Leica M Monochrom Typ246 at overgaard.dk with DNG for download

[Overgaard]

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I wrote my first page about the new Leica M Monochrome Typ246 and have included a link to download of a few DNG files from the camera. 

 

There is also a comparison-chart of Leica M models. 

 

Leica M Monochrom Type 246 by Thorsten Overgaard

 

I find that a lot of the questions about going from MM to MM246 is answered in my previous article on the M240 (Live View, EVF, batteries, focus peak, etc) but will eventually address some of the things in coming articles. 

 

So far, enjoy this one!
 

 

 

[Lenshacker]

There appears to be cross-hatch pattern noise in the ISO 12,500 image, and to a lesser degree in the ISO6400 shots. The M Monochrom shows Gaussian noise at ISO 10,000 but no pattern noise. (I use 8GByte 4x SD cards as I have seen high-speed cards cause pattern noise to creep in when first testing my camera.)

 

Any thoughts on where this is coming in and if it will be improved for production cameras?

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[Overgaard]

There appears to be cross-hatch pattern noise in the ISO 12,500 image, and to a lesser degree in the ISO6400 shots. The M Monochrom shows Gaussian noise at ISO 10,000 but no pattern noise. (I use 8GByte 4x SD cards as I have seen high-speed cards cause pattern noise to creep in when first testing my camera.)

 

Any thoughts on where this is coming in and if it will be improved for production cameras?

 

 

I think this is a not final firmware, and there are no Adobe Lightroom profile for the new camera. So anything is possible.

 

Normally vertical lines means the sensor needs remapping (and they are often like white noise; but mainly they are vertical), horizontal lines are noise.

 

As with the MM (and other cameras by the way), the real stress-factor of the sensor and high ISO is when there is low light or no light. It's easy to make a 25,000 ISO photo in a store or in a well lit living room. It will be fine because there is actually plenty of light. It's when there is no light you are stretching the sensor and the softwares ability to make something out of the dark.

 

The M246 sensor is 320 or 400 as base ISO (I think 400 though it is stated generally to be 320 ISO). That means this is what the sensor can actually see.Anything above that is algorithms in LR that works out what it looks like of we pretend there is - as in this case at 12,500 ISO), 32 times more light (5 stops is 32X).

 

Truth is, nobody can really review anything about this camera yet, because it's the first firmware and there exist no Adobe Lightroom profile for it yet.

 

Also, with the MM I found that the sensor did better grey tones at moderate ISO than at 3200 and 6400. Just like a color sensor does better colors at moderate ISO. Most people - including me - can't tell when a grey tone is "wrong" the same way as you can easily tell when a color tone is off.

 

Under normal conditions I would have set the ISO to 3200 or 6400 to shoot that portrait, but the point was to try the 12500. The shutter speed is 1/1500 so even there was low light, there was enough to normally choose a slower ISO.

[tookaphotoof]

Thanks for posting the dng files Thorsten. Appreciate it.

Having played with the files I'm not impressed, yet.

Probably going to wait a year to see what it does after one or two firmware updates and a LR profile.

For 7.000 + euro I'm in no rush unless the photo really impresses me.

[Lenshacker]

One of my first jobs was to identify and track down noise creeping into digital imaging sensors.

 

It would be interesting to know if use of Liveview increases noise for High-ISO images. Sensor Noise increases dramatically with temperature of the sensor, and Liveview requires running the sensor all the time.

 

The DNG files supplied are "Motorola Format", meaning Big Endian. Opposite of "Intel Format" used by the M8, M9, and M Monochrom. I need to modify my own software to handle it, eliminate LR and other software from messing with the data.

Edited May 4, 2015 by Lenshacker

[Overgaard]

One of my first jobs was to identify and track down noise creeping into digital imaging sensors.

 

It would be interesting to know if use of Liveview increases noise for High-ISO images. Sensor Noise increases dramatically with temperature of the sensor, and Liveview requires running the sensor all the time.

 

The DNG files supplied are "Motorola Format", meaning Big Endian. Opposite of "Intel Format" used by the M8, M9, and M Monochrom. I need to modify my own software to handle it, eliminate LR and other software from messing with the data.

 

As far as I recall, I am 95% sure I did not use Live View.