Leica M11 image quality (?)

[AZN]

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Downloaded a few of the RAW DNGs available on the DPReview website at:

https://www.dpreview.com/samples/1811299675/leica-m11-pre-production-sample-gallery-dpreview-tv

Because they are DNGs, they can be opened and edited in Capture One Pro without problem.

Thing is, am not blown away by the image quality.  Yes I know they are pre-production samples taken by less-than-expert photographers, but the image quality just isn't there IMO.

Especially for $AUD 13 500 (!)

Feel as though you could easily slot in images from a (say) Sony A7RIV and no-one would notice the difference…

Hoping better samples show up soon(ish).

Also, haven't seen any RAW-DNG samples yet of in-camera pixel-binned 32 MP images.  Anyone?

[Adam Bonn]

What profile are you using in c1? 

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[Crem]

6 minutes ago, AZN said:

Downloaded a few of the RAW DNGs available on the DPReview website at:

https://www.dpreview.com/samples/1811299675/leica-m11-pre-production-sample-gallery-dpreview-tv

Because they are DNGs, they can be opened and edited in Capture One Pro without problem.

Thing is, am not blown away by the image quality.  Yes I know they are pre-production samples taken by less-than-expert photographers, but the image quality just isn't there IMO.

Especially for $AUD 13 500 (!)

Feel as though you could easily slot in images from a (say) Sony A7RIV and no-one would notice the difference…

Hoping better samples show up soon(ish).

Also, haven't seen any RAW-DNG samples yet of in-camera pixel-binned 32 MP images.  Anyone?

Thanks for sharing the DP Review link! I didn't realize they already had DNGs available. I am a previous A7R4 owner and I am very curious to see if the M11 performs the same as the A7R4 or if somehow they tweaked it to do better. Mostly I'm curious about ISO 6400+ noise and colors. I just wasn't a fan of the A7R4 at 6400 and above. I will say that Topaz Denoise and DXO PureRAW did amazing things to those high ISO files so it was still overall a win to have all those megapixels. It just meant a much slower post processing workflow that was less fun.

[Oswalt]

This was precisely my finding as well. I'm a little deflated at future prospects regarding the M, as I now feel Leica has backed themselves into a bit of a corner. It all feels like a relative compromise and less than ideal trade off in not being able to engineer a RF/EVF coupling .... Which isn't the direction I want to see the M continue down.
 

But enough from me, new demographics, and change is (some minor bean counting going on I suspect with design and material changes) likely inevitable as they need to continue to stay profitable. 

Edited January 13, 2022 by Oswalt

[John Smith]

28 minutes ago, Oswalt said:

This was precisely my finding as well. I'm a little deflated at future prospects regarding the M, as I now feel Leica has backed themselves into a bit of a corner. It all feels like a relative compromise and less than ideal trade off in not being able to engineer a RF/EVF coupling .... Which isn't the direction I want to see the M continue down.
 

But enough from me, new demographics, and change is (some minor bean counting going on I suspect with design and material changes) likely inevitable as they need to continue to stay profitable. 

I'm interested to know a little more about your impressions. I have an M10R, and am tempted by the M11. But I would only want to trade up if the image quality is there. I listened to Red Dot Forum's show and they think it is a step up.

Edited January 13, 2022 by John Smith

[Oswalt]

3 hours ago, John Smith said:

I'm interested to know a little more about your impressions. I have an M10R, and am tempted by the M11. But I would only want to trade up if the image quality is there. I listened to Red Dot Forum's show and they think it is a step up.

The files from the M11 appear to be lacking tonality, colour depth, overall acuity and pop that I am able to get from my m10r. There's just something different about how the sensor in the m11 renders the general dimensionality of light when the sensor is fully exposed. The m10r renders more life like, better transitions between tones, and with higher acuity all things being equal between exposures. One problem I seem to be having in c1 is with noise reduction being applied to the M11 files before I apply it myself. Basically the files look smoothed over as if there's noise reduction baked into the DNG already depending on what ISO you are shooting at.... it's weird. 

Color and luminance noise is almost equal from what I have been seeing, with the caveat the m10r clears up better and with more detail intact as a result. These are my findings so far, and one of the many reasons the m10r is going to be staying with me for the foreseeable future. My advice is to download the DNGs from dpreview and see for yourself. 

