erudolph Posted January 25, 2016 Share #61 Posted January 25, 2016 Advertisement (gone after registration) I don't know whether I'd missed noticing this with files from other cameras, but in LR, the Adobe Standard profile for the SL seems to include differing amounts for noise reduction for different ISOs. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted January 25, 2016 Posted January 25, 2016 Hi erudolph, Take a look here Images a little soft out of the SL using M lenses. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
nscali Posted January 25, 2016 Author Share #62 Posted January 25, 2016 Christopher, It may be an issue with the files having wider dynamic range than the M240, so within Lightroom you have to push the SL files harder to get the same result, ie - more sharpening than you would normally use, clarity, levels, saturation etc... I found with C1, however, it has good default settings when you load the DNG file and your starting point is a file that already has that 'Pop' you are missing. I assure you, what you are missing is there in the SL files and in my opinion, C1 default settings show you that from a starting point. The only issue is that the default noise reduction in C1 us too high, you need to back that off to almost zero, (depending on your ISO of course). Anyway, it's easy to change the default value. Give it a try. I assure you, you will find what is missing. The workflow, file management etc on C1, unfortunately, is not as good as LR, but as long as the result is there, who cares! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Bell Posted January 26, 2016 Share #63 Posted January 26, 2016 Appreciate the encouragement... Does anybody else feel the SL files are noisier than M240 or Q? I seem to be using much more noise reduction in LR6 than I would with my other Leica digital cameras. I notice the noise mostly in the medium shadows. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramarren Posted January 26, 2016 Share #64 Posted January 26, 2016 I don't use any noise reduction, with any camera, unless I've intentionally underexposed the image, for one reason or another. Any time I need to use noise reduction, that tells me I either underexposed or didn't take into account the dynamic range at the ISO setting I was using. DR reduces as ISO increases ... I don't use any sharpening either, as a rule (I tend to decrease the Adobe defaults on sharpening as a matter of fact). I've got two sets of similar photos made with the SL and M-P in front of me right now. If I didn't know which camera made which of the exposures from the EXIF or lens characteristic, I would not be able to tell them apart. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Bell Posted January 26, 2016 Share #65 Posted January 26, 2016 I'm beginning to wonder if my SL has an issue? A recent test I shot with the new M262 looked much sharper and noise free than any of my SL shots. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramarren Posted January 26, 2016 Share #66 Posted January 26, 2016 I'm beginning to wonder if my SL has an issue? A recent test I shot with the new M262 looked much sharper and noise free than any of my SL shots. Do some comparative test exposures with both cameras and the same lens, at the same lens opening, to determine if the SL's metering calibration is the same or different. For instance, using the same lens (M-mount Summilux 35 v2) and a standardized target, I note that my M-P meters ISO 1600 @ f/2.8 @ 1/15 vs the SL at ISO 1600 @ f/2.8 @ 1/40 second, a difference that shows the SL is essentially underexposing the photo by a little more than one stop relative to the M-P. There's no doubt the M-P photo will be sharper and less noisy looking. There's no question to me that the M-P metering is more accurate with M-mount (and R-mount) lenses than the SL is with the same lenses, particularly in low-ish light levels. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Bell Posted January 26, 2016 Share #67 Posted January 26, 2016 Advertisement (gone after registration) As a quick experiment I set the EV to +2/3 stop and shot a few tests at my desk. The images appear sharper and there is less noise. Will experiment more in "real-world" shots tomorrow. Is the SL underexposing with M lenses attached? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramarren Posted January 26, 2016 Share #68 Posted January 26, 2016 As a quick experiment I set the EV to +2/3 stop and shot a few tests at my desk. The images appear sharper and there is less noise. Will experiment more in "real-world" shots tomorrow. Is the SL underexposing with M lenses attached? Remember that the SL is designed first and foremost for use with its SL system lenses, and all metering is calibrated around the body's control of both aperture and shutter. The M is specifically designed to work with lenses where it doesn't have any control of aperture. So the SL's metering with adapted lenses is not as proficient as it is with its own lens(es ; for the future) and the M is more capable, metering-wise, with M lenses. The same goes for R lenses, btw. Turn on Exposure Simulation and the histogram, however, and the SL handles the metering chores very very well. You can see the correct exposure in the viewfinder and verify it with the histogram. It's how I work the camera whenever there is a question mark about the metering. