M10, the new M9?

[Ko.Fe.]

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On 8/22/2019 at 1:11 PM, Kwesi said:

Over the span of about six years I went from an M9-P to an M240-P and recently an M10-P. What struck me immediately was how similar the M10 and M9 files were in terms of color and contrast. The M240 files reminded me of Kodak Portra film whereas the M10 output just reminded of the M9. I thought i was alone in this observation until i read this article today.

https://www.streetsilhouettes.com/home/2019/7/29/the-myth-of-the-leica-m9-ccd-vs-cmos-sensors

Thoughts?

I have huge relief. If M10 files just as my M-E files I don't need to spend another couple of thousands for the upgrade. 

[Matlock]

7 hours ago, nejad_b said:

Hi Matlock

Thank you for your post that I liked most.

A cousin of mine who thinks / is a professional photographer has a Sony and to my disgust he points and shoots at any condition, day or night! He probably has no idea what aperture is, however he is probably a master of photoshop and produces some good results from time to time. That's how some people do it and its fine as it makes them happy! But what I fail to understand is that do you really need a Leica lens or M camera to get there? Post processing is so good these days you can do it with any camera or lens! 

 

 

I think that is the whole point and it was the main reason that I bought my M10-D. I was trained to think before shooting especially as we were limited with film to a finite number of exposures. Of course post processing can be utilised even with images taken on film many years ago (I have had a couple of photos published that I took, on Ektachrome,  with my father's Voigtlander Brilliant over 55 years ago, just tweaked a little). However, like you, it makes me cringe when I see people pointing their camera in roughly the right direction and shoot of hundreds of shots, that is not photography.

[Matlock]

5 hours ago, jaapv said:

Yes - the lens is optimized, so is the sensor, and yet you are content not to optimize the half-product that the camera produces? Rather a waste IMO.

You have a weird idea about postprocessing. It cannot create what is not there. What it can do is pull out the full potential that you wouldn't see otherwise and reproduce it to fit your vision. I suspect that your friend knows more about photography than you think or even can imagine.

Whilst that is very true, it has had the opposite effect of breeding a class of photographers who shoot vast numbers of shots confident that at least one can be rescued with post processing. That is not photography. As nejad_b has pointed out, you are better off using your mobile phone.

[jaapv]

2 hours ago, Matlock said:

However, like you, it makes me cringe when I see people pointing their camera in roughly the right direction and shoot of hundreds of shots, that is not photography.

I don't think that that has anything to do with proper postprocessing, nor with digital. Motordrives existed long before sensors were invented. The only effect the digitalisation of cameras has had is to make the act of taking a photograph cheap, increasing the numbers of these machinegunners. Anyway, bursts have been used for a very long time to catch precise moments, not to facilitate the processing. Think of all these football news shots with the ball in the air.

[Viv]

What an interesting discussion this has been.

I process my DNG shots, of course I do. As has been said, post-processing cannot make visible what is not already latently in the original (except, of course by cloning  elements in or out, but that I NEVER do).

One of the reasons I enjoy rangefinder photography is that it makes me slow down and consider each shot carefully before pressing the shutter button. This was even more the case when I shot film in a rangefinder (the Zeiss Ikon), but I gave up shooting film because of the difficulties regarding development and digital scanning.

[Matlock]

2 minutes ago, jaapv said:

I don't think that that has anything to do with proper postprocessing, nor with digital. Motordrives existed long before sensors were invented. The only effect the digitalisation of cameras has had is to make the act of taking a photograph cheap, increasing the numbers of these machinegunners. Anyway, bursts have been used for a very long time to catch precise moments, not to facilitate the processing. Think of all these football news shots with the ball in the air.

I see that, once again, my point has been missed. 

However I will make two last points if I may.

I recently took a number of photos of our local waterfront with my M10-D (these for a third party) I tweaked a couple of the shots and cropped one that I found I had included a rather noticeable shadow. When it came to print them I found the best shot of all was one that had received no post processing at all (and, yes I know that could have been sheer luck).

On a slightly different tack I had an aunt who was heavily into photography, in fact she gave me my first camera when I was about 7 years old. She used Kodachrome exclusively with a fairly basic camera and exhibited her slides at the local camera club (and some to a far wider audience). As she used Kodachrome and projected her pictures there was absolutely no chance of post processing. She won first prize year after year against people with Leicas, Rolleis, Nikons, etc. who spent many hours in the darkroom. Sadly, shortly before she died she destroyed her entire collection.

