Why M240 users will (not) switch to M10

[FlashGordonPhotography]

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When I considered the change in batteries I saw it as a negative. Now I have an M10 I don't even think about it. I just carry a spare.

 

What would have been nice is if they could have kept the same pin configuration so I could use the same charger. That's a bit annoying as I now have to carry two chargers (4 if I want a backup).

 

Gordon

[jmahto]

@jmahto: Off topic but all racing sports cars used to be right hand drive. Bugatti never built a left hand drive car (until their name was bought in recent years) and they were made in France. There is a reason: all racing circuits in Europe run clockwise. A two seater has more stability if the driver is on the inside. The inside of a clockwise circuit is on the right. QED.

 

On topic now ... if I dropped my M hard enough that a piece of glass broke then I would contact my insurance company and ask them to pay for a full repair or a replacement. Fingers crossed that never happens but I am covered if it did.

I knew about the clockwise circuit part, however I didn't know there was a logic behind it. Thanks.

 

BTW, the real circuits with just 4 left turns don't need any sound justification.

 

Seriously, I always thought it was based on horse racing tracks which ran clockwise in England (and driver sits in the center. ) and USA decided to go opposite during revolution because you know why....

Edited June 28, 2017 by jmahto

[Tailwagger]

I knew about the clockwise circuit part, however I didn't know there was a logic behind it. Thanks.

 

BTW, the real circuits with just 4 left turns don't need any sound justification.

 

Seriously, I always thought it was based on horse racing tracks which ran clockwise in England (and driver sits in the center. ) and USA decided to go opposite during revolution because you know why....

 

I suppose I should mention at this point that the Tailwagger moniker comes not from a love of canines, but rather from instructing and racing a vintage 911 for many years, all too often sideways.  Apologies if this is TMI but the ex-instructor in me feels compelled to mention that the more weight you can retain on the inside tires in a corner the greater the overall level of grip.  In a turn as weight transfers to the outside wheels, the outer pair of tires grip increases, but not as much as is lost by the inner tires.   In other words, given four tires of the same characteristics. same surface, etc, if each is statically loaded with say 500 pounds, they will provide more overall traction than if only two of them had a 1000 each and two had 0, as simplistically, the total surface area for four tires in contact with the road is greater than two.  

 

When you know you're only or mostly turning in one direction, you can setup the car by embracing asymmetry in a couple of dimensions, position more weight on the inside, wedging or corner unbalancing,  etc,  to try to reduce the traction losses experienced by the inside tires. The same thing is true, BTW, when considering F/R weight distribution for improving braking and accelerative traction... thats why the fastest dragsters are RWD with the driver and engine as far aft as allowable.  When you don't care very much about braking or steering, you want to move more weight on the driven wheels to improve their traction. There are limits, of course, as you really don't want the nose to get so light that its pointed skyward at 300mph for takeoff, though these days its more of an aero consideration.   And even Nascar isnt a circle, they still need straight line acceleration and braking, but if you've ever seen a true circle track car, you'll notice that many of the components are offset to the inside of the track.  

[Exodies]

Anyway, focusing on top of a fountain...

 

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[Tailwagger]

How do we know thats a fountain and not the spray from a WRC car on a stage running through a huge puddle on three wheels.

 

[jmahto]

Anyway, focusing on top of a fountain...

 

fountain focus.jpg

LOL.. When I read "mountain" instead of "fountain" and made a fool of myself on internet (and moderators won't let me delete my post).

Edited June 30, 2017 by jmahto

[jmahto]

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Err... F, not M...

I seriously thought you were Jaguar person and referring to F type.

 

Not my fault. I still prefer books with pictures.

[Peter Kilmister]

Fountains or Mountains ... who cares. Mountains are easy focus. Fountains are easy too. FFS everyone used to use MF until about 1970. It's not difficult but it does take time. MF gives you a choice, whereas AF picks the obvious target. 

 

With an AF camera I could never focus on a bird in a tree. It always focussed on part of the tree, rather than the bird. Easy with MF except sometimes the bird has flown.

 

Everything in life has upsides and downsides. Up to you to decide.

[Tailwagger]

You say that sensor improvement swayed you as primary factor. Somehow I don't see this as dominant reason in various response. Even for low light shooting, M240 is sufficient unless one starts pushing the low light envelope (how dark is too dark to put the camera away for handheld shooting. For the rest tripods are there). I do see that many M9 folks are upgrading to M10 and it is almost no brainer in that case.

 

Just to follow up,I  thought it might be worth while to show the amount of latitude on offer by the M10.  Hard ETTR to avoid blowing the sky. Perhaps the same exposure would have been salvageable had it been the M240, but I'm not sure I could have pull this back quite as nicely, certainly not as effortlessly.  The M10 seems pretty close to having similar ability to drag detail out of shadows to my now departed 645Z. Anyway, not trying to tempt anyone, more about smug self justification for all that money spent on two or so extra stops of DR.  

