focus/resolution tests

[jlm]

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I have been going cross-eyed trying to do some focus test with the M8 and a few lenses, trying for sharp, crisp, what ever you call it, to judge backfocus. this has led to tweaking the roller a bit to get the image to match what the rangefinder is set to.

And I am not happy with what i am seeing at long distance about 150 yards in these shots, shot as jpg fine

 

lens: new 75 apo cron, shot at f4 on tripod

attached are:

the full frame and a crop around the no parking sign

I also did focus bracketting, tsking a series of shots with the rangefinder set to focus a bit closer, and a bit farther, both were worse, indicating my rangefinder is on target

 

I am no expert on sizing for the forum, so put them in photoshop:

for the full frame, reduced file size to 400 x whatever to get it small enough

for the crop, set the view to actual pixels, then cropped.

 

please enlighten me for a better way to deiplay these images.

 

I then took the same shot with my 5d and 24/105, f4 framing it about the same for a reality check. the 5d is quite a bit better.

 

pleae advise; I am about to shoot the same with my 50 lux

 

i see it sort of worked: (the 5d shots show the pavement cooler grey),

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[carstenw]

For a resolution test, I would shoot DNG with the M8. The JPGs which come out of the M8 are too highly compressed for such tests. Which other lenses do you have to test with? The 50 Lux Asph ought to be very good too, and should show high resolution stopped down to f/4 or f/5.6. Are you on a Mac or on Windows? On the Mac, you can use Preview to do the crop, once you have converted to JPG with some good tool or other. Capture One LE is fine, but be careful to turn off sharpening, which is on by default.

[jlm]

here are acouple just shot with the 50lux asph and IR filter

 

all shot at f4, windows, no sharpening. I'll try some dng comparisons.

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[carstenw]

Note that the extra 2.7 MP of the 5D will tend to outweigh the M8's sharper pixels, so if you make 100% crops, they will have different scales, and if you crop the same and scale to the same size, the 5D's extra resolution will win out. It is difficult to compare these two cameras fairly. You have to design your test with the differences in mind.

[jlm]

i'm just trying to find out if my lens/camera are up to snuff and the 5d is handy

 

here are a full frame and crop shot with the m8 75cron, f4, dng, converted in C1 to jpg, whitebalanced a bit, and under Focus: set to standard, amount 100, threshold 3 (what i would normally use)

 

I probably had IR/uv on, but no filter mounted

 

i'm still a bit dodgy about posting pics: the manage attachments say use 960 pixels x whatever, but my jpgs get bumped if i use over 400 for the bigger dimension

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[carstenw]

That last one looks like it has severe JPG artifacts. Can you re-export setting the quality to the max?

[jlm]

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i usually have quality set to max for jpg saves

that dng conversion is substantailly better, eh?

[carstenw]

It has more resolution, but still an odd look. Do you want to try to take similar shots with the M8 and 50 Lux Asph, which I also own?

[jlm]

m8, 50 lus asph, f4, ithe Leica IR filter. shot as dng, converted to jpg in C1, standard look, amout of shapening 100, slight white balance

sized in PS, saved as max quality jpg

 

thkx carsten

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[carstenw]

I don't have a sunny street with signs to shoot, but although there is a thin layer of clouds here today, I managed to get a relatively brightly lit shot of the backyard at f/4 with the 50 Lux Asph, B+W IR 486 and M8, DNG, ISO 160, slight white balance, full shot resized and 100% crop unresized, JPG 100% for the crop, all at as-shot and default settings, but sharpening and noise reductions set to 0. This first set was with Lightroom v1.0. I am downloading C1LE 3.77 and will post another set done with it. Note that I am less familiar with it, so I hope I can do it justice.