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter E Posted January 26, 2016 Share #69 Posted January 26, 2016 So you've not updated to the latest version? I did try the demo at the start, but it wouldn't pick up files on a network drive. Local files were fine, but there were no local adjustments. Yes, I've updated to the latest version. I needed this to open the raw files from new cameras I have. I forgot to do my free update... Normally you can use all adjustments in the demo version but you can't save you image(I thought ) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter E Posted January 26, 2016 Share #70 Posted January 26, 2016 I downloaded and compared several exposures of widely differing natures between LR6.3 and Photo Ninja. I don't find much that I can do in Photo Ninja that I can't achieve more rapidly and flexibly with LR6.3. Their total disregard for using the Apple OS X user interface properly is also an issue. For instance: Why do they make the font so bloody small? But, eh? It's just another raw processor. It probably works well enough once you get used to it. I don't see anything compelling enough to motivate me to move from Lightroom, but it's nice to know there's another good one to use if Adobe annoys me for some reason. Photo Ninja gets much more out your file after just opening it. For some files you need to work hard to get what you want in LR but PNinja squeezes this out easily after opening the file I don't know about the font on Apple but it's Ok on PC. I know a lot of mac users too, they don't complain The only minus for me is the speed... For the demo testers: you need to set the highlights slider back to 0(PNinja analizes your raw file and moves some sliders to have the best result) but for the highlights this isn't always the best solution. Anyway, it was just a tip I'm going to make a camera profile for my SL in Photo Ninja, probably this will solve the most of our problems(I hope ) Best regards Peter Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramarren Posted January 26, 2016 Share #71 Posted January 26, 2016 Photo Ninja gets much more out your file after just opening it. For some files you need to work hard to get what you want in LR but PNinja squeezes this out easily after opening the file I don't know about the font on Apple but it's Ok on PC. I know a lot of mac users too, they don't complain The only minus for me is the speed... For the demo testers: you need to set the highlights slider back to 0(PNinja analizes your raw file and moves some sliders to have the best result) but for the highlights this isn't always the best solution. Anyway, it was just a tip I'm going to make a camera profile for my SL in Photo Ninja, probably this will solve the most of our problems(I hope ) Can you articulate (or demonstrate with a couple of photos) what you mean by "gets much much more out of your file" and what you needed to do to get it with Photo Ninja vs Lightroom? I really don't see much difference for the files I processed with it. The font used in the app is too small for me. (Lightroom's font is only marginally better in some places, to be fair.) But more than that, the whole UI looks like a Windows user experience plopped onto OS X without much care taken to read and understand the Apple Human Interface Guidelines. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter E Posted January 26, 2016 Share #72 Posted January 26, 2016 Can you articulate (or demonstrate with a couple of photos) what you mean by "gets much much more out of your file" and what you needed to do to get it with Photo Ninja vs Lightroom? I really don't see much difference for the files I processed with it. The font used in the app is too small for me. (Lightroom's font is only marginally better in some places, to be fair.) But more than that, the whole UI looks like a Windows user experience plopped onto OS X without much care taken to read and understand the Apple Human Interface Guidelines. Hi, If you google for Photo Ninja reviews you'll find a lot of information about this software. Some people like it and some don't. Of course, this can be very personal for most of us. It's very good with the standard rendering coming out of your raw file. After this you adjust of course like you want it. Another plus is that you can export to ecirgb (Leica SL also has this in camera profile for jpg), for me is this a very interesting profile if you convert to B/W with Silver Effects. LR can not export to ecirgb as far as I know, for C1 I don't know. Here I found a review with some comparising images/crops: http://www.hendriximages.com/blog/2015/2/28/taming-the-beast-x-trans-raw-part-2 Regarding the font, I've no experiance with this software on Mac... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramarren Posted January 26, 2016 Share #73 Posted January 26, 2016 Well, that page shows some X-Trans rendering samples ... The X-Trans sensor is nothing like the SL sensor, and has been particularly problematic to get good results out of with Adobe (and C1) software. It's nothing like any sensor Leica has used: The techniques required to get best results out of it are entirely different compared to what you need to get best results out of the M9, M-P typ 240, or SL sensors in my experience. Also, the results shown there are with LR5.7 ... The SL is supported with a camera calibration profile in LR6.3 and later. I sincerely doubt that Photo Ninja, despite being a good processor, is going to be significantly better performing than LR6.3. I suspect they're about on par, which means that the choice between them is a matter more of what UI you like and can get along with best. