Second camera - Nikon D810 or Canon Mark3?

[EdwardM]

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Dear friends, My main gear is M240 and M9. Both for joy. I'm thinking about FF DSLR. 

What woud be your recommendation based on my prefeference for Leica Look. I know that no Nikon nor Canon will never substitute the Leica, but which camera ( actually colors and lens rendering) could be close to Lecia Look. 

So, I can't decide between Nikon D810 and Canon Mark3. 

 

P.S. One of the most reputable Leica ambassador and great photographer already did his recommendation. I will tell what he said after your comments! 

P.P.S. Sorry of the this topic placed in wrong place in the forum. 

Regards, Ed 

[Tony Mac]

I think the CCD from the M9 has a very unique look, none of the current Nikons or Canons have that look. Having shot with an M9 and having used to own a both a D800 and Canon 5DIII, my vote would be for the Nikon. The Canon sensor feels very contrasty and lacks dynamic range, compared to the Nikons. 

 

I feel as though a lot of the Leica comes from the lenses anyway, so the closest you could get is putting Leica R lenses on a D810. Although you give up all the autofocus features you're probably buying the DSLR for anyway.

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[bencoyote]

Dear friends, My main gear is M240 and M9. Both for joy. I'm thinking about FF DSLR. 

What woud be your recommendation based on my prefeference for Leica Look. I know that no Nikon nor Canon will never substitute the Leica, but which camera ( actually colors and lens rendering) could be close to Lecia Look. 

 

Just out of curiosity is there any reason you're not considering the SL? 

It would seem that the SL would be the one that would deliver the most Leica like look.  I can vouch that the SL's little brother the T have a fairly similar look to the M. You could also readily adapt all of your M lenses. The real weakness of the M is telephoto and now that the telephoto zoom is out for a mere $14000 you can plug that hole. (I used to say that the weakness of the M was macro and telephoto but I've been practicing with macro and so now I think that I'm down to telephoto - though I did miss a really nice butterfly today - more practice needed)

 

Really though doesn't the answer depend on why you want to have a DSLR and what you want to do with it?

[mmradman]

Consider Leica SL for compatibility with most existing Leica lenses regardless of the mount, also consider forthcomng Pentax K-1. Pentax records raw files in DNG format and is newer than either Canon or Nikon, has decent range of AF lenses plus millions of legacy lenses, it will be offering some unique shooting feature making it potent camera.

[jto555]

A Sony A7 ii.

 

With an adaptor you can still use the Leica lenses. I can't fine the link at the moment but there is an adaptor which will also give you auto focus. The only downside is that longer Leica lenses would be better on the Sony than the wides. Plus the Sony sensor has wonderfull dynamic range and very high ISO. Plus a small form factor. Also the Zeiss lenses for the Sony are wonderfull and with another adaptor you can fit Nikon/Canon etc.

 

So a win, win, win.... win...

[Peter H]

Why do you want a DSLR?

[honcho]

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A Sony A7 ii.

......The only downside is that longer Leica lenses would be better on the Sony than the wides.....

From what I saw earlier this week at TPS, you're wrong.

 

Is a CV 10.5mm wide enough? At maximum aperture it was sharp in the centre on the Sony A7Rii and good right out to the sides and corners. The latest CV15mm was even better.

[Luke_Miller]

I shoot with a Nikon D810 in addition to my M240.  Can't speak to the Canon, having never shot with one, but I've been shooting with the pro series Nikon DSLRs since 2002. In my view the D810 is the best body Nikon has produced.

[ECohen]

Why do you want a big DSLR?   Are you working professionally?   What need are you trying to fill?......just auto focus?

 

 

I have a Nikon 610 for the times I want auto focus or fill in flash .....I also rarely  use it....One day soon,I hope to get rid of it........and except for the pictures, which are fine..... I hate using it.

For me small and light is as important as  IQ.......but I dont work professionally anymore

 

Also there is no such thing as the "Leica Look"....That "Look" happens in Post.......and it's " yours "

[honcho]

From what I saw earlier this week at TPS, you're wrong.

 

Is a CV 10.5mm wide enough? At maximum aperture it was sharp in the centre on the Sony A7Rii and good right out to the sides and corners. The latest CV15mm was even better.