[Tailwagger]

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45 minutes ago, Oswalt said:

The files from the M11 appear to be lacking tonality, colour depth, overall acuity and pop

Everyone's sensibilities are different and frankly I'm not a fan of pop, depending on how you define that, but I just downloaded one of their raw files, used @Adam Bonn profile (thanks again!) and thought... wow! I cant wait to get my hands on this thing tomorrow. It may just not be your cup of tea, but equally it seems likely that C1 isn;t doing the camera justice at the moment. Under PS things look pretty dang good to me.  I'd reserve judgment until the camera gets officially support by them.

[Oswalt]

11 minutes ago, Tailwagger said:

Everyone's sensibilities are different and frankly I'm not a fan of pop, depending on how you define that, but I just downloaded one of their raw files, used @Adam Bonn profile (thanks again!) and thought... wow! I cant wait to get my hands on this thing tomorrow. It may just not be your cup of tea, but equally it seems likely that C1 isn;t doing the camera justice at the moment. Under PS things look pretty dang good to me.  I'd reserve judgment until the camera gets officially support by them.

It's quite possible. C1 definitely had issues/delays fixing quirks with M10R profiles. I unfortunately don't use Adobe at all anymore as the results almost always end up being poorer in comparison to C1. LR upon export looks as if there's Vaseline smeared over the final result in comparison to C1. I have tried endlessly to try and fix it, but have since given up and moved my workflow over to C1. 
 

Anyways, I'm looking forward to discussions and seeing results from other members in the oncoming weeks. 

Edited January 14, 2022 by Oswalt

[zone5]

1 hour ago, Oswalt said:

The files from the M11 appear to be lacking tonality, colour depth, overall acuity and pop that I am able to get from my m10r. There's just something different about how the sensor in the m11 renders the general dimensionality of light when the sensor is fully exposed. The m10r renders more life like, better transitions between tones, and with higher acuity all things being equal between exposures

I totally agree with this . I took look at images from same reviewers  for M10, M10r , M11 and this is my finding as well. It lacks like Pop and 3D sense. It is very sharp and detail flat images. I am not sure this M11 sensor is Sony variant or not but it renders like Sony.

[Oswalt]

41 minutes ago, zone5 said:

I totally agree with this . I took look at images from same reviewers  for M10, M10r , M11 and this is my finding as well. It lacks like Pop and 3D sense. It is very sharp and detail flat images. I am not sure this M11 sensor is Sony variant or not but it renders like Sony.

Exactly. It's ... odd. 

[rramesh]

In an honesty, given an image, without looking at the EXIF, it would be hard to say which camera took it. This has always been the case with many iterations of the M.

[AZN]

7 hours ago, AZN said:

Also, haven't seen any RAW-DNG samples yet of in-camera pixel-binned 32 MP images.  Anyone?

Bump the question I asked earlier – anyone had a chance to try this yet?

[Stevejack]

The RAW samples look good to me when looking in Lightroom.

I don't like any files straight out of Lightroom though, they all need a few edits to bring out their best. That said I can't see anything concerning with the sample files 🤷‍♂️

[CharlesL]

This is a full-size rendition of a sample DNG I found, downloaded, and processed in Raw Therapee then a little more in Picture Window Pro by Digital Light & Color.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51818423537_bcc031e25d_o_d.jpg

It is only sample of one. The photographer might have done a good or bad job. That said, I too felt the camera did nothing special.

I also found Jono Slack's images underwhelming: oversaturated and unnatural colors.

I don't recall this weak a start with the M8, which was a fine camera when I had it, except that the IR leak, even with the filter, ruined too many shadow areas.
https://live.staticflickr.com/5247/5215851316_099d2371f2_o_d.jpg

I don't recall this weak a start with the M240, which was a fine camera when I had it.
https://live.staticflickr.com/4894/43936744700_65a25b8893_o_d.jpg

I don't recall this weak a start with the SL, which is a fine camera, here mounted with a Summicron-M 50mm version v.
https://live.staticflickr.com/7901/46699720434_22f436747c_o_d.jpg

[Stevejack]

@CharlesLI remember feeling the same way when the M10 Monochrom samples were released. The tones were flat, the images were bland and I was really out off after viewing the samples. Even though I was seriously underwhelmed, but ended up getting one and trying it for myself. Best decision I ever made in terms of camera purchases. I love it. 

