Leica M11 wishlist? (Features)

[cirke]

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It is called iso auto 

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[evikne]

1 minute ago, cirke said:

It is called iso auto 

It has nothing to do with Auto ISO. I have read about this in another forum. Some new Sony sensors work this way, and maybe some others. All image data is recorded at base ISO, so there is no reason to use a higher ISO, because lifting the exposure in PP will give the same result, with the same amount of noise. 

I would love to see this in Leica cameras too.

[Paulus]

vor 23 Minuten schrieb evikne:

It has nothing to do with Auto ISO. I have read about this in another forum. Some new Sony sensors work this way, and maybe some others. All image data is recorded at base ISO, so there is no reason to use a higher ISO, because lifting the exposure in PP will give the same result, with the same amount of noise. 

I would love to see this in Leica cameras too.

Maybe nice for you, but in my view the iso is a part of the " triangle " IMHO the way I learned to photograph. E.g. When I take pictures of fast objects  I know that I have to use 3200 so that my 4/300mm lens still gives a usable shutter speed and freezes the movement. In what way would I take my pictures  if it goes " your " way. Am I not able to use auto shutter anymore? 

[evikne]

22 minutes ago, Paulus said:

Maybe nice for you, but in my view the iso is a part of the " triangle " IMHO the way I learned to photograph. E.g. When I take pictures of fast objects  I know that I have to use 3200 so that my 4/300mm lens still gives a usable shutter speed and freezes the movement. In what way would I take my pictures  if it goes " your " way. Am I not able to use auto shutter anymore? 

I have never used anything else than manual exposure, so I haven't thought of it this way. I would just set the desired exposure time and aperture, and that's it. As long as there isn't any chance the picture can be overexposed at base ISO, it isn't necessary to do anything else. Could it be any easier than that?

Edited May 8, 2019 by evikne

[cirke]

1 hour ago, evikne said:

It has nothing to do with Auto ISO. I have read about this in another forum. Some new Sony sensors work this way, and maybe some others. All image data is recorded at base ISO, so there is no reason to use a higher ISO, because lifting the exposure in PP will give the same result, with the same amount of noise. 

I would love to see this in Leica cameras too.

but at the end it is exactly the same , what you do after in PP the camera do it before,  free ISO is a new way to sell camera with another name for auto iso

Edited May 8, 2019 by cirke

[pico]

1 hour ago, evikne said:

I have never used anything else than manual exposure, so I haven't thought of it this way. I would just set the desired exposure time and aperture, and that's it. As long as there isn't any chance the picture can be overexposed at base ISO, it isn't necessary to do anything else. Could it be any easier than that?

At some point you determine your aperture and shutter speed, so, your exposure is within the realistic dynamic range of the sensor, is it not?

[evikne]

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31 minutes ago, pico said:

At some point you determine your aperture and shutter speed, so, your exposure is within the realistic dynamic range of the sensor, is it not?

Of course we always need a realistic expectation of the sensor's performance. That's why I said we first need to "squeeze" the aperture and exposure time as much as we can, (when necessary) as we always have done before. But when that is done, any change of the ISO (manually or auto), will not make any difference. 

Edited May 8, 2019 by evikne

[pico]

We might have a language issue with the term "squeeze". Is that like locking, constraining, or clamping the exposure settings, for example 1/250th of a second at ƒ11? If true, then one has chosen an ISO.

 

Edited May 8, 2019 by pico

[evikne]

20 minutes ago, pico said:

We might have a language issue with the term "squeeze".

That's fully possible (in my language we use the same word when we for example press a lemon to get out the juice). I mean that we should keep the need for raising the exposure in PP at a minimum. We are doing that by opening the aperture as much as we can without getting an unwanted shallow DOF, and using as long exposure time as possible without getting unwanted motion blur. 

Edited May 8, 2019 by evikne

[adan]

Some confusion here....

All digital sensors have ONE ISO - one fixed natural sensitivity to light. And always have, and always will. It is built into the silicon architecture, in the same way that "ISO 100" is built into the silver of Ektachrome 100. It is called the base ISO.

(The M10 base ISO is about 135-160, per Leica's vague explanations).

As with Ektachrome 100, the image any digital sensor captures can be "push-processed" - intentionally underexposed by setting the meter to a higher ISO than the "box" or "base" speed, and then amplifying the resulting image, either with extended chemical development time (Ektachrome) or by electronic amplification (digital cameras).

With the downside of increased grain and contrast (with film) or increased noise and loss of dynamic range (with digital).

The signal can also be "pulled" or under-amplified or underdeveloped, to use an ISO less than the "box" speed - with the risk of unrecoverable blown or blocked highlights (same for film - eventually).

The only real difference between digital cameras and film with regard to ISO is that, with digital, the ISO setting (whether chosen manually or automatically) automatically tells the camera to push (or pull) the image a given amount (apply an amplification to the signal) as it comes off the sensor.