Read it here: http://www.photoclubalpha.com/2016/03/22/voigtlander-fe-10mm-f5-6-and-15mm-f4-5/

[bencoyote]

Also there is no such thing as the "Leica Look"....That "Look" happens in Post.......and it's " yours "

 

I'm going to have to disagree with you about that. I've shot four different brands of cameras in the past 2.5 years. Almost exclusively, RAW and a considerable amount of the time calibrated against a color checker passport. There is a little bit of magic there which creates the "Leica Look". I've been trying to figure out what it is since I got the T, my first Leica. Is it just post processing or is it something a bit deeper? 

• I'm going to start out by agreeing that a notable portion of the effect is in the lenses. Whatever parameters either reported like MTF or unspecified like the way that coatings affect microcontrast, that is part of the look.
• Another portion of the look is the camera and how it operates and how that inclines a photographer toward a particular style. For example, I ran into a friend on the Death Valley dunes a couple of days ago. I had my M and he had a Nikon with a big telezoom. My shots were kind of street style people interacting with the dunes. Several of his shots really had a "through the lens" look they were tiny excerpts of this vast panorama. I wouldn't have seen the shot he took because the only way to see the world that way is by looking through what amounts to a telescope.
• A camera also interacts with its environment in a particular way and that shows up in the images it creates. Taking it to a hyperbolic extreme, you have very little street shooting done with view cameras. Being able to take a camera some where and interact with the environment successfully is part of the process of getting the shot. A more subtle effect might show up in how often the people in the image show signs of interacting with the camera. Overall that is probably part of the Leica look.
• There is also the bias that we as photographers bring to our photography. We Leica shooters are probably a bit more educated on photo lit than average shooters and to some extent or another we are probably all aspiring to make our stuff look like whatever masters we respect and since a notable number of those people used Leicas and how it operates affects photography that bias is reinforcing. This also includes the idea of humanistic photography that runs deeply in the Leica branch of photography.

Even subtracting those probably bigger things I believe that there is a little bit of Leica Look left beyond those elements. My current thinking as it relates to digital cameras is that the Leica look also includes:

• Precision design and accuracy. I also have an Olympus camera and I once met a guy who had made a tool with carefully designed flashing LEDs which allowed you to see how your camera operated. The Olympus was interesting, it wasn't always smack on with shutter speed. It kind of wobbled around a bit and after taking dozens of shots we started seeing that there was a little bit of bias. It would systematically stretch or shrink the shutter speed a bit but not so much that it would be to the next number. For example in low light 1/250s might really be 1/200s and in bright light it might be 1/280s. The guy who made the tool said that he'd seen this before but never quite so strongly. We also expected that they were doing the same thing with ISO and he'd observed that with a different tool. The Leica was pretty darn precise and accurate.
• In the quest for numbers to be put in marketing materials, I think that the engineers working on most other brands push their underlying technology pretty hard. Leica doesn't seem to do that. They tend to be more conservative. This isn't just how high can we push the ISO. It is much more subtle things like given that a chip can be operated within this range for some parameter, you'll lose linearity if you're at the extremes. I can''t put my finger on why I feel this but I have worked along with electrical engineers for years and there is feeling that you get when working with electronics operating in their optimal zone vs in their full range. It is the sound difference between an audiophile's stereo and a cheap stereo. The Leica seems to have that that "we only operate our amplifiers (and other electronics) in their linear range" feel. Maybe summing it up as "conservative electronic design".
• I don't know how they do this when we are working with RAW files but every camera brand seems to have some thin layer of characteristic filtering for noise. It is probably built into the electronics and the code that reads and interprets the data from the sensor before writing it into the RAW file. The sensor noise patterning from the Leica is different and more "film like" than any other brand that I have experience with.
• The optical response of the Bayer filtering and other sensor filters also seem to be a factor. We all know about the IR sensitivity problems with the M8. The actual color in the Bayer filters have slightly different band passes. I'm pretty sure that this contributes to the varying looks between cameras. Some of this can be removed by careful color calibration but I'm not sure all of it is and I haven't figured out why or how that is yet. Yes most of this can be changed in post but there is definitely a characteristic to the defaults that give us photographers a base from which we begin our post processing. My current best guess is that there are some implicit inferences being made when trying to detangle information jumbled together by the sensor filters and the broadly sensitive sensor. Could these variations be hiding in the space between the color reference card's patches?

I have two other ideas but I am not sure that they actually apply to the Leica: representational gamut and dynamic range. I don't think that Leica does anything special here.