[jaapv]

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17 minutes ago, Matlock said:

I see that, once again, my point has been missed. 

However I will make two last points if I may.

I recently took a number of photos of our local waterfront with my M10-D (these for a third party) I tweaked a couple of the shots and cropped one that I found I had included a rather noticeable shadow. When it came to print them I found the best shot of all was one that had received no post processing at all (and, yes I know that could have been sheer luck).

On a slightly different tack I had an aunt who was heavily into photography, in fact she gave me my first camera when I was about 7 years old. She used Kodachrome exclusively with a fairly basic camera and exhibited her slides at the local camera club (and some to a far wider audience). As she used Kodachrome and projected her pictures there was absolutely no chance of post processing. She won first prize year after year against people with Leicas, Rolleis, Nikons, etc. who spent many hours in the darkroom. Sadly, shortly before she died she destroyed her entire collection.

We had little choice back then. Still, when printing slides to Cibachrome, we did process them as far as possible  by adjusting colour - I had a nice colourhead, eliminating the use of filters- and exposure. And we preprocessed by filters and camra parameters. Still. slide film was by necessity designed to be the end product, as opposed to negative film and digital captures. Those are half-products that need to be processed -enhanced if you like- to get the final result. It is weird - or ignorant- to advocate making use of all available techniques to get a good chemical prints and to have objections to doing the same for a digital capture.

 

[Matlock]

2 minutes ago, jaapv said:

We had little choice back then. Still, when printing slides to Cibachrome, we did process them as far as possible  by adjusting colour - I had a nice colourhead, eliminating the use of filters- and exposure. Still. slide film was by necessity designed to be the end product, as opposed to negative film and digital captures. Those are half-products that need to be processed -enhanced if you like- to get the final result. It is weird - or ignorant- to advocate making use of all available techniques to get a good chemical prints and to have objections to doing the same for a digital capture.

 

I used Cibachrome extensively and still have some great prints. I am not sure that I am weird or ignorant (or perhaps we are all rather weird) and I do not object to post processing, only the excessive use of it which seems to be the raison d'être for some photographers.

 

 

[jaapv]

Well, I think we don't really disagree there   There are quite a few nasty "HDR" images out there. Fortunately they seem to be quarantined inside the Internet and rarely make it into print. And, a host of oversharpened ones too...

[a.noctilux]

To jump into "HDR" images 😲

Some years ago, when I've seen one of the first "HDR image" on screen, I was astonished by the "quality" on screen.

Then since I've seen some more over time, those HDR images becoming "common", and seeing deeper in, they appear more and more

artificial in my eyes.

I think that HDR images are creation of "internet screen diffusion" and I don't think that they are printable as "printing" them may loose those HDR properties.

 

Same thing when some decades ago, I wanted the same rendering of my Cibachrome from my best slides = never obtained the very same images.

On paper, the lack of "latitude" or something else made the processus of transfering slide to paper pointless.

[adan]

10 hours ago, Matlock said:

Whilst that is very true, it has had the opposite effect of breeding a class of photographers who shoot vast numbers of shots confident that at least one can be rescued with post processing. That is not photography. As nejad_b has pointed out, you are better off using your mobile phone.

Slightly off-topic, but...

From your comment, I have to assume you've never had to earn your living (or a reputation for "getting the picture and getting the job done") from photography.

On my first "job" (a newspaper internship) we had to shoot small-town basketball action in dimly-lit gymnasiums. We shot Tri-X at ISO "infinity" - 1/250th and f/1.4 and then cooked the film in high-power developer to get whatever could be squeezed out of it with grade 5 paper (speaking of post-processing). We shot every action peak we could, because the odds were they would still fail - not enough light, faces in inky shadow, blurred motion. We shot 3-4 rolls per game, to ensure one decent photograph for our readers. (Unmotorized, in my case - couldn't afford one, as a starving student).

It has always struck me as - strange - that some people rate photographers on how many pictures they don't take. As if the best writer is the one who uses the fewest sheets of paper and produces the fewest novels. Or the best painter is the one with the fewest paintings and sketches in their oeuvre. The best writers are generally the ones who post-process (revise and rewrite) over and over - and in the era of pens and typewriters would end the work day surrounded by "vast numbers" of rejected pages overflowing the trash basket.