Of note, back in the film era, to avoid confusion, ISO always meant only the official "box" speed - any push or pull to a different speed was referred to as using an "exposure index" (EI). Technically it would be better if digital cameras marked their dials or menus as ISO 160, EI 400, EI 3200, EI 100, etc. But that ship sailed long ago.

In other words:

evikne - if you just leave your M10 set at ISO 200 (closest available ISO "setting" to the M10 base ISO), you are getting just what you ask for.

Expose (or underexpose) manually as you desire, and then correct the image brightness by "hand-amplifying" the dark picture with sliders in LightRoom or whatever. That does require shooting in raw, obviously, since a dark jpeg is only 8-bit data with far less room for adjustment afterwards. And does require using some other meter than the built-in M10 meter, which is cross-wired unavoidably to the in-camera push processing.

I guess one could ask for an ISO setting option that "disconnects" the automatic camera amplification from the meter reading, to make it easier and more "old-school intuitive" to use the internal camera metering at any desired ISO, while only getting a base-ISO image file, that be brightened later by hand.

Paulus - When you set your camera to ISO 3200, you are just commanding the camera to push-process your image for you. The sensor is still at whatever the base ISO is, and produces a dark capture, which gets amplified as a part of being read out, converted to a file format, and written to the SD card.

If a camera and sensor are "ISO-invariant," that means that there is no distinguishable difference (in noise, DR, or color accuracy) in the final image, between doing it "evikne's way" and doing it "Paulus's way." The M10 is ISO-invariant above ISO 160-ish (but since that is not a selectable option, ISO 200 is the closest practical setting.)

_____________

Personally, I use a variety of the "evikne method" in some low light situations, that technically require an ISO setting above the point where M10 shadow-banding sets in (12500). I set the camera to ISO 6400, and then set the meter to -1 or -2 exposure comp or set the shutter manually to a speed that will freeze camera-shake. I get a dark .dng, which I then lighten selectively (brightening highlights and white point and contrast, but not shadows, exposure, or blacks).

That gives me an overall average brightness for an effective picture, without boosting the shadows and the banding/noise lurking within them. Looks about like pushed film.

See below - meter said I needed ISO 25600 to capture this at 1/250th sec. Instead - set camera to 6400, got a dark picture with 1/250th, raised the lighter tones but not the shadows to be good in post-processing - effective ISO/EI of 25600. I got a 6-stop "push" automatically from the camera (ISO 200 base output "pushed" to set "ISO"/EI of 6400) PLUS an additonal 2-stop push of just the top half of the histogram, in post-processing.

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[Paulus]

vor 49 Minuten schrieb evikne:

Of course we always need a realistic expectation of the sensor's performance. That's why I said we first need to "squeeze" the aperture and exposure time as much as we can, (when necessary) as we always have done before. But when that is done, any change of the ISO (manually or auto), will not make any difference. 

Maybe I'm old fashioned , but I rather do it the way I did it when I got started with film. It all sounds very nice, but if I don't work this way, I rather take an autofocus Nikon D5 and use the P-mode. Or better: use a cellphone. 

[evikne]

10 minutes ago, adan said:

evikne - if you just leave your M10 set at ISO 200 (closest available ISO "setting" to the M10 base ISO), you are getting just what you ask for.

Thank you very much. You seem to be the only one to fully understand what I am talking about. I have tried to just leave my M10 at ISO 200, and in many situations that works fine. But if the image gets very underexposed, I still think the results are better when I raise the ISO a bit. That's why I don't think the M10 is fully "ISO invariant" (which I hope the M11 will be).

[sblitz]

Quote

 

Adan -- Agree completely, a few years back there was some chatter that it was better to use the computer software (Lightroom, whatever) to boost rather than to do it in the camera. As for the exposure correction, I do this with the CL all the time (very easy to do while looking through the viewfinder to see the impact) to basically pull the camera from wanting to expose a dark indoor scene as if it were midday outside. Then I do the same as you, keeping down the shadows, raising highlights, etc.

 

[sblitz]

13 minutes ago, evikne said:

Thank you very much. You seem to be the only one to fully understand what I am talking about. I have tried to just leave my M10 at ISO 200, and in many situations that works fine. But if the image gets very underexposed, I still think the results are better when I raise the ISO a bit. That's why I don't think the M10 is fully "ISO invariant" (which I hope the M11 will be).

As Adan pointed out, and I do the same, increase brightness (not exposure) in PP and see what happens. The sensor has collected a lot more information than what you might believe just looking at the picture right out of the camera.

 

[evikne]

4 minutes ago, sblitz said:

As Adan pointed out, and I do the same, increase brightness (not exposure) in PP and see what happens. The sensor has collected a lot more information than what you might believe just looking at the picture right out of the camera.

