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Pixel Sharpness with M10 - Advice requested


shanefking

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Moving to the M10 from the M9, I've struggled to get perfect sharpness, even at high shutter speeds.  For instance, this is a 100% crop of a portrait, the eyes being about halfway from center of the frame and the edge.  The settings were iso 400, 1/500s, using a 50mm Summilux Asph at f1.4 or f2.  I boosted the sharpening in lightroom to 50, just to exaggerate the fact that it doesn't appear to be a focus issue, as much as it looks like slight motion blur.  I don't recall having issues like this with my M9 unless I was shooting 1/90s or slower.  

 

I'm having trouble diagnosing the issue, any ideas what the issue might be?  Or have I gone off the deep end and this is as sharp as can be expected from this lens using focus/recompose with a higher resolution sensor?

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54 minutes ago, shanefking said:

Moving to the M10 from the M9, I've struggled to get perfect sharpness, even at high shutter speeds.  For instance, this is a 100% crop of a portrait, the eyes being about halfway from center of the frame and the edge.  The settings were iso 400, 1/500s, using a 50mm Summilux Asph at f1.4 or f2.  I boosted the sharpening in lightroom to 50, just to exaggerate the fact that it doesn't appear to be a focus issue, as much as it looks like slight motion blur.  I don't recall having issues like this with my M9 unless I was shooting 1/90s or slower.  

 

I'm having trouble diagnosing the issue, any ideas what the issue might be?  Or have I gone off the deep end and this is as sharp as can be expected from this lens using focus/recompose with a higher resolution sensor?

Thank you for your feedback,

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That looks like motion blur to me. I would expect a sharper image from that combo, I have the same and the acuity and sharpness is outstanding even at 1.4. I'll try to post a crop later. In short you have not gone off the deep end, it should be much sharper.

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22 minutes ago, pop said:

Definitely motion blur. Since the M10 has many more pixels than an M9, they are obviously much smaller. Comparing 100% crops of the two cameras will not give useful results.

Thank you, Philipp.  I would think that 1/500 would be sufficiently fast with a 50mm.  What shutter speeds do you try to stay at?

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2 hours ago, shanefking said:

What shutter speeds do you try to stay at?

There's no rule that applies to all kinds of shooting. It depends on how I hold the camera and how I stand. It also depends on how far the subject is,  how fast it moves and in which direction.

Did you use live view? The slight latency from pressing the release until the shutter actually fires might affect the image.

BTW, I suggest not sharpening the image in post for this kind of discussions. The artifact introduced by the sharpening makes judging the blurred areas much harder.

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7 minutes ago, pop said:

There's no rule that applies to all kinds of shooting. It depends on how I hold the camera and how I stand. It also depends on how far the subject is,  how fast it moves and in which direction.

Did you use live view? The slight latency from pressing the release until the shutter actually fires might affect the image.

BTW, I suggest not sharpening the image in post for this kind of discussions. The artifact introduced by the sharpening makes judging the blurred areas much harder.

 

Good point regarding the sharpening.  Here's a screenshot at 100% without any added clarity or sharpening.

 

I was using live view for some shots, I'm not sure if I had it active when I took this one.  I usually do rangefinder entirely, and I've noticed the same issue then too.

It is strange because it wasn't a fast moving moment.   I'll have to experiment with how I stand and hold the camera.  I thought I was pretty good at that, but maybe I need more practice.  Anyway, thanks again :)

 

 

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Now this is quite different. Thank you for the improved sample. I was mislead by the sharpening artefacts, particularly by the hairs of the right brow.

Here, details of her skin just below the left eye are well defined while the bridge of the nose is very blurry. A few strands of hair are shown as very fine lines while others just barely discernible. I think we see here merely the effects of a very shallow depth of field. At the scale I see this part of the image on my monitor, the complete image would be about 1.4 by 2 meters in size, seen from quite close up.

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@shanefkingWhat distance was the image taken?  At minimum or close it could be a slight focus miss because the DOF is so narrow or other factors as @popsuggested. More info?

Here is a crop near or greater than 100% at 1.4 and 1/125s for comparison (not sure how to do an exact 100% crop). Focus was on the left eye and you can also see what the right eye looks like as focus fall off. 

Edit: Okay a fair bit larger than 100% maybe 200% a little more.

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Edited by archive_all
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4 hours ago, archive_all said:

not sure how to do an exact 100% crop

You zoom your image to 100% in your image processing software and then you cut out a rectangle that occupies about one fourth of your screen.

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4 hours ago, archive_all said:

@shanefkingWhat distance was the image taken?  At minimum or close it could be a slight focus miss because the DOF is so narrow or other factors as @popsuggested. More info?

Here is a crop near or greater than 100% at 1.4 and 1/125s for comparison (not sure how to do an exact 100% crop). Focus was on the left eye and you can also see what the right eye looks like as focus fall off. 

Edit: Okay a fair bit larger than 100% maybe 200% a little more.

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Thank you for your sample image, I like that one can see exactly which eyelashes are in the plane of focus, and how things resolve.  

The image I shared was taken at about 6-8 feet away, and we were both standing stationary.