(Speaking of trash baskets, the illustrative photographer Art Kane made a conference table for his studio - a huge wire trashbasket full of reject Kodachromes, topped with wood, and labelled "Love's Labor's Lost." )

Gary Winogrand left behind about 250,000 unfinished images when he died. Yet he's the one in museum collections, and with prints selling for an average of $10000 each.

My photojournalism instructors told us "film is cheap" - the implication being that no one cares how much film you use, just whether you bring back the goods.

Those are photographers and that is photography. Film or digital, commercial or journalistic or fine-art.

Edited September 1, 2019 by adan

[Matlock]

29 minutes ago, adan said:

Slightly off-topic, but...

From your comment, I have to assume you've never had to earn your living (or a reputation for "getting the picture and getting the job done") from photography.

On my first "job" (a newspaper internship) we had to shoot small-town basketball action in dimly-lit gymnasiums. We shot Tri-X at ISO "infinity" - 1/250th and f/1.4 and then cooked the film in high-power developer to get whatever could be squeezed out of it with grade 5 paper (speaking of post-processing). We shot every action peak we could, because the odds were they would still fail - not enough light, faces in inky shadow, blurred motion. We shot 3-4 rolls per game, to ensure one decent photograph for our readers. (Unmotorized, in my case - couldn't afford one, as a starving student).

It has always struck me as - strange - that some people rate photographers on how many pictures they don't take. As if the best writer is the one who uses the fewest sheets of paper and produces the fewest novels. Or the best painter is the one with the fewest paintings and sketches in their oeuvre. The best writers are generally the ones who post-process (revise and rewrite) over and over - and in the era of pens and typewriters would end the work day surrounded by "vast numbers" of rejected pages overflowing the trash basket.

(Speaking of trash baskets, the illustrative photographer Art Kane made a conference table for his studio - a huge wire trashbasket full of reject Kodachromes, topped with wood, and labelled "Love's Labor's Lost." )

Gary Winogrand left behind about 250,000 unfinished images when he died. Yet he's the one in museum collections, and with prints selling for an average of $10000 each.

My photojournalism instructors told us "film is cheap" - the implication being that no one cares how much film you use, just whether you bring back the goods.

Those are photographers and that is photography. Film or digital, commercial or journalistic or fine-art.

I am sure that it wasn't intended but that sounds a little patronising.

No I have never had to earn my living from photography but I have earned quite a bit from it having been involved for many years. Most of my subjects have been static, or at least very slow moving, so the comparison does not quite apply.

Edited September 1, 2019 by Matlock

[evikne]

Regarding the Adobe profiles:

Maybe worth mentioning the Adobe Portrait and Adobe Color profile as well. Adobe Portrait has a subtle, but very useful difference from the Standard profile. Adobe Color is another step up with even more contrast and colors.

I find both of these very useful when I want a little more "punch" than the Standard profile.

BTW, I think Adobe Color is the new standard profile in LR. If I "reset" an image, this is the profile being assigned.

Edited September 1, 2019 by evikne

[adan]

5 hours ago, Matlock said:

I am sure that it wasn't intended but that sounds a little patronising.

Possibly - but an individual proclaiming ex cathedra what "is not photography" without having lived the life also sounds a little patronising.

In which case we are all-square with 17 to play.

[pico]

7 hours ago, adan said:

On my first "job" (a newspaper internship) we had to shoot small-town basketball action in dimly-lit gymnasiums. We shot Tri-X at ISO "infinity" - 1/250th and f/1.4 and then cooked the film in high-power developer to get whatever could be squeezed out of it with grade 5 paper (speaking of post-processing).

Me, too. The gym lights were of some alien color spectrum. Some of us went on to use Kodak 2475. The paper's photo editor was a straight-shooter and often we were told, "Well we will run this one. It is sharp enough. Got names for the players here?" (panic moment)

Oh, just to seed the search engines, the editor's name was/is Dick Sroda. (You won't find enough about him (nor me) through Google.

If anyone cares, here is a 35mm full-frame done on Kodak 2475. 85 mm ƒ1,8, Large farmhouse kitchen with one 40W bulb in the ceiling.

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

 

Edited September 1, 2019 by pico

[adan]

2 hours ago, pico said:

"Got names for the players here?" (panic moment)

You mean you forgot to hit the refs' table coming in, and copy down the rosters?

Doc Horrell used to mention/show Dick Sroda's work in classes, but I always got him mixed up with Bob Gilka. Jest two Wisconsin Polish peas in a pod.