Unveiling M11?

[rramesh]

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13 minutes ago, Alberti said:

In England they will love the stealth version of the M16

And don't tell airport security that there's an M11 in your camera bag. Sig Sauer also makes an M11.

Edited December 21, 2021 by rramesh

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The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[SrMi]

20 minutes ago, Herr Barnack said:

Why France and why January 7?  Makes no sense. 

I am wondering if maybe the Leica rumor mongers got the date wrong.

And why on Orthodox Christmas?

[Herr Barnack]

44 minutes ago, evikne said:

I heard some rumors that @Steven has bought the company. 😄

Now it makes sense!  😅

[MikeMyers]

On 12/16/2021 at 9:21 PM, SrMi said:

If the camera is set at ISO 100 but exposes at actual ISO 64, it does not mean that the image will be darker than the ISO 100 image shot with another camera. 

 

The camera processes the data that is read from the sensor before it writes it to the card. The processing can include:

• Lifting shadows and mid-tones.
• Adding an S curve to the highlights.
• Instructing raw converters to apply Baseline Exposure Compensation. 
• etc

This is what led to my comment.  I would not have expected any raw file to "lift shadows and mid-tones", nor to add an S-curve to the highlights.  

I'm very ignorant about this, and I know software has to process the data recorded on the sensor to create a "dng", "raf", "nef" or "cr2" file, but I'm amazed to read that it is also doing image editing.  I'm not complaining, just trying to understand.

Regarding ISO, I expected ISO to match ASA, meaning ISO on my M10 would be identical to the  same ISO on my Nikon, and if I doubled the ISO, to get the same result I could adjust aperture or shutter by one stop.

It is what it is, and I'm just reading, not complaining, but I'm surprised to have read the above.  I expected all those things to be done in post-processing, not by the camera.

No complaint here - it is what it is, and as of today, there is no other camera that could replace the Leica, and I thoroughly enjoy not only the M10, but also my M8.2 - if I were richer, maybe I would buy a newer Leica in addition to (not instead of) the cameras I have now.

Finally, for all the things this upcoming M100 can/will do, it can not improve on the M8's ability to capture infrared images, which I enjoy doing.

Edited December 21, 2021 by MikeMyers
typo.

[TeleElmar135mm]

vor 46 Minuten schrieb Al Brown:

The initial event is on January 6th, with a second one on January 7th.
Here is the official teaser poster for the French event.

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!

Great picture for testing the "Messsucher" in the M11

[RS-Colo]

46 minutes ago, Al Brown said:

The initial event is on January 6th, with a second one on January 7th.
Here is the official teaser poster for the French event.

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!

Watch the Alfred Hitchcock movie Topaz and you will realize why this image makes sense in relation to a camera.

[MikeMyers]

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5 minutes ago, RS-Colo said:

Watch the Alfred Hitchcock movie Topaz and you will realize why this image makes sense in relation to a camera.

It's crumby?

[SrMi]

8 minutes ago, MikeMyers said:

This is what led to my comment.  I would not have expected any raw file to "lift shadows and mid-tones", nor to add an S-curve to the highlights.  

I'm very ignorant about this, and I know software has to process the data recorded on the sensor to create a "dng", "raf", "nef" or "cr2" file, but I'm amazed to read that it is also doing image editing.  I'm not complaining, just trying to understand.

Regarding ISO, I expected ISO to match ASA, meaning ISO on my M10 would be identical to the  same ISO on my Nikon, and if I doubled the ISO, to get the same result I could adjust aperture or shutter by one stop.

It is what it is, and I'm just reading, not complaining, but I'm surprised to have read the above.  I expected all those things to be done in post-processing, not by the camera.

No complaint here - it is what it is, and as of today, there is no other camera that could replace the Leica, and I thoroughly enjoy not only the M10, but also my M8.2 - if I were richer, maybe I would buy a newer Leica in addition to (not instead of) the cameras I have now.

Finally, for all the things this upcoming M100 can/will do, it can not improve on the M8's ability to capture infrared images, which I enjoy doing.

It requires a detailed analysis by very knowledgable people to understand what the cameras are doing to the raw data. AFAIK, no such study was done with Leica cameras. What is currently known:

- Nikon cameras apply S curve to the highlights (Thom Hogan).

- Fuji cameras implement ISO in an unusual way (adding Raw Exposure Bias) (Bill Claff).

- Olympus provide up to 1 stop of highlight protection in exchange for a loss in deep shadows (assume that means exposing less and lifting midtones and shadows to restore brightness)

- Every camera calibrates sensor vs. ISO in a different way (see table at the bottom of this page).

FWIW, ISO is not defined for raw files, but that is a very complex discussion.
The camera prepares the raw files to modify them in the post in the best possible way. 
IMO, the implicit modifications in post-processing software (Adobe, C1, etc.), i.e., applied once you open your file in the post-processor, are more bothersome. However, you can circumvent some of the modifications of post-processing software by using a linear profile.

[adan]

2 hours ago, MikeMyers said:

The above (quoting SrMi) is what I'm asking about.

I'm trying to find out what the Leica changes when it creates a "raw file".