Thanks! I will give this a try. 🙂

[indergaard]

On 5/8/2019 at 5:06 PM, adan said:

Some confusion here....

All digital sensors have ONE ISO - one fixed natural sensitivity to light. And always have, and always will. It is built into the silicon architecture, in the same way that "ISO 100" is built into the silver of Ektachrome 100. It is called the base ISO.

That is true for the sensors that Leica uses in their cameras. But it’s not completely true for sensors currently used by Sony and Fujifilm at least. They use dual-stage conversion gain sensors with two optimal ISO values. On the Sony a7rIII, for example, those ISO stages are at ISO 100 and ISO 640.

On the Sony for example, it would be better to shoot at ISO 100 or go straight to ISO 640 if needed, skipping ISO 400 completely, for example. The ISO 640 setting resets the loss of dynamic range, and also lowers the read noise significantly.

The dual stage conversion gain is a physical change in the gain applied to the data being read from the sensor. It is not just a software setting. It uses different circuitry (ADC) to accomplish this.

The sensor itself doesn’t even have any native  ISO value. It records what it records no matter what. The ISO setting then manipulates the data according to what setting is chosen. The ISO values we select are all basically a combination of electrical current and gain, either performed by an ADC (or two in case of the dual stage gain technology) or software based gain. But in some cameras there is a feature that actually enables two optimal settings for a sensor, which does actually make a difference in the output.

On any Leica, it doesn’t really matter, as it only uses one ADC anyway.

More info: http://www.sansmirror.com/newsviews/2016-newsview/jan-mar-2016-newsviews-2/dual-gain-becoming-the-norm.html

 

 

[adan]

Interesting, but doesn't really change my point. Gain is just another form of amplification. The fact that it happens with one or more steps  (pre-amp and amp, for example) still means that it is separate from the collection of photons and conversion to electrons.

In other words, my description corresponds to this from the article you linked - you never get more photons or electrons from changing the ISO setting, although you may get more voltage or higher DNs via processing:

Quote

In essence, digital sensors don’t actually have a varying response to light: they capture light the same no matter how you set the ISO. If the sensor captured 1000 photons at base ISO and converted them to electrons, the same thing happens at any other ISO you set: only 1000 photons were captured ;~).

...here’s the sequence:

1. Photons are absorbed and create electron/hole pairs in the photo diode.
2. Electrons are collected and a charge is stored.

 

Edited May 14, 2019 by adan

[pico]

8 hours ago, adan said:

Interesting, but doesn't really change my point. Gain is just another form of amplification. The fact that it happens with one or more steps  (pre-amp and amp, for example) still means that it is separate from the collection of photons and conversion to electrons.

In other words, my description corresponds to this from the article you linked - you never get more photons or electrons from changing the ISO setting, although you may get more voltage or higher DNs via processing:

True, the same number of photons are measured but I think that there might be something else happening in the processing stages, probably a re-sampling with a statistical algorithm. There is a method in Machine Learning used to 'cold start' sample data to fill missing data in a set to allow it to fit the whole collection in a second pass. I'll look into my notes.

 

Edited May 14, 2019 by pico

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[LichtUndDunkelheit]

Theres only few things thats missing for making the next M the "ultimate" M:

- Well, backlit sensor, obviously. Multiple native ISOs. All the newest sensor goodies. 😀

- Better one handed operation: Move the LV, play and menu buttons to the right of the back side, ordered around the direction pad + center button, and move the monitor more to the left.

- Second card slot and support for UHS-II on both card slots.

 

Also alternative variants:

If they go all crazy with a 47 Megapixel sensor, what about also offering a version with an 18 Megapixel sensor ? Not everyone wants Megapixel galore, 18 Megapixel is surely enough, and larger pixel means better dynamic range.

A CCD sensor version, for the beautiful colors known to that technology ? With the good old traditional 18 Megapixel of the M9, and backlit. No lifeview or external EVF support. Maybe even a global shutter ? If thats doable without losing any image quality. I think a global shutter only makes a CCD sensor more expensive, but not less performant ... right ? Could have insane shutter speeds without any problem ! And shooting in absolute silence.

A cheaper EVF based M would be awesome. Compared to the SL you lose the weird SL interface and have a dedicated M sensor. Compared to regular M you get using only one viewfinder for any focal length with full coverage (though not more, as with a rangefinder) and being able to reliably focus any focal length and using a more comfortable viewfinder with better magnification. Needs to support at least magnification and focus peaking. Ideally also digital split screen and digital micro lenses, but that would require phase pixels or dual pixels, so probably not.

 

[fotografr]

This whole thread has now been rendered moot as Leica have released this image of the M11 prototype featuring a 8x10 CMOS sensor that is 5000 Megapixels.

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