 

[jmahto]

Just to follow up,I  thought it might be worth while to show the amount of latitude on offer by the M10.  Hard ETTR to avoid blowing the sky. Perhaps the same exposure would have been salvageable had it been the M240, but I'm not sure I could have pull this back quite as nicely, certainly not as effortlessly.  The M10 seems pretty close to having similar ability to drag detail out of shadows to my now departed 645Z. Anyway, not trying to tempt anyone, more about smug self justification for all that money spent on two or so extra stops of DR.  

 

Well, no doubt M10 is better than M240 in this regard (duh..), however the real question is whether M240's shadow recovering is sufficient to my own usage. And here is my experiment done three years ago. The shadow is pushed 5 stops. It does start showing green cast which is known for M240 sensor (Jim Kasson did whole lot of experiment with it) but is correctable with LR plug-in.

 

Conclusion: For my use, M240's shadow recovery is more than I need.

 

Before:

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+5 stop exposure in LR (with green cast removal and LR noise reduction):

 

1:1 crop (the above pics were also cropped a little to remove clutter). Since this was my son's school project, I blacked out some info.

Edited July 3, 2017 by jmahto

[Tailwagger]

Sure, no one said the 240 was bad, but thats not a blown highlight situation. Its the extra range that makes a difference in the types of setting I often find myself in. 

[jmahto]

Sure, no one said the 240 was bad, but thats not a blown highlight situation. Its the extra range that makes a difference in the types of setting I often find myself in. 

Yes, blown highlight is bad in M240. There is almost no shoulder and trying to recover (specially clouds) result in yellowish color cast. In comparison M9 was better. This is why I am very careful in doing ETTR. I would rather be one stop short of ETTR just to be safe.

 

I don't know how M10 performs here. Your example is not showing highlight recovery though. I read somewhere that it is similar to M240. I would like to see some examples.

[LocalHero1953]

Well, no doubt M10 is better than M240 in this regard (duh..), however the real question is whether M240's shadow recovering is sufficient to my own usage. And here is my experiment done three years ago. The shadow is pushed 5 stops. It does start showing green cast which is known for M240 sensor (Jim Kasson did whole lot of experiment with it) but is correctable with LR plug-in.

 

Hi Jayant - what's that plugin, and what does it do exactly? As a serial underexposer I could use a tool to correct casts just in shadows - and banding as well.

[Tailwagger]

Your example is not showing highlight recovery though. I read somewhere that it is similar to M240. I would like to see some examples.

 

I'm so used to the tyranny of ETTR, I cant say I have any compelling examples.  My read is that its pretty much the same deal, dont blow highlights, but it seems as though there is a tiny bit more latitude. In the shot I publish here, as can be seen in the area at the extreme right of the frame above the tree, I crossed the line and was able to pull some of it back, at least enough to save the shot. Still seems to me, though, that you cant press hard as once its gone, its gone.  

[jmahto]

I'm so used to the tyranny of ETTR, I cant say I have any compelling examples.  My read is that its pretty much the same deal, dont blow highlights, but it seems as though there is a tiny bit more latitude. In the shot I publish here, as can be seen in the area at the extreme right of the frame above the tree, I crossed the line and was able to pull some of it back, at least enough to save the shot. Still seems to me, though, that you cant press hard as once its gone, its gone.  

Yours is a good example. That (blown or borderline highlight) will not look nice in color from M240. But then again there are wonders of PS that can salvage the shots.

[jmahto]

Hi Jayant - what's that plugin, and what does it do exactly? As a serial underexposer I could use a tool to correct casts just in shadows - and banding as well.

Here is the same shot (as in 1:1 crop of #507) without the green cast removal. Exactly same setting in LR for NR, WB, exposure etc.

Without green cast removal:

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After green cast removal:

 

The plugin works in the same way as flat field. It simply creates another DNG (with suffix) and removes some from green channel. Last I checked it is not available at Jim's site but I had saved it. I am sharing here from my dropbox link. Note that I am not the author and have no responsibility for it (internet disclaimer). It does work for me in my LR 5.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/co4exlizzppamlw/AACMuuEqgOm92OGQGUsyS2M6a?dl=0

 

But then I would like to strongly add that I have *never* used this in any practical situation. The cast doesn't show up in +2 push (maybe +3 too) and if you have underexposed way more then most probably you are taking your file to PS for lot more adjustment anyway. To me it is purely academic but I have kept it just in case.