The main change Leica uniquely makes to M-digital raw (.DNG) files (and also .jpgs) is to apply lens corrections for vignetting and color "vignetting."

This is due to a fundamental incompatability between the 3D microscopic architecture of a digital sensor, and legacy Leica-M film lenses that may sit only 20mm or so from the sensor surface. The camera will brighten the pixels progressively towards the corners and edges (places farthest from the center of the sensor) - and also brighten selectively for different primary colors at the same locations, to remove color stains or errors.

Of note - Leica has been adapting their sensor architecture to make this less necessary than in the past (M8/M9 era). The diagram below shows how overall light can be lost (vignetting) or the color misinterpreted (color vignetting - red-filtered light recorded as green light because it "leaks" onto the green pixel) where the light is hitting the sensor surface at a low, grazing angle (edges and corners), with older sensor designs and close-to-the-sensor Leica lenses (especially wide-angles).

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!

 

Leica-M .DNG files are NOT corrected for lens distortion by changing the actual pixel data - but if the lens is identified (i.e. via 6-bit coding), then "hints" or parameters or a "profile" are added to the metadata or file header information so that a post-processing program (e.g. Lightroom) can (at the option of the user) correct for that. The metadata also contains other "suggestions" for post-processing software to use, such as a tone/contrast curve, or the white-balance that the camera would have used, had the picture been a .jpeg instead of a .DNG/raw.

However, the response of the post-processing software to such hints may be variable. Adobe products use the strong contrast/tone curve of the Leica M10 with no user option to avoid it (except by brighening the shadows manually with the shadows slider). Other, more sophisticated programs can ignore that "hint" and show the original brightnesses minus the applied curve.

.................

Now, on a wider view, sensors do not output 1s and 0s that a computer can understand. They output voltage (CMOS) or charge (CCDs) in proportion to, or as an analog of, the number of photons that hit each pixel during the exposure. ALL digital cameras (except maybe some dedicated scientific devices) have to convert (i.e. process) those analog values into 1s and 0s, even for the "rawest" of raw files.

E.G. a given pixel collects and outputs 9125 electron volts > analog-to-digital converter turns that into > 00100011 10100101 (in 16-bit data - two 8-bit "bytes"). Those 1s and 0s are what get written to the SD card, along with the metadata header.

And - the result is then multiplied or amplified depending on the ISO setting. So that you get an image 4 times brighter when the camera is set to ISO 1600 than when it is set to ISO 200 (everything else being equal).

That is what the wikipedia article means when it says "minimally processed" - it does not say "unprocessed."

[SrMi]

7 minutes ago, adan said:

However, the response of the post-processing software to such hints may be variable. Adobe products use the strong contrast/tone curve of the Leica M10 with no user option to avoid it (except by brighening the shadows manually with the shadows slider). Other, more sophisticated programs can ignore that "hint" and show the original brightnesses minus the applied curve.

You can apply a third-party linear profile to bypass the contrast/tone curve modification in Adobe software. Linear profiles are freely available on Tony Kuyper's Linear Profile Repository or from Cobalt (Cobalt Repro from Basic Pack).

[Adam Bonn]

1 hour ago, MikeMyers said:

Regarding ISO, I expected ISO to match ASA, meaning ISO on my M10 would be identical to the  same ISO on my Nikon, and if I doubled the ISO, to get the same result I could adjust aperture or shutter by one stop.

There’s different measurement systems for ISO not a blanket standard across the industry.

Much like velocity (160kph is the same as 100mph, but doesn’t the bigger number sound cooler to a marketeer? 0 to 160 in 8 seconds sounds way faster than 0 to 100)

Likewise if ISO measurement metric A of 3200 is the same brightness as  ISO measurement metric B at 2500 then reviewers and testers will rave at how clean the files from that camera are at 3200… (the same as 2500 on a different camera in fact)

Exposure maths will remain unchanged though… 1/x SS is always 1/x SS

Perhaps… a good analogy would be aperture… f4 is always one stop away from f2.8, but the physical size of the aperture hole at f4 isn’t the same between lenses of different FLs

Likewise ISO xyz isn’t the same between brands (and maybe even models within a brand) of camera, but plus or minus some stops is always plus and minus some stops from whatever value xyz refers too

[Adam Bonn]

20 minutes ago, SrMi said:

You can apply a third-party linear profile to bypass the contrast/tone curve modification in Adobe software. Linear profiles are freely available on Tony Kuyper's Linear Profile Repository or from Cobalt (Cobalt Repro from Basic Pack).

Adobe buries it’s tone curve in the LUT of the DCP it’s not a separate piece of code*. Adding a linear curve after the LUT will negate it.

(I made an M10 one and posted in a thread on here somewhere)

Doing this will not negate any thing proprietary that Leica embeds into the DNG re tonality as that’s already there before it even gets into LR/ACR

C1 uses three tone curves in their ICM files, but give the end user the opportunity to override them using the drop down menu under the profile setting within base characteristics 

 

*rather bizarrely if you use adobe’s DNG profile editor it embeds their standard TC, but adobe themselves don’t add this into their DCPs

Mind you what adobe’s DNG spec says and what adobe actually do, aren’t always the same thing… 🤔 

[MikeMyers]

57 minutes ago, adan said:

So that you get an image 4 times brighter when the camera is set to ISO 1600 than when it is set to ISO 200 (everything else being equal)

Thank you for the explanation - very helpful.

