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Thoughts on DigiLLoyd's Review of the Q


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Presumably the colours are less true in the Vario pics, although cold blue cast in the Q can be moderated?

 

errr...... the shots are two years apart ....... nice sunny day in one and overcast in the other .... and this church is very dark , even in midday summer, and almost every shot I've ever taken needs WB correction ...... the Q images are straight out of the camera ...... the uncorrected XV images are in fact a touch too warm....

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It is more that some raw converters do not read the applied corrections.

 

... which as I understand is a formula that the raw converter needs to implement in order to apply the correction, in other words: rather than calling these converters "heroically pure", their developer in reality probably just didn't bother implementing the full set of DNG features. On the other hand, it's annoying that Adobe would force the correction on us rather than allowing us to unclick a check box for instance. At least, the current LR version will tell you about those automatic corrections. I am quite sure, the older versions did not.

 

 

I suppose if you were mad enough to use this camera professionally for architectural purposes I suppose you would be very disgruntled .......but for reportage and other non-professional usage I can't really see a problem ......

 

My 2c: any half way professional architectural photography would require a camera on a tripod with a shift/tilt lens. Currently that means: a Canon DSLR With TS-E lenses unless you don't mind lack of AF, then a Nikon DSLR with PC-E would do the same. These lenses start at around EUR 1500,- which in our ivory tower of Leica is laughable, but in the world of Nikons and Canons qualifies as a high end lens.

 

Now, ignoring all vintage tilt/shift lens plus adapter and your choice of EVIL camera solution for the sake of simplifying the discussion, you can go follow the cheap road and do a lot of perspective correction in Adobe Photoshop and yes, the Q probably sucks at this because it's got visible distortion in the lens that you need to handle first.

 

Ok, true. But these are the sort of discussions where I really don't know what we are discussing here. The sticker price of a Leica Q gets you a top range DSLR from Nikon and Canon plus a lens and you'll have a state of art architectural photography solution in your hands. The Leica Q then probably wasn't such a good choice after all and all the professional photographers I aspire to or I have worked with in the past are pretty good at choosing the right gear for the right job, because this is what puts the bread on their dinner table.

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Digital correction is a way to take a shortcut in lens size and price so as to make it look like the lenses that didn't take any shortcuts.

Shortcut is not really the appropriate word here. Can we say that digital correction is a compromise which enables lens designers to produce a fast aperture and more compact lens at a price which would not be possible with a fully optically corrected lens? Its a glass half full/half empty thing.....

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The only reviewer I have any respect for (apart from Jono Slack who tests for leica) is Ming Thein

 

I enjoy his writing as well.  Aside: His images hurt my eyes in an odd way. Do you think he uses a high-pass filter in an overlay mode layer?  It is something I used to do. Maybe it's all just me.

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You know what, I think Leica should have applied the digital correction in camera, so that nobody would ever find out about it.  Perhaps it would slow down writing the DNGs, but I'm sure they could find some kind of solution.

Putting aside the question of whether that solution would be desirable, it isn’t really possible anyway.

 

The raw file contains red, green, and blue pixel data in a specific pattern (a variant of the Bayer pattern). If one tried to apply the distortion correction to the raw data, a lot of pixels would shift their position, resulting in, say, a red pixel shifted to a position where a green pixel was expected. To enable the raw converter to make sense of this the raw file would need a map of the new, shifted positions; otherwise it couldn’t tell whether some pixel was red, green, or blue. There is no way one could hide a distortion correction in raw data. Not to mention that the DNG standard doesn’t provide for such an option.

Edited by mjh
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Sean Reid's article on the Q and SDC (Software Distortion Correction) was technically interesting and in his comparison against the Sony Rx1r he illustrated the resolution loss (the RX1R has very little distortion); however, his bottom line was that for the type of shooting most users would use the Q for, the slight loss of resolution in the corners would not be noticeable.  I have to agree with his conclusion.  I know in my own case, composition during the shooting is frequently a weakness and I find I frequently crop an image in post to achieve a more pleasing composition that the one I actually took.  Therefor, a lot of that part of the image would not appear in my final product in many cases.  If the center resolution was poor, that would be a different thing that I would find unacceptable.  I am looking forward to giving this camera a real try and I hope it sings to me.  I strongly suspect that the next M (probably to be announced  in September) may be an M I could be excited about.  I am guessing that Leica will have a new line of AF lenses and the camera will support both MF legacy lenses and the new lens line.  I also think it will not have the traditional range finder mechanism but something completely different and new.  Finally, I think they will incorporate better and faster electronics.  I hope they get Sony's new sensor from the A7RII as combined with their lenses and image processing would produce a world class camera.  The biggest problem for Leica is that it probably would hurt the sale of the S camera line.

