Newby to the M9

[acapella]

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Dear all,

 

First of all: I am fan of this forum since this year, I am really impressed with the wealth of knowledge and expertise everybody is willing to share!

 

Now, since the end of october I am photographing with a M9 with several lenses! And I am very pleased with it during a first trip with it to Singapore and Australia.!!

 

But of course a couple of (practical, simple, beginners?) questions are coming up while processing my pictures (in Aperture 3):

 

1. Is there already a sort of standard preset M9 profile available for the M9 to be used within Aperture 3. Or any common understanding on settings? Or for the M9 per lens used?

 

2. How to understand cropping precisely? In fact, as I understand it, while cropping you change the f-value of the lens you used? Any rule of thumb available to understand that process. For instance: I have a shot with a 50mm lens, what crop parameters are necessary to make part of that picture to be cropped as if taken by a 135mm lens?

 

3. There seems to be a lot of confusion around issues like number of pixels, dpi, resolution etc. Any threads or good sites on those topics?

 

These ar some of the first questions coming up, it would be very helpfulf to refer to sites or thread where I can find answers

 

Thank you,

A Capella

[acapella]

Just found the excellent thread on ppi, dpi etc. from RichC right above my posting! So that helps!

[adan]

1. Is there already a sort of standard preset M9 profile available for the M9 to be used within Aperture 3. Or any common understanding on settings? Or for the M9 per lens used?

 

Well, Aperture obviously has SOME kind of profile for the M9, or else it could not interpret the colors at all. Whether it is a good profile is another question - see: http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/digital-post-processing-forum/153642-strange-color-aperture-but-not-lightroom.html

 

The lens used is irrelevant for color calibration, unless it is just grossly off in color transmission. A lens yellowed with age, for example, might require its own profile, but it would have to be pretty yellow.

 

If Aperture 3 allows automatic vignetting or CA corrections per lens based on EXIF data, that would require separate lens profiles (not the same as a camera profile).

 

 

2. How to understand cropping precisely? In fact, as I understand it, while cropping you change the f-value of the lens you used? Any rule of thumb available to understand that process. For instance: I have a shot with a 50mm lens, what crop parameters are necessary to make part of that picture to be cropped as if taken by a 135mm lens?

 

Cropping in Aperture (or anywhere else for that matter) has no effect on "f-value". That was fixed at the moment of exposure. Unless you mean apparent depth of field or amount of background blur (which is something completely different).

 

I've sworn never to get involved in "effects of cropping on DoF" discussions again.

 

But to crop a 50mm lens image for the FRAMING or field of view of a 135 lens is simple - divide 135mm by 50mm, and you get 2.7. Crop your image until the width in pixels is 1/2.7th as many as you started with (for the M9, 5212 pixels divided by 2.7 = 1930 pixels wide x 1287 pixels high).

 

I don't use a 50 - but the image below shows a 35mm f/2 image cropped to the equivalent of a 135mm view.

 

One theory says that that cropped image is equivalent to a 135 image @ f/7.7 in terms of the amount of blurring in the background. 35mm x 3.85 = 135mm; f/2 x 3.85 = f/7.71

 

But it was shot @ f/2 and will forever remain an f/2 image, cropped or not.