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[carstenw]

Here is a set done with C1LE, sharpening disabled, Leica M8 IR profile:

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[hankg]

i'm just trying to find out if my lens/camera are up to snuff and the 5d is handy

 

here are a full frame and crop shot with the m8 75cron, f4, dng, converted in C1 to jpg, whitebalanced a bit, and under Focus: set to standard, amount 100, threshold 3 (what i would normally use)

 

I probably had IR/uv on, but no filter mounted

 

i'm still a bit dodgy about posting pics: the manage attachments say use 960 pixels x whatever, but my jpgs get bumped if i use over 400 for the bigger dimension

 

The severe watercolor effect in the sign is probably caused by an improper setting in C1. You should get your raw conversion nailed down so you are getting good output from the M8 before you start doing comparisons.

[pascal_meheut]

In C1, be careful to set "noise suppression" to 0 and to keep only the "color noise suppression".

 

Also, the street sign pictures looks like out of focus.

[jlm]

same m8 50lux dng shot as before, this time noise suppression set to zero, only color noise suppression used.

 

pascal:

i also did several shots deliberately setting focus forward and behind to determine that the chosen shot was best in focus.

 

Hank: as i said, the point was not to do comparisons with the 5d, but to determine if my camera and lenses are peerfoming correctly. I am looking for any assistance to improve my use of raw conversion.

 

by the way, what is the best method to size your images for the forum?

 

i looked at carsten' images: 800 x 536 , but when I sized mine to 800 x 537, it gets bumped (441k is too large, it tells me)

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[rvaubel]

In C1, be careful to set "noise suppression" to 0 and to keep only the "color noise suppression".

 

Also, the street sign pictures looks like out of focus.

 

You have to be careful comparing any Canon DSLR with the M8 because Canon is very good at providing in-camera processing of both noise and sharpening even in their RAW images. They do a hell of a job, not being heavy handed at all. However, the effect they achieve, while pleasing to most, has a somewhat plastic look, not bad but I would still want to work with a more raw "RAW". Leica's RAW images are much more RAW. This is a good thing, from my point of view, because I can get just the amount of sharpening and noise reduction that I want, not what Canon thinks I want. However, since Leica has very little(if any) in camera sharpening of their RAW images, I consider it necessary to adjust the image sharpening to suit. This provides a real world comparison, but does make direct comparison a bit subjective.

 

The street sign looks out of focus to me too

 

Rex

[jlm]

it is all looking out of focus to my squinty eyes, that is what started all of this. as noted, i did do a set of bracketed focus shots and chose the best. I'll do that again to be sure.

[carstenw]

That last crop looks good to me. My previous camera was a 5D, and when I compared the M8 and 5D raws in the short time that I had both, I concluded that what the 5D had in resolution, the M8 had in the quality at the pixel level, and I found them roughly equivalent. That last shot looks like you are finally getting close to the best results at the pixel level. It would be possible to improve the look slightly by adding a tiny bit of sharpening, something which is almost invariably necessary with the 5D, except that the 5D requires more to look good.

 

If you are just getting serious about using raw, I would either avoid Capture One (LE), or dive into it totally. It is a weird converter with a special raw workflow, and others are much easier to learn. Having said that, people who really know C1 can work with it very fast, and it still has some of the best sharpening and noise reduction in the industry, I believe. I much prefer Lightroom, because I find it much easier to get into, and more logical, and I typically get much better results with less effort. However, sometimes C1 does the job better, if you really take the time. The thing is whether you need that or not.

 

All the shots in my blog in my signature line were done with Lightroom.

[jlm]

another attempt, this time at f8, 50 lux, dng, processed in C1pro, noise red off, slight sharpening.

 

this was to determine if the better dof at f8 would crisp up the focus

 

looking at the properties, my 400 x 236 image is 144k

Carsten's 800x536 is 126k

????

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[carstenw]

It looks sharp, but it looks like more than just a little sharpening. What was the setting? Try to back it off just a bit and see how it compares to the 5D with sharpening applied.

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[jlm]

after a slight tweak of the roller, again f5.6

 

this has sharpening set to amount=68, color noise set to 16

the f8 image had amount 99, color noise 20

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