[EdwardM]

I think the CCD from the M9 has a very unique look, none of the current Nikons or Canons have that look. Having shot with an M9 and having used to own a both a D800 and Canon 5DIII, my vote would be for the Nikon. The Canon sensor feels very contrasty and lacks dynamic range, compared to the Nikons. 

 

I feel as though a lot of the Leica comes from the lenses anyway, so the closest you could get is putting Leica R lenses on a D810. Although you give up all the autofocus features you're probably buying the DSLR for anyway.

 

Thank you! Dynamic range on D810 looks great. I'm buying DSLR for many reasons-AF and ability to shoot with long telezooms.  

[EdwardM]

Just out of curiosity is there any reason you're not considering the SL? 

It would seem that the SL would be the one that would deliver the most Leica like look.  I can vouch that the SL's little brother the T have a fairly similar look to the M. You could also readily adapt all of your M lenses. The real weakness of the M is telephoto and now that the telephoto zoom is out for a mere $14000 you can plug that hole. (I used to say that the weakness of the M was macro and telephoto but I've been practicing with macro and so now I think that I'm down to telephoto - though I did miss a really nice butterfly today - more practice needed)

 

Really though doesn't the answer depend on why you want to have a DSLR and what you want to do with it?

SL With 24/90 and with the hood on it is quite big camera, zoom is big and choice of AF lenses quite small. I don't want AF camera for such amount of money and put my M lenses on it. The EVF on SL is huge progress but the DSLR OVF still brighter and more realistic for me. 

[EdwardM]

Why do you want a DSLR?

Peter, thank you, the reasons I want ( I'm saying want instead if "need") .

 

- Fast Auto Focus

-Ability to shoot with telezooms. (70-200 and longer)

- wide choice of AF lenses (L series from Canon and Golden ring Series from Nikkor)

-weatherproof - I don't think my M will be happy on rain as well as M manual lenses 

-low light performance without significant noise 

[EdwardM]

Why do you want a big DSLR?   Are you working professionally?   What need are you trying to fill?......just auto focus?

 

 

I have a Nikon 610 for the times I want auto focus or fill in flash .....I also rarely  use it....One day soon,I hope to get rid of it........and except for the pictures, which are fine..... I hate using it.

For me small and light is as important as  IQ.......but I dont work professionally anymore

 

Also there is no such thing as the "Leica Look"....That "Look" happens in Post.......and it's " yours "

I personally think that "Leica Look" is very subjective feeling but still, I think there is something which defines Leica look for me - RED IS RED, green is green, blue is blue. I'm trying to find the camera where RED color from my M9 will be close to it. 

[LocalHero1953]

As asked before, but I'm also curious: why not the SL? Lack of lenses?

[EdwardM]

As asked before, but I'm also curious: why not the SL? Lack of lenses?

 

Not only. I have tried SL for maybe 3-4 hours, not enough time for sure, but:

1. Lack of  AF lenses 

2. EVF - yes, it's way better than EVF2 and Lecia Q EVF, but still I feel the "movie style picture there"

3. Bulky, it's like a brick in my hands - maybe I need more time to find right grip 

4. It's priced like Nikon D5 or Canon DX Mark2, no? 

[Guest NEIL-D-WILLIAMS]

Leica Q

Forget DSLR's there like bricks to carry and when it comes to IQ and rendering, there is nothing like it...........even your hassilbunks, and your faseones don't match up.

Now on another point about handling. The Leicas just have that "you want to do it again feeling" you know what i mean, the shutter sound is just fantastic, the shutter sound on my D4s could just as easily been the washing machine on off button being activated.

Stick with Leica Pal..........you won't regret it :)

[satijntje]

I know that a a lot of Leica shooters have a Nikon Df!

Maybe something for you?

I like the Df a lot, and it is a nice add on to my MM246 and M9!

Good Luck

John

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Hallo,

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[ECohen]

Peter, thank you, the reasons I want ( I'm saying want instead if "need") .

 

- Fast Auto Focus

-Ability to shoot with telezooms. (70-200 and longer)

- wide choice of AF lenses (L series from Canon and Golden ring Series from Nikkor)

-weatherproof - I don't think my M will be happy on rain as well as M manual lenses 

-low light performance without significant noise 

 

 

Go for the Nikon 810

I'm 100% sure you will be happy with it.