JimKasson Posted October 23, 2013 Share #1 Posted October 23, 2013 Advertisement (gone after registration) I recently returned from a 17-day trip, with the M240 as my only camera. Lenses: 18 Super-Elmar, 50 'lux, 90 'cron. The plan was to have an RX-1 to fill in the gap between 18 and 50, but it didn't survive the first leg of the trip, so it was all Leica, all the time. I'd been doing a series of technical analyses of M240 performance in the weeks before the trip, and it was a pleasure to just get out and use the camera. I've posted a "lessons learned" thread starting here: Traveling with the Leica M240, part 1 | The Last Word Some of my findings: I didn't use the EVF near as much as I thought I would. The green shadows problem shows up in the field, but I had to work at making it apparent. In general, the resolution capabilities of camera like the M240 make the old rules about hand held shutter speeds and depth of field markings obsolete. Moire is almost never a problem. Wake-up time is, even without LV Battery life without LV is great The corner corrections for the 18 work very well. The Leica M system is small, but not so light. The M240 is a good camera for panos, eliminating the frustrations of using the M9 for that application. Those are three lovely lenses As usual, comments are appreciated. Jim 14 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted October 23, 2013 Posted October 23, 2013 Hi JimKasson, Take a look here Traveling with the M240. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
pieterpronk Posted October 23, 2013 Share #2 Posted October 23, 2013 Thanks. Great review with a down to earth approach, which I appreciate. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Posted October 23, 2013 Share #3 Posted October 23, 2013 Color fidelity looks fantastic in some of those shots. The M240 really settled down to have nice color. Leica ended up doing a nice job on the color. If, your WATE isn't sharp then you need to send it back for a CLA. Sharpness hasn't been a problem for me with that lens and the LV just makes it such a perfect travel and generally fantastic lens. That and the 28 Summicron work very well for travel and 28mm is my standard travel lens. Glad to see you take pictures as well. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest malland Posted October 23, 2013 Share #4 Posted October 23, 2013 Thanks, Jim: a perceptive and balanced review. I was interested in the following statement, which I view as sensible and to be interpreted by the individual user's taste: I’m not going to get into the CCD vs CMOS morass, but I will say that the combination of the filters in the Bayer array and the chip spectral sensitivities are different in the M9 and M240, so they will render colors differently. Neither is right – you can’t buy a camera that sees color the way a human does – but they are different. Most of this you can adjust for in post, but some of it can’t be profiled out. —Mitch/Paris Looking for Baudelaire [WIP] Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwbell Posted October 23, 2013 Share #5 Posted October 23, 2013 Thanks Jim, good balanced points. Interestingly I found I used the EVF more than I expected to. But even then battery life wasn't too bad, when compared to other EVF bodies. It's funny, when you don't use the EVF (this now for me is run n' gun mode with loose compositions) the battery is insanely over-capacitied (made up word) and last me days! Oh, and colour is spot on with the FW update, especially when you're hanging around or below ISO800. Really good. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stealth3kpl Posted October 23, 2013 Share #6 Posted October 23, 2013 That was an interesting read. What was the Sony malfunction ? Pete 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
algrove Posted October 23, 2013 Share #7 Posted October 23, 2013 Advertisement (gone after registration) Well done and well thought out. I am a bit confused when you said you could not do stitched verticals even though you have a RRS grip with vertical QR section. Just so you know the Leica grip is not as continually rounded as the RRS grip and to my hands is the easier of the two to hold and find (and not obstruct) the #3 front button. To be clearer he Leica grips are rounded and then at the furtherest protrusion cut nearly straight back to the body front. Any over head photos of the Leica grips will show it better than any description. I changed to using the RRS MC-L (L bracket) which will fit on the eventual receipt of either Leica grip and due to the thumb wheel on the Leica grips will allow user to change batteries and SD cards without removing the RRS L bracket from the Leica grip. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimKasson Posted October 23, 2013 Author Share #8 Posted October 23, 2013 I am a bit confused when you said you could not do stitched verticals even though you have a RRS grip with vertical QR section. All the stitched images that I posted were made from verticals. All were handheld, since all were taken from a boat. My problem making tripod-mounted verticals was this. I'd brought a small Gitzo CF traveling tripod that extended only to a little above waist-high, intending to make use of the 90 degree tilt feature in the EVF. That worked fine for horizontals -- although I still tend to go the wrong way right to left from years and years of using the waist level Hasselblad finders -- but I had a problem with the verticals, since after clipping the camera in with the left-side plate, tilting the finder by 90 degrees now merely moved it from one horizontal orientation to another. I couldn't look down into it, and thus I couldn't frame the picture without crouching in an uncomfortable position. I hadn't thought of that when I picked the tripod. Sorry for any confusion. Jim 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimKasson Posted October 23, 2013 Author Share #9 Posted October 23, 2013 It's funny, when you don't use the EVF (this now for me is run n' gun mode with loose compositions) the battery is insanely over-capacitied (made up word) and last me days! That's right. I'm thinking about, when I'm not using the EVF, dealing with the long start-up time by telling the camera to never turn off. I'll bet battery life isn't too bad even then. But then I worry about turning the camera on by accident when I'm putting it into the bag. Still, if I carry an extra battery, that would only be a minor problem. I'll give it a try. Jim 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff S Posted October 23, 2013 Share #10 Posted October 23, 2013 That was an interesting read. What was the Sony malfunction ? Second paragraph of the review. Jeff Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