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrp Posted January 26, 2016 Share #74 Posted January 26, 2016 http://www.nomadlens.com/raw-converters-comparison being a comparison of different raw processors, looking at a number of key characteristics. Photo Ninja scores fairly highly but, for my purposes, I value having good lens profiles (for architecture). Iridient Developer can steal Lightroom's lens profiles, but it provides so many options, but lacks local adjustment, so I have not gone for it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramarren Posted January 27, 2016 Share #75 Posted January 27, 2016 http://www.nomadlens.com/raw-converters-comparison being a comparison of different raw processors, looking at a number of key characteristics. Photo Ninja scores fairly highly but, for my purposes, I value having good lens profiles (for architecture). Iridient Developer can steal Lightroom's lens profiles, but it provides so many options, but lacks local adjustment, so I have not gone for it. It's an interesting review. As I suspected, overall the differences are quite small and I feel the skill and familiarity with a particular raw converter of the person doing the rendering work is much more significant than any of the raw converter's measurable outputs. I'm very familiar with how to get my results out of LR, ten years of practice using it for thousands of image files have ensured that. I can learn others, and have, but I don't see any particular reason to. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
thighslapper Posted January 27, 2016 Share #76 Posted January 27, 2016 .... back to original post ...... which I have always viewed with some suspicion: I have done some careful tests today with the Apo 50 M on the M(240) and SL ....... I have found the SL actually seems to offer slightly better clarity at f2 and f5.6 than the M ........ there is no softness with this lens on the SL. Testing is fraught with difficulty due the multiple variables that can occur ...... focussing is critical, and both white balance, exposure and the camera profile in LR can produce subjective differences ..... Ditto with NR and sharpening ..... just how much do you feel is appropriate and doesn't cause observable artifactual changes ?? ....... simple OOC images really cannot be compared...... it is the best final processed image that really counts. The slightly better performance of the SL seems to be down to the greater DR ...... there is better delineation between slight tonal differences that shows up as better modelling and clarity ..... not much, but enough to be there if you look closely ..... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrp Posted January 30, 2016 Share #77 Posted January 30, 2016 And here's another raw converters comparison. http://blog.wadetregaskis.com/raw-converter-comparison/ Doesn't cover Ninja but shows what the default settings on the popular converters look like on a range of photos. (Not all of them have Leica support, which may be a more critical consideration for this forum's readers. ) To my mind the old adage that the best raw converter is the one with which you are most comfortable / familiar is sustained by this comparison. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter E Posted February 25, 2016 Share #78 Posted February 25, 2016 Hi all, I was able to do a short comparison between the SL and my previous MP240. I used my 75lux wide open, images are converted from RAW to jpg with photo ninja and I've made a light profile in photo ninja to have correct colors. You can download the images. More images to follow. For me the difference is very very small but I've the feeling that the MP240 renders it with a little more depth. http://peterengelen.be/galleries/sl-vs-m-with-m-lens/#PhotoSwipe1456424484618 Best regards Peter Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
thighslapper Posted February 25, 2016 Share #79 Posted February 25, 2016 I've the feeling that the MP240 renders it with a little more depth. http://peterengelen.be/galleries/sl-vs-m-with-m-lens/#PhotoSwipe1456424484618 Best regards Peter We had all this with the M9 versus M240 ....... I think it all has to do with progressively increasing dynamic range ....... which leads to more subtle gradations in images so the 'lose' the slightly more contrasty 'punchy' look of the previous sensor ..... Not sure that the 75 lux at 1.4 is the best choice to show differences either ...... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter E Posted February 26, 2016 Share #80 Posted February 26, 2016 We had all this with the M9 versus M240 ....... I think it all has to do with progressively increasing dynamic range ....... which leads to more subtle gradations in images so the 'lose' the slightly more contrasty 'punchy' look of the previous sensor ..... Not sure that the 75 lux at 1.4 is the best choice to show differences either ...... Yes, I think it's dynamic range too... I did the comparison with the 75 at 1.4 because I use this mostly together with my Noctilux f1. I always shoot wide open Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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