[snz]

This review mentions that C1 is not that great currently at processing the M11 raws. You should really try it with Lightroom.

https://www.thephoblographer.com/2022/01/13/three-great-cameras-in-one-leica-m11-review/

 

[Adam Bonn]

5 hours ago, Tailwagger said:

Everyone's sensibilities are different and frankly I'm not a fan of pop, depending on how you define that, but I just downloaded one of their raw files, used @Adam Bonn profile (thanks again!) and thought... wow! I cant wait to get my hands on this thing tomorrow. It may just not be your cup of tea, but equally it seems likely that C1 isn;t doing the camera justice at the moment. Under PS things look pretty dang good to me.  I'd reserve judgment until the camera gets officially support by them.

It’s adobe’s profile, not mine! It’s the exact same profile adobe will/have already provided for use in ACR based products 

But you’re welcome.

(I signed up to the adobe tax last night - migrating to mac… well I got my money’s worth outta lr6 at least 😅)

[Adam Bonn]

1 hour ago, snz said:

This review mentions that C1 is not that great currently at processing the M11 raws. You should really try it with Lightroom.

https://www.thephoblographer.com/2022/01/13/three-great-cameras-in-one-leica-m11-review/

 

Just skim read this now… well i thought it said lr = better colours / c1 = better dr

Not sure they mentioned if they had the bespoke c1 profile for it (my December 2021 v22 c1 doesn’t)

(I think no..)

my hunch/gut feeling here is that the different mpix modes with different dr might mean different exposure choices needed based on resolution… (bit like m10 = preserve highlights at all costs / m10r not so much)

i’m inherently and consistently wary of looks like m9 / looks like kodachrome type statements… 

when I get some peaceful minutes (might not be until after the wknd now) I’ll rinse the internet of every m11 dng I can find and add my own tuppence haypenny to the white noise!

[Boho]

it is interesting to see that it might me again the way more resolution , more color bit depth and a new idea of how a Raw file should look to start with is leading to dare I say a " duller look" nowadays ( DNG ) .

first I think the photos taken by DPreview are terrible .. sorry.. so hard to juge on that ..

but the exact same thing happened to me last month when I traded my Q-P for A Q2 .. Boy that first couple of days with it was kind of disappointing with super flat  dng's  , almost muddy brown tone and worst High ISO with visible noise ...

the colors are the opposite of lively to start with, their luminosity is dull in comparaison to the Dng's from the Q1 . but then a few days later , I started to realise that if I stay in very low Iso range , slightly underexpose ( as with most Leicas ) and gently raise the exposure a tad later in Lightroom , add a tiny bit of saturation and shadow recovery ( no more than 20 in Lightroom ) suddenly the files changes from dull to amazing very quickly with a much better latitude while nothing goes too garish too soon like with previous models.

In other words , I think the DNG's from previous models were already quite baked but with much less latitude to work with . How many times I ve seen people showing how beautiful the colours of the M9 were only to see super toxic pushed green , crazy over vibrant blue skies for exemple. Of course Its all a matter of taste and people form the Sates don't like the same rendering than those in Japan for exemple but for me , I ve never really liked the fuji almost cartoonish colours and love the colours when they are as close to reality as possible . ( Ricoh gr for ex ) and it looks like the latest Leica are going more and more toward that look ?

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[John Smith]

12 hours ago, Oswalt said:

The files from the M11 appear to be lacking tonality, colour depth, overall acuity and pop that I am able to get from my m10r. There's just something different about how the sensor in the m11 renders the general dimensionality of light when the sensor is fully exposed. The m10r renders more life like, better transitions between tones, and with higher acuity all things being equal between exposures. One problem I seem to be having in c1 is with noise reduction being applied to the M11 files before I apply it myself. Basically the files look smoothed over as if there's noise reduction baked into the DNG already depending on what ISO you are shooting at.... it's weird. 

Color and luminance noise is almost equal from what I have been seeing, with the caveat the m10r clears up better and with more detail intact as a result. These are my findings so far, and one of the many reasons the m10r is going to be staying with me for the foreseeable future. My advice is to download the DNGs from dpreview and see for yourself. 

Thanks for the feedback. In Jono's review, he said, "whilst the excellent colour feels more 'realistic' (although perhaps not so charming)." And that has given me pause. 

I use C1 too, and I seem to remember that some M I had in the past had terrible colors, etc. until C1 came out with a specific profile. Given that I put my name on a pre-order list just yesterday, C1 will probably have a profile out before my name comes up. I'll have to see where things lay then. Red Dot Forum is supposed to have a YT video out on the 29th where they compare the M11 to the M10R. That will probably be worth watching, too.