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I always am amazed that some want the M to become a Sony.  I tried on the A7r and was sorely bitten and sold it.  John, if you want a Sony, buy one.  

 

And, I am very sure that soon your comments about your Q will scorch this forum.

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I hope so too.  I have no experience with the camera other than handling it a couple weeks ago.  I really liked it a lot.  I have the Sony RX1 so, it makes no sense for me right now.  But, it seems to be a much better RX1 in a lot of ways.  And, it really had a nice gestalt for me.  I hope it works for you... but, I do know you are a very critical camera person.

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As a photography hobbyist I feel like I turned a corner with this camera.

 

I did pay attention to the reviews. But I feel like I knew more about what I really wanted and whether this camera would fit than on any prior purchase. I had a quick fiddle with a Q and knew immediately it would suit me for a lot of what I do. Job done.

 

The MM v1 remains as much resolution as I feel I want. More is fine.

 

What the Q provided me during 9 days in Burgundy at the end of June was a very flexible camera, intuitive to use the way I like to use cameras, and gave me access to some types of photographs that are a stretch on my beloved M.

 

In my profession - wine - I see this a lot. Customers fret about reviews. It makes sense when you don't feel comfortable about what you want. But once you do, and once you have tried enough wine, you start to follow your own path a little more, become more released about not having the "100-point" wine you don't actually enjoy drinking. But it doesn't happen overnight.

 

Mr Chambers is entitled to his conclusions. I subscribe and I get value from what he writes. I think I have learned a lot over the years from him about how lenses change image characteristics - and not just DOF - as they are stopped down. And some things he has written about complex field curvature characteristics in certain Leica lenses has helped me get more out of those lenses - by understanding their weaknesses.

 

And it was Mr. Chambers - I think I'm right in recalling - who got the whole flare issue in the 50-APO rolling.

 

I like my Q. I like my M+28 Cron images more, but I think that has more to do with the "look" of them. I haven't decided and I'm not sure I will be bothered doing side-by-sides. That will feel too much like obsessing and I'm trying to get away from that.

 

The Q is in my bag as much for its practical high quality usability as anything.

 

And I don't yet take images that surpass its capabilities.

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pic.1 from Lightroom 6.1

pic.2 from Adobe dng (9.1) converter, shows a larger pic and vignetting, opened with Preview on mac.

 

 

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Exactly ... it's too easy to end up accessing the bottom image.

 

When I said they should do the correction in camera, what I mean that the correction should be baked into the DNG file so nobody ever has access to the uncorrected pixels.  Other vendors (e.g. Sony) even bake lossy correction into the raw files (that's unacceptable to me).  But this lens correction is part of the basic image-creation pipeline, there should be no way for an end-user to access the uncorrected image!

 

BTW, I think expecting the lens of the Q to be equal in image quality to the most similar M lens is unrealistic ... they are completely different designs and completely different prices!

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I rather hope not; it is  unsuitable for M lenses.

This remains to be seen as there is some talk that the new backlight sensor may behave better with some of the wider RF lenses. Of course a sensor purpose made for RF lenses should be superior but we will have to wait and see when the camera is released and test can be made. On the whole I feel that at the moment  Sony's sensor technology is really the class leader and even if they were to offer a sensor to Leica it would obviously have to be adapted to RF lenses

Edited by viramati
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Actually, on the M240 Sony was approached first by Leica and was unable to offer a suitable sensor. Yes - they make excellent sensors - but their development path is geared to sensors that suit their own cameras (or maybe Nikon's), the rest  is just spinoff sales. The field is far more diversified and they certainly do not make the "best"  sensor for all purposes.

 

Leica does use Sony sensors when they are suitable, starting with the Digilux2, but will only do so if they are suitable.

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I think HCB (and countless notable others) would have just taken the Q out for a walk about the streets of Paris (or wherever) and simply snapped away getting images that would easily have lived up to his legacy of treasures we cherish. I doubt he'd get involved in any discussion about whether the results were an 18 mp or a full 24 mp and would be more than satisfied with the IQ (as would the rest of us I think). In the end, it's all about the content.

Edited by peterb
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