Disappointed with Leica jpegs

[jdlaing]

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Nothing has changed in  the  last 150 years. The image is made in the dark/lightroom, from the raw material provided by the camera...

192 years but who’s counting?

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[Surfheart]

You only need to edit and post process the good ones, for a photographer critical of their own work that would be in the region of 3% (or less) of all the exposures made. 

 

And yes you should use Lightroom and learn more about how to adjust colour, which is especially easy in the comfort of your own home when you have a RAW file to work on. You've thrown the baby out with the bathwater by using JPEG in-camera, but by all means use a JPEG as reference alongside the RAW file. Colour balance and the technical quality of an image are all about the tolerances of the person who took the photograph, some are happy just to get a representation of the scene, some can see differences between how different camera's render a scene but don't know what to do about it, and some roll their sleeves up. It's a fact of life, and after a few years using Lightroom you'll probably not be satisfied with your Fuji JPEG's either.

 

 

I've been editing my raws for the past 3 years in Camera raw which I believe is essentially Lightroom without the catalogue and as you say, over 90% of my images go straight into the bin on import.  A tiny percentage of those then I feel happy enough about to post to my portfolio.  I've been happy enough with alot of my Fuji images to post them sooc.

 

 

With regards to the M10 files, I have posted a few since I got the camera, a couple sooc but most I feel have needed some adjustments.  The tedium comes in where I feel I need to edit the family photos, the stuff that I'm not going to be putting online but stuff that is important to me and my family.  I want them to look good, they are not works of art but I still want my wife and son to not have a yellow tint to their skin.  With the Fuji cameras these sorts of images are perfectly fine for the most part left as they came from the camera.

 

Apart from all that I am thoroughly enjoying my M10.  I enjoyed the engagement with the Fuji cameras because of the manual controls and now with the M10 with manual focus and centre weighted metering the engagement is even more intense and I love having to think more about focus and exposure.  I am enjoying the character of the lens as well (when not stopped down) I was just a little disappointed  with the way the jpegs were handled by the camera.

Edited April 24, 2018 by Surfheart

[bocaburger]

After years with the M8 and then M9 whose jpgs were so inconsistent I had to shoot DNG, I was surprised and delighted when I got my first M240 at how much improvement Leica made in jpgs.  SInce I discovered that, I have not shot DNG, and find the M240's jpgs require as little to no PP as the ones I always got from my Canons.  I always shoot large-fine, and at the default parameters.  What I like about jpgs is the ability to burn them straight to a disc to give to someone.  I hated wet darkroom and I hate digital PP, so perhaps I'm willing to give up more fine control than others.  The results I get from the M240's jpgs are certainly far better than I got from any commercial photolab in the film days.  I've never used a Fuji, and only handled an M10 briefly, so I don't know how those compare to the M240's jpgs.  If the M10's are more problematic, then it sounds like a firmware issue Leica might need to address. 

 

PS the reason I use a Leica has more to do with mechanicals and form-factor  and 50 years of familiarity, than a quest for ultimate IQ. 

Edited April 24, 2018 by bocaburger

[schattenundlicht]

[...]

I find it quite odd that there is a class of people that consider themselves serious photographers who somehow fail to accept that there's work on the backend, let alone that all too often its the most important aspect for producing an acceptable final result. Shooting is farming, processing is cooking. Great ingredients don't ensure a memorable meal, if the chef is unwilling.

I think that many, especially in Leicaland, would consider HCB to have been a ‚serious photographer‘. Yet he was totally unintetested in postprocessing, all of which he delegated. He was clever enough to team up with the congenial printer Pierre Gassmann. One of the more memorable qoutes from HCB is „Hunters, after all, are not cooks!“

 

On the other end of the spectrum you have Ansel Adams who would spend a week in the darkroom after a day of shooting.

 

Top pros are different, so can be amateurs

 

(For the record, I always shoot raw + high contrast b/w on my M10, the latter simply to speed up my decision making process with regard to conversion in post)

Edited April 24, 2018 by schattenundlicht

[jdlaing]

I googled unintetested but couldn’t find anything.

[jaapv]

I think that many, especially in Leicaland, would consider HCB to have been a ‚serious photographer‘. Yet he was totally unintetested in postprocessing, all of which he delegated. He was clever enough to team up with the congenial printer Pierre Gassmann. One of the more memorable qoutes from HCB is „Hunters, after all, are not cooks!“

 

On the other end of the spectrum you have Ansel Adams who would spend a week in the darkroom after a day of shooting.