I think I did get the eyes in focus, but the way her cheek under her right eye looks gives me the impression of motion blur.  But looking at your image, perhaps that softness is the character of the 50 ASPH at 24mp at full enlargement?

 

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5 hours ago, shanefking said:

 

Thank you for your sample image, I like that one can see exactly which eyelashes are in the plane of focus, and how things resolve.  

The image I shared was taken at about 6-8 feet away, and we were both standing stationary.

I think I did get the eyes in focus, but the way her cheek under her right eye looks gives me the impression of motion blur.  But looking at your image, perhaps that softness is the character of the 50 ASPH at 24mp at full enlargement?

 

At 6-8 feet DOF should increase a bit. I think my image was around 1 meter or so. Maybe run a few tests at different distances. It does seem a little like motion blur but it's tough to say. I think at 1/500th you shouldn't really see that on 24mp unless you were moving a fair bit. If the blur or oof is still present after testing, I would send an email with some of the images to Leica and see what they say. I believe someone on here recently sent their 50 lux in for softness and when it was returned after service it was sharp...I think it was @Adam Bonn?

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11 hours ago, archive_all said:

At 6-8 feet DOF should increase a bit. I think my image was around 1 meter or so. Maybe run a few tests at different distances. It does seem a little like motion blur but it's tough to say. I think at 1/500th you shouldn't really see that on 24mp unless you were moving a fair bit. If the blur or oof is still present after testing, I would send an email with some of the images to Leica and see what they say. I believe someone on here recently sent their 50 lux in for softness and when it was returned after service it was sharp...I think it was @Adam Bonn?

Yeah it was me and my lens had a problem, "re-centering of optical module" was the fix given

Remember the Lux 50 asph has a bit of a mid frame dip in terms of focus, so FWIW if it were me (and it has been in the past) a tripod and centrally framed subject is the test I'd try first

Interestingly, when I took mine to the shop for diagnosis they tested it on an SL and didn't use an M at all...

Re the M9 v M10 (I have both), I'd say that the M9 looks sharper at 'normal' viewing distances (ie fit to screen view) but at 100+% view the M10 is sharper... it's a bit like the M9 has some clarity slider already added.... (it hasn't of course!)

FWIW, probably just my tastes... but clarity is something I use way less on the M10 than the M9 for colour photos (and even on the M9 my use is spartan, seldom into double figures)

Also note that 18mp V 24 means that the M10 image appears more magnified, which IMO is always a double edged blade when looking closely at an image...

 

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Adam Bonn said:

Yeah it was me and my lens had a problem, "re-centering of optical module" was the fix given

Remember the Lux 50 asph has a bit of a mid frame dip in terms of focus, so FWIW if it were me (and it has been in the past) a tripod and centrally framed subject is the test I'd try first

Interestingly, when I took mine to the shop for diagnosis they tested it on an SL and didn't use an M at all...

Re the M9 v M10 (I have both), I'd say that the M9 looks sharper at 'normal' viewing distances (ie fit to screen view) but at 100+% view the M10 is sharper... it's a bit like the M9 has some clarity slider already added.... (it hasn't of course!)

FWIW, probably just my tastes... but clarity is something I use way less on the M10 than the M9 for colour photos (and even on the M9 my use is spartan, seldom into double figures)

Also note that 18mp V 24 means that the M10 image appears more magnified, which IMO is always a double edged blade when looking closely at an image...

 

 

 

 

Thank you Adam, I’ll try that.  The M10 and that 50 certainly give plenty of pop.. the LR presets I had made for my Canon 5D are downright garish on Leica files.

I may send in both the camera and lens just to be sure they are both at their best.

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1 hour ago, shanefking said:

Thank you Adam, I’ll try that.  The M10 and that 50 certainly give plenty of pop.. the LR presets I had made for my Canon 5D are downright garish on Leica files.

I may send in both the camera and lens just to be sure they are both at their best.

I bought a Leica M10 last summer, backfocused on almost all lenses i had. It also had another problem, so i sent it to Leica in Wetzlar. They changed a part in the circuit and did a calibration of the rangefinder.

Now all my lenses are spot on :)

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6 hours ago, shanefking said:

I may send in both the camera and lens just to be sure they are both at their best.

Wait for a clear night, point the camera (with lens!) at a star or a crescent moon and if with the lens set to infinity the double image exactly aligns  in the rangefinder patch then there’s a very, very strong chance your rangefinder calibration is fine

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https://www.47-degree.com/focus-shift/leica-m-50mm-lens-comparison-part-2/#skip-to-field-curvature
 

in this (imo excellent) review of many 50mm lenses it’s clear why not just focus and recompose, but off centre focusing wide open can be a bit of a lottery on a great many fast 50s

 

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7 hours ago, Adam Bonn said:

Wait for a clear night, point the camera (with lens!) at a star or a crescent moon and if with the lens set to infinity the double image exactly aligns  in the rangefinder patch then there’s a very, very strong chance your rangefinder calibration is fine

It does not, lol.  A touch off, horizontally and vertically.

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17 minutes ago, shanefking said:

It does not, lol.  A touch off, horizontally and vertically.

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You can fix that at home! 

 

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