 

This also doesn't address banding for which there are other specialized tools. Only in few cases I had to deal with banding (wide angles shots corners are already underexposed due to vignetting) and I simply realized that they are not worth the attention since they don't show up on prints and for screens I can simply crush the blacks a little reminding myself that there were good old days when a pitch black area in a photo was not a bad thing.

Edited July 3, 2017 by jmahto

[LocalHero1953]

Here is the same shot (as in 1:1 crop of #507) without the green cast removal. Exactly same setting in LR for NR, WB, exposure etc.

Without green cast removal:

exp_sm_20141206leicaM240_manual_one_by_30_200iso_autosetting_3200max_shutter_one_by_focalx2_prev_iso_in_manual-1001929.jpg

After green cast removal:

exp_sm_20141206leicaM240_manual_one_by_30_200iso_autosetting_3200max_shutter_one_by_focalx2_prev_iso_in_manual-1001929-2.jpg

 

The plugin works in the same way as flat field. It simply creates another DNG (with suffix) and removes some from green channel. Last I checked it is not available at Jim's site but I had saved it. I am sharing here from my dropbox link. Note that I am not the author and have no responsibility for it (internet disclaimer). It does work for me in my LR 5.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/co4exlizzppamlw/AACMuuEqgOm92OGQGUsyS2M6a?dl=0

 

But then I would like to strongly add that I have *never* used this in any practical situation. The cast doesn't show up in +2 push (maybe +3 too) and if you have underexposed way more then most probably you are taking your file to PS for lot more adjustment anyway. To me it is purely academic but I have kept it just in case.

 

This also doesn't address banding for which there are other specialized tools. Only in few cases I had to deal with banding (wide angles shots corners are already underexposed due to vignetting) and I simply realized that they are not worth the attention since they don't show up on prints and for screens I can simply crush the blacks a little reminding myself that there were good old days when a pitch black area in a photo was not a bad thing.

Thanks. I have many photos that will never win awards but that I wish to keep for personal reasons or for the record - I try to tidy them up as best as possible. This may be usefil.

[sillbeers15]

I too did not think the M20 makes such great improvements over M240. It was unlike the M240 over M9 which got me all excited.

Strangely with being very happy with SL after the FE3.0 greatly improving the AF tracking performance, I started accepting the idea of having the M10 as a minimalistic digital rangefinder camera. Now after receiving my M10, I'm yet to be convinced that the M10 sensor can outperform the M240 & SL. I need to really try out the camera. At this point, I'm uncertain to turn my M10 or SL into my landscape camera. The SL offers weather sealing and I look forward to the coming 16-35mm. If the M10 really does have a sharper and nicer sensor as I have read, then I would rather go ahead to buy the WATE rather than the SL 16-35mm wide zoom. Hummm,....

[bozu_shutterbugger]

Just to follow up,I  thought it might be worth while to show the amount of latitude on offer by the M10.  Hard ETTR to avoid blowing the sky. Perhaps the same exposure would have been salvageable had it been the M240, but I'm not sure I could have pull this back quite as nicely, certainly not as effortlessly.  The M10 seems pretty close to having similar ability to drag detail out of shadows to my now departed 645Z. Anyway, not trying to tempt anyone, more about smug self justification for all that money spent on two or so extra stops of DR.  

 

i am a sucker for shadow recovery. I am spoiled by A7R & A7S. I havent been able to do as much DR recovery as i would like to on 240. But the image that you present here is very tempting. This makes me think did i do the right thing by buying a new MP whilst being frustrated about the delivery on M10. Lets put it this way, i like big batteries. (moral support)

 

What you demonstrated is useful when shooting landscape without filters. I can expose for the sky, may be bracket the shots and still not loose the shadow. Question becomes then, do you end up loosing the Leica Character? if all we are trying to do is take a photo that looks like taken from a Sony A6000. I beleive it boils down to preference. No? 

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[Kwesi]

Just to follow up,I  thought it might be worth while to show the amount of latitude on offer by the M10.  Hard ETTR to avoid blowing the sky. Perhaps the same exposure would have been salvageable had it been the M240, but I'm not sure I could have pull this back quite as nicely, certainly not as effortlessly.  The M10 seems pretty close to having similar ability to drag detail out of shadows to my now departed 645Z. Anyway, not trying to tempt anyone, more about smug self justification for all that money spent on two or so extra stops of DR.  

 

 

Sorry to sound critical but given that the clouds are the least interesting thing in this image, wouldn't it have been better to expose for the building? By underexposing the heck out of the building you've ended up with very muddy main subject simply because you didn't give it enough light. I love what you have been doing with the M10, your images of Rockport and Groton are very inspiring. In fact, thanks to you, I visited Ponyhenge yesterday. What fun.