algrove Posted October 23, 2013 Share #11 Posted October 23, 2013 Jim Did you send the RX-1 in to Sony for repair? Any resolve as yet? 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimKasson Posted October 23, 2013 Author Share #12 Posted October 23, 2013 (edited) Oh, and colour is spot on with the FW update, especially when you're hanging around or below ISO800. Really good. The FW update came out when I was on the boat, and I didn't update the camera until I got home, so all of the posted images were made with the old firmware. I don't understand all the color changes in the rel 2.x firmware. I do know that the WB algorithm is different now, but I almost never take the assigned WB anyway, so that won't make a difference to me. Are the lens profiles different, too? Are there other color differences? As you can see, all the posted pictures were made at ISO 200. I used ISOs up to 1600, but none of those images made the cut -- not for IQ reasons; they just turned out to be boring. Jim Edited October 23, 2013 by JimKasson Punctuation -- removed run on sentence 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimKasson Posted October 23, 2013 Author Share #13 Posted October 23, 2013 JimDid you send the RX-1 in to Sony for repair? Any resolve as yet? I filled out their web site form, and they automatically issued me a RMA. I sent the camera to them (in Laredo, TX) last week. Yesterday, I got a voice mail message saying that they had received the camera, that repairs normally took 7 to 10 days, and that they'd call me in three days with an update. So far, so good. Jim 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimKasson Posted October 23, 2013 Author Share #14 Posted October 23, 2013 What was the Sony malfunction? A bit more detail on the Sony problem. I flew to LAX on a regional jet, then changed to a big plane for the flight to Boston. I had both cameras and all the lenses in a Adorama Slinger in my hand luggage. My hand luggage won't fit in the tiny overheads on the regional jets, so I did a gate check with a gate return on the other end. I was in a rush, and I forgot to open the bag, take out the Slinger, and carry it on the plane. So it was really my fault. On the road trip from Boston to Montreal, we went through NH and VT looking for fall foliage. We were early, so we were in Burlington, on the shores of Lake Champlain, before I pulled out a camera. We were going for a walk, so I picked the Sony for its low weight. When I put it to my eye, I saw the error code E:61:00, and noticed that all the pictures were out of focus, and that manual focus didn't work. I persuaded my wife to go back to the car to get the Leica. That night, in the motel room, I read up on the error. The 'net consensus seemed to be that you had to send the camera back to the factory to get it fixed, but there was a minority opinion that you might be able to fix it yourself by subjecting the camera to a good sharp rap on a table. I thought that I didn't have much to lose, so I tried it. Nada. I did find out that I could focus the camera by setting the focus range selector to intermediate positions between the two with detents. But it wouldn't turn on the focus magnifier, so I couldn't judge sharpness very well. In Montreal, I went to a camera store that carried Sony (and Leica). The sales person said the camera would have to go back to Sony, and complimented me on my "backup camera". Jim 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
thighslapper Posted October 23, 2013 Share #15 Posted October 23, 2013 Thanks for a nice balanced round up of pros, cons and real use opinions. The indoor 'green cast' example was crying out for HDR. I have one profile set to 5 shot HDR (although with the wide DR of the M is usually only need to use 3 images) with bracketing, fixed iso, fixed wb etc....... a single menu pick activates it and photos are done in a flash.... A number of HDR processors produce very naturalistic results .... totally unlike the garish examples often posted..... and you avoid the artefacts of extreme shadow recovery... 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimKasson Posted October 23, 2013 Author Share #16 Posted October 23, 2013 The indoor 'green cast' example was crying out for HDR. I have one profile set to 5 shot HDR (although with the wide DR of the M is usually only need to use 3 images) with bracketing, fixed iso, fixed wb etc....... a single menu pick activates it and photos are done in a flash.... A number of HDR processors produce very naturalistic results .... totally unlike the garish examples often posted..... and you avoid the artifacts of extreme shadow recovery... I agree completely. It's too bad that the M240 has this problem, but HDR is a good way to deal with it. I do find it a bit more difficult to do handheld HDR with the M240 than with the D4 (which needs it less), since the continuous exposure rate is slower in the Leica, and registration is sometimes more problematical. Jim Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimKasson Posted October 23, 2013 Author Share #17 Posted October 23, 2013 I've added one more image: Traveling with the Leica M240, part 12 | The Last Word This shows why I like some of the Leica lenses so well. I have no control, but I don't believe that any other medium telephoto I have would have rendered this subject with such natural grace. Jim 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimKasson Posted October 23, 2013 Author Share #18 Posted October 23, 2013 If, your WATE isn't sharp then you need to send it back for a CLA. Sharpness hasn't been a problem for me with that lens and the LV just makes it such a perfect travel and generally fantastic lens. Thanks, Rick, I'll spend some time with the lens on the M240 and look at the results. I haven't used it much since I did this testing a couple of years ago: Wag the dog, part 4 | The Last Word Wag the dog, part 5 | The Last Word Do you think the WATE should come close to the 18mm Super-Elmar? That would be wonderful! Jim Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmx_2 Posted October 23, 2013 Share #19 Posted October 23, 2013 This is how I travel with my M :D:D Sorry for the crappy iPhone picture. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
photolandscape Posted October 23, 2013 Share #20 Posted October 23, 2013 Certainly not the least expensive way, but probably the safest, though I would put the camera and lenses in my A+A Oskar Day Bag, then apply the seat belt. Looks like you went coach, not first class. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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