 

Top pros are different, so can be amateurs

 

(For the record, I always shoot raw + high contrast b/w on my M10, the latter simply to speed up my decision making process with regard to conversion in post)

HCB was not uninterested at all, he had a special darkroom service which did the hard work under his supervision. In digital terms - hire a Photoshop expert.

[schattenundlicht]

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I googled unintetested but couldn’t find anything.

(That‘s a bit of nit picking, isn‘t it?)

 

I should refrain from posting via iPhone

 

„Uninterested“ as synonymous with ‚not interested at all‘...

Edited April 24, 2018 by schattenundlicht

[schattenundlicht]

HCB was not uninterested at all, he had a special darkroom service which did the hard work under his supervision. In digital terms - hire a Photoshop expert.

This may well be, but his public and written remarks on the subject matter are rather unequivocal as to where his interests lay.

[jdlaing]

(That‘s a bit of nit picking, isn‘t it?)

I should refrain from posting via iPhone

„Uninterested“ as synonymous with ‚not interested at all‘...

Nitpicking was my job for so many years it’s second nature.

[jaapv]

This may well be, but his public and written remarks on the subject matter are rather unequivocal as to where his interests lay.

That is right; in this day and age he would have had a Photoshopper working for him.

[Gobert]

I’m not a lover of the post processing either. I use post processing only to make a picture (even) more perfect.

If it takes too much time, I loose my interest and I throw it away.

[Reciprocity]

You should ask yourself why you buy for AUD 13/k gear and then shooting JPG?

You’d better save 12.500 und buy a Coolpix or similar.

 

 

This is a bit uncalled for, no?

 

Leica is not immune to people needing good high quality JPEG output, I certainly wish my M10 were better at it. But for some reason the M10 gets a hall pass from needing to do this on this forum? What on earth is up with that attitude?

 

I shoot about 50/50 raw and jpeg depending on lighting and client. Part of the reason for this is getting it right in camera is a way of life for me and always will be. The other part is that it just works better from a day-of workflow standpoint in some cases. In decades of experience with them, JPEG files do just fine as finals if nothing more than slight tweaks to color, tone and crop are made. 

 

There is no reason to be rude to this person who is obviously new to Leica. Because for the money one spends, top shelf JPEG files should be a no brainier for this camera like it is for other brands.

 

Lets maybe lose the attitude and be more welcoming and empathetic of someone who has helped to support our fanfare for the Leica brand by purchasing their products. 

[jaapv]

The point is that the JPG output for web of either 12.500 $ gear or 1250 $ gear will be indistinguishable.

[pgh]

This may well be, but his public and written remarks on the subject matter are rather unequivocal as to where his interests lay.

HCB also was working at his prime about 60-70 years ago. If anyone here is using this as a guide for how to proceed forward I would say maybe try something a little less dated. That work and that was of working were of a certain time. It is great work. It is also not the formula for doing anything new, which is what most artists are interested in. If HCB were around today, he would either likely be unrecognized for making work with an old mentality, or he himself would be doing very different work. He even knew it, giving up photography himself for the most part. 

[pgh]

This is a bit uncalled for, no?

 

Leica is not immune to people needing good high quality JPEG output, I certainly wish my M10 were better at it. But for some reason the M10 gets a hall pass from needing to do this on this forum? What on earth is up with that attitude?

 

Leica gets a pass from many for anything subpar on this forum. It is primarily a fan forum. Criticism usually ends with an insinuation that the criticiser of Leica shouldn't be so bold to want something better. It's just the nature of the place. 

[jaapv]

Actually, he had a keen interest in Digital photography in the last years of his life, as undeveloped as it was in that time.

[jaapv]

Leica gets a pass from many for anything subpar on this forum. It is primarily a fan forum. Criticism usually ends with an insinuation that the criticiser of Leica shouldn't be so bold to want something better. It's just the nature of the place.

 

Not to be confused with the even more prevalent rebuttal of uninformed and unfounded negativism.

[Nordvik]

Leica gets a pass from many for anything subpar on this forum. It is primarily a fan forum. Criticism usually ends with an insinuation that the criticiser of Leica shouldn't be so bold to want something better. It's just the nature of the place.

That is unfair.I think that if someone who did not know anyone who owned a Leica came to this forum he would be pleasantly surprised compared to what was the common belief on DPR.

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[Nordvik]

Another thing: You go on and on with how subpar the M10 sensor is. It is as bad as the best of Canon. It is not so good as Sony and Nikon, but Canon still have 50% of the marked with their subpar sensor.

[Michael Geschlecht]

192 years but who’s counting?

 

Hello JD,

 

I thought that photography was invented in 1829, not in 1826?

 

Best Regards,

 

Michael