I'm confused by what you wrote - going from ISO 200 to 1600 should be 3 "stops,  8 times brighter, not four - or what am I missing here??

Thanks for the images - after a year of studying them, maybe I'll understand them better.

[Adam Bonn]

51 minutes ago, adan said:

The metadata also contains other "suggestions" for post-processing software to use, such as a tone/contrast curve, or the white-balance that the camera would have used, had the picture been a .jpeg instead of a .DNG/raw.

The ‘AsShotNeutral’ tag in the DNG is important to Adobe, it uses it in conjunction with the DCP colour matrices to calculate the CCT based on a xyY value derived from the sum (which I’ve hideously over simplified for brevity) ASN x CM = xyY

When we shoot a colorchecker to produce a profile, we create new colour matrices, but we can’t change what the camera creates as the ASN (only control it via a whibal etc)

All this can of course be negated by manually moving the WB and tint sliders in LR 🙂 

[RS-Colo]

3 hours ago, MikeMyers said:

It's crumby?

???

[MikeMyers]

16 hours ago, SrMi said:

The core modifications cannot be turned off, and differ by manufacturer.

My advice from the DxO PhotoLab forum is to set the white balance to 5600K, and turn off ALL the automated stuff on my cameras, shoot only in RAW, and allow PhotoLab to select the camera and lens corrections from their database based on which camera body and lens I am using.  There are so, so, so many things on a Nikon that I need to de-activate.  There are many less on my M10, but I turn off anything the camera is doing to "help".  

I guess if I was using JPG images, I'd let the camera do everything, and forget Using PhotoLab, which was designed for raw images.

2 hours ago, Adam Bonn said:

The ‘AsShotNeutral’ tag in the DNG is important to Adobe, it uses it in conjunction with the DCP colour matrices to calculate the CCT based on a xyY value derived from the sum (which I’ve hideously over simplified for brevity) ASN x CM = xyY

When we shoot a colorchecker to produce a profile, we create new colour matrices, but we can’t change what the camera creates as the ASN (only control it via a whibal etc)

Adam, I'm not going to ask you to explain all that in simple English, but it's way over my head.  Tags DCP color matrices, CCT based on a xyY value derived from the sum...  ASN x CM = xyY, color checker, color matrices, ASN......   I appreciate how much you understand, way, way, WAY over my head, but to me that's like when people were discussing which developer to use for film.   Me?  I just want a good raw image and software that will help me turn it into a finished result that I can print or share.

That's what I hate the most about my Nikon cameras - the menus to me are absurd.  The menus in my M8 and M10 are mostly understandable, and I don't need a Phd and a doctorate degree to understand them.  

I've got my old M8.2 camera, which creates DNG images.  I can put an infrared filter on it, use the exposure meter built into the camera, capture an image, edit it as a B&W image in DarkTable, and in fifteen minutes get a result like what I'll post below.  To me, *that* is photography.  Follow the basic rules, focus, set the exposure, and edit.  

(.....and I'm sure there are lots of people like you, who know and understand all these technical things, and I suspect you enjoy working with them, but none of that is why I enjoy Leica cameras, which for the most part are mostly quite simple.  Set focus, exposure, compose, and shoot.  I would hope that the M11 is just as easy to use as my M10, which is even easier to use than my M8.)

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

[fotografr]

With all the technical data discussed here in detail and which leaves me completely dumbfounded, I'm surprised I've ever been able to make an image with a digital camera. I've just been metering the scenes, composing and clicking the shutter and somehow I end up with a photograph.

[Jeff S]

19 minutes ago, MikeMyers said:

butMe?  I just want a good raw image and software that will help me turn it into a finished result that I can print or share.

 

 

And yet all of these good comments are in specific response to your continuing request to have all the technical underpinnings explained to you.    Better to just learn how your own gear responds to different conditions and to your processing workflow and desired rendering/ouput, for which there are infinite possibilities using any given gear.  IQ is rarely the limiting factor these days for most all quality systems in the hands of a competent photographer (and editor/printer).  The files are generally flexible enough, and the PP tools sufficient, to apply one’s own interpretation, regardless of small manufacturer tweaks.
 

Jeff

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[SrMi]

8 minutes ago, fotografr said:

With all the technical data discussed here in detail and which leaves me completely dumbfounded, I'm surprised I've ever been able to make an image with a digital camera. I've just been metering the scenes, composing and clicking the shutter and somehow I end up with a photograph.

I am always dumbfounded when people feel intimidated or threatened by the knowledge shared.
Maybe, every time a technical question is asked, the answer should be: fuggedaboutit, it will not help your photography :).

[ianman]

On 12/20/2021 at 9:21 PM, SrMi said:

And M8 horribly expensive, since 8 is a very lucky number in China.

I'd just tell the seller that it's doubly unlucky