so many variables to contend with its a proper worry that something is overlooked. But with the M9 I forget, perhaps because using faster lenses than a DSLR the ISO is increased far less frequently? Having the ISO on the Info screen would be another good reminder when checking the battery and card.

 

Steve

[Alnitak]

I find that most cameras will respond well to brightly-lit scenes at higher ISOs, and the M9 hangs in there well. My way of dealing with this situation is to use Auto-ISO and set the highest ISO where I want it to be. That prevents me from accidentally shooting everything at the highest ISO, and also lets the camera flex back to the lowest ISO possible in each situation. I really like the implementation of Auto-ISO on the Leica M's. Very handy.

 

My only nit with the M9 is that at higher ISO's skin tones seem to become a bit too magenta for me, especially under warmer artificial light. Your last shot demonstrates that; the closest gent's ears are almost glowing. I tweak back the red in LR to tone that down, but I guess it could be just personal preference.

 

Jeff

[Jamie Roberts]

{snipped}

My only nit with the M9 is that at higher ISO's skin tones seem to become a bit too magenta for me, especially under warmer artificial light. Your last shot demonstrates that; the closest gent's ears are almost glowing. I tweak back the red in LR to tone that down, but I guess it could be just personal preference.

 

In my still limited experience with the M9, that's a current Lightroom thing; I haven't seen this so far with C1.

 

The LR beta release appears much better to my eyes with Ms and magenta; the current 2.x release (for me) makes skin that's overly magenta most of the time in many kinds of light, but I agree it seems worst with tungsten at high ISOs.

[Rick]

Alnitak, since you continually point out the problems you see with the M9 and the magenta cast in some situations and at higher ISO, I have a suggestion for you. Why don't you make some presets for tungsten and higher ISO that develop out the magenta to your liking? What you are pointing out is really just a LR2 bias. LR3 is much more correct in this area and as pointed out, C1 uses different developing settings and light room can be set up to do the same.

 

In other words, this is a problem that has been fixed in LR3 quite some time ago. This isn't really a nit that the M9 has, but more a nit you have with the way you have your presets set and the way Chris chose to develop these.

 

Use LR3 and make some profiles. I have and I love the color from the M9... even at higher ISO.

[Alnitak]

In my still limited experience with the M9, that's a current Lightroom thing; I haven't seen this so far with C1.

 

The LR beta release appears much better to my eyes with Ms and magenta; the current 2.x release (for me) makes skin that's overly magenta most of the time in many kinds of light, but I agree it seems worst with tungsten at high ISOs.

 

I'm using the 3.0 beta and it does seem better, and like you said, its worse with tungsten. I didn't buy the latest C1 as LR 3 seems to be coming along very well. What version of C1 are you using?

 

Jeff

[Alnitak]

Alnitak, since you continually point out the problems you see with the M9 and the magenta cast in some situations and at higher ISO, I have a suggestion for you. Why don't you make some presets for tungsten and higher ISO that develop out the magenta to your liking? What you are pointing out is really just a LR2 bias. LR3 is much more correct in this area and as pointed out, C1 uses different developing settings and light room can be set up to do the same.

 

In other words, this is a problem that has been fixed in LR3 quite some time ago. This isn't really a nit that the M9 has, but more a nit you have with the way you have your presets set and the way Chris chose to develop these.

 

Use LR3 and make some profiles. I have and I love the color from the M9... even at higher ISO.

 

Well, I wouldn't say I "continually" point out problems. I mentioned it in one other thread besides this.

 

There are two issues with just putting a profile in place. First, its NOT just LR 2. The new ACR is a little better, but its a problem in Aperture as well, and it's fundamentally how the reds are rendered in Leica/JenOptiks standard profile. I use several raw converters and I have to create several profiles as a result. It sounds like Phase One has tweaked their profile a bit to correct it in C1, which would be nice but I'm not a fan of C1's workflow. Second, the problem is that in tungsten light, at high ISOs, you can't always correct the color without screwing things up worse. At 1600, it can often be corrected with a profile, but at 2500 in tungsten, I have been unable to recover it in many situations.

 

And as I have pointed out before...I love the color of my M9 as well...except for the tendency to make fair-skinned people look a bit too magenta at higher ISOs.

 

How about we leave it at that?

 

Jeff

[Rick]

I'd say that is a fair assessment. Especially the 2500 part which I never go to. 800 is perfectly fine for me and 1600, I can pull out but, would rather not if i can help it.

[Julian Thompson]

Hmmn yes - those ears -I noticed that too.

 

And I continue to notice it on my own M9 shooting.

 

But then, as Andy Piper explains - that's the raw conversion not the camera, and you've just got to learn to work with colour.

 

Still, my MP and a roll of Kodak supermarket film would have rendered our friends ears here in a less martian shade of magenta, I suspect

[Jamie Roberts]

I'm using the 3.0 beta and it does seem better, and like you said, its worse with tungsten. I didn't buy the latest C1 as LR 3 seems to be coming along very well. What version of C1 are you using?

 

Jeff, I use the latest version of C1, 5.5.1, and it's very good with colour and especially skin tones (which are often, I admit, the only thing I really care about).

 

C1 has historically been the standard, for me, and for my M8 (I could never get decent colour out of LR / ACR with the M8 under any circumstances short of essentially remapping magenta to orange, which, of course, means that the whole red spectrum is off).

 

Output from LR3 is the first time I've seen M8 and M9 shots that look good for skin tones; Adobe has done a lot of work there.

 

I don't know enough about LR3 to know whether it's all you might need; it might be. But despite it's lack of DAM (or maybe because of that, actually) I stick with C1 precisely because I like the way it works with colour across my Nikon D3, my now legacy Canon files, the digital Ms and the DMR. To get to an excellent quality proof (with proper skin, in other words) takes only a few clicks and I can process very quickly, which is also important.

 

So far, up to ISO 2000, I don't have any trouble with colour, though of course you're losing DR a bit by that point; in lower light and higher ISOs past that the M9 is pushing its ability to retain shadow capability. I haven't done enough people shooting up there with the M9 yet to tell... but that will change tomorrow (the m9's first wedding)

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[Alnitak]

I've always been least satisfied with ACR to be honest, but to me the DAM features are important. For that reason, for the last few years I have used Aperture for DAM and then ACR in CS4 for conversion from raw and then any minor editing needed. I have been trying LR since the first beta, and it seems that in LR3 its finally getting to the point where the DAM features are nearly as good as Aperture, and the raw development side is up to speed with C1 (as I've mentioned already, while I like C1 for raw conversion, I have always struggled to deal with the workflow of that program). Of course, what complicates matters is that now Apple has added some good editing features to Aperture 3 such as selective brushes, etc.

 

The noise reduction in LR 3 is what is most impressive, however. I can squeak another stop out of almost any image. It's most noticeable going back to M8 images, where I can make them look as good as the M9 images at ISO 1600. It's a very natural noise reduction, too, with virtually no loss of detail.

 

Maybe for my people shots I will have to add C1 to the conversion mix.

 

Jeff

[Alnitak]

Hmmn yes - those ears -I noticed that too.

 

And I continue to notice it on my own M9 shooting.

 

But then, as Andy Piper explains - that's the raw conversion not the camera, and you've just got to learn to work with colour.

 

Still, my MP and a roll of Kodak supermarket film would have rendered our friends ears here in a less martian shade of magenta, I suspect

 

Of course, I never met a color film over ISO 400 that could produce nice colors or reasonable grain. We're just spoiled these days!