1/f rule by resolution

[Bobby]

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I'd like to use 36MP for street and 60MP for landscape. 36MP for street is mainly to keep the size small; since the sensor is reading a 60MP image anyway (before binning) should I keep the shutter to 1/4f or is 1/2f good enough?

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[SrMi]

47 minutes ago, Bobby said:

I'd like to use 36MP for street and 60MP for landscape. 36MP for street is mainly to keep the size small; since the sensor is reading a 60MP image anyway (before binning) should I keep the shutter to 1/4f or is 1/2f good enough?

It depends on you. 

I am using 1/2f rule both with M10R and M11.

Run a couple of tests to see which ratio works for you.

[frame-it]

53 minutes ago, Bobby said:

I'd like to use 36MP for street and 60MP for landscape. 36MP for street is mainly to keep the size small; since the sensor is reading a 60MP image anyway (before binning) should I keep the shutter to 1/4f or is 1/2f good enough?

doesn't it shoot 60mp anyway and resizes it after the shot is taken?

[Herr Barnack]

I have read some commentators who recommend shutter speed x3 for the M11, as in 1/125 minimum for a 35mm lens, 1/150 for a 50mm lens, etc. 

I am inclined to agree with this recommendation.

I use shutter speed x2 with my M10 Monochrom and have had good results.

Edited August 4, 2022 by Herr Barnack

[FlashGordonPhotography]

As said well above, do your own tests and stop relying on what others do. Your hands are more/less steady than my hands. Your technique is better/worse than my technique. On a good day I'm able to shoot at 1/ 1/2f. (ie 1/30th with a 50mm) at 60MP. But not every day so I set up a bit more conservatively than that. You will not be the same.

Go grab you longest lens and take 5 shots at each shutter speed from 4f to 1/2f and look at then at the size you wish to see them (ie max print size). If you get all 5 sharp you're golden. If you get 3 sharp you can shoot there, carefully.

Or buy a tripod.

Gordon

[Bobby]

7 minutes ago, FlashGordonPhotography said:

As said well above, do your own tests and stop relying on what others do. Your hands are more/less steady than my hands. Your technique is better/worse than my technique. On a good day I'm able to shoot at 1/ 1/2f. (ie 1/30th with a 50mm) at 60MP. But not every day so I set up a bit more conservatively than that. You will not be the same.

Go grab you longest lens and take 5 shots at each shutter speed from 4f to 1/2f and look at then at the size you wish to see them (ie max print size). If you get all 5 sharp you're golden. If you get 3 sharp you can shoot there, carefully.

Or buy a tripod.

Gordon

I only have one lens, 35mm f2

[SrMi]

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8 minutes ago, FlashGordonPhotography said:

As said well above, do your own tests and stop relying on what others do. Your hands are more/less steady than my hands. Your technique is better/worse than my technique. On a good day I'm able to shoot at 1/ 1/2f. (ie 1/30th with a 50mm) at 60MP. But not every day so I set up a bit more conservatively than that. You will not be the same.

Go grab you longest lens and take 5 shots at each shutter speed from 4f to 1/2f and look at then at the size you wish to see them (ie max print size). If you get all 5 sharp you're golden. If you get 3 sharp you can shoot there, carefully.

Or buy a tripod.

Gordon

Or shoot only on very sunny days, wide open 😁.

[lct]

The camera sets itself to about 1/2f or 1/3f in auto iso mode. Enough for me generally. 

[hdmesa]

The pixel density of the M11 sensor is brutal on sharpness at 1:1 or higher magnification. You can shoot at 1/4000 sec. and still be slightly off with your focus, and that will have a similar detrimental effect on sharpness. Sometimes you get an infinitesimally-small amount of both shake and misfocus, and you will lose your mind trying to figure out what went wrong.

If you want perfectly-sharp landscape shots with the M11, use a tripod, set shutter timer delay to 12 seconds not 2, and be extremely precise with focus. If you want infinity in focus, anything short of infinity focus will give you a less than sharp result at the horizon (ultra-wides like 15mm may be an exception). I hate using a tripod with every fiber of my being, so I may go back to an IBIS camera for landscape and only use the M platform for film. Still considering.

For street, just leave it at 60mp unless you have limited storage space. Unless you're a purist about getting it perfect in camera, the ability to crop with 60mp is great for street – it can save you from missing the shot while changing lenses.

[SrMi]

32 minutes ago, lct said:

The camera sets itself to about 1/2f or 1/3f in auto iso mode. Enough for me generally. 

Only if you specify it that way in the Auto ISO settings.

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, hdmesa said:

The pixel density of the M11 sensor is brutal on sharpness at 1:1 or higher magnification. You can shoot at 1/4000 sec. and still be slightly off with your focus, and that will have a similar detrimental effect on sharpness. Sometimes you get an infinitesimally-small amount of both shake and misfocus, and you will lose your mind trying to figure out what went wrong.

If you want perfectly-sharp landscape shots with the M11, use a tripod, set shutter timer delay to 12 seconds not 2, and be extremely precise with focus. If you want infinity in focus, anything short of infinity focus will give you a less than sharp result at the horizon (ultra-wides like 15mm may be an exception). I hate using a tripod with every fiber of my being, so I may go back to an IBIS camera for landscape and only use the M platform for film. Still considering.

For street, just leave it at 60mp unless you have limited storage space. Unless you're a purist about getting it perfect in camera, the ability to crop with 60mp is great for street – it can save you from missing the shot while changing lenses.

Interesting. Honestly I don't feel the shutter speed to be as limiting on the M11; I know that it's not IBIS, so I just go with shorter exposures. It's not getting in the way of having fun.

Having said that, if you had asked me in the M10-P days if I could imagine just having that single camera, it would have been OK.

Now with the M11, it feels a bit more like a specialized tool - since I always try to get 'the best' out of a camera, to the degree that the M11 has increased performance e.g. in resolution over the M10, I am more likely to be dissatisfied with not adequately giving it what it needs to look great (tripod, ...). Objectively e.g. by cutting image size in half in Photoshop etc. in most situations the M11 would not look worse than M10. It's more psychological ... There are a few exceptions, increased purple fringing with M11 is still a frequent annoyance, and for my shooting habits a bigger issue than with M10.

M10M makes my life better (... compared to M11) as I never have to worry about white balance, noise, shutter speed (since ISO not an issue), banding, purple fringing, ... This is part of what makes the experience with the M10M so much fun. You could argue that with the right attitude, just not being as fixated on getting all the little details right, the M11 could be similarly enjoyable (e.g. always convert to b/w, shrink image size until noise goes away unless you really need to print, ...).

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, SrMi said:

Only if you specify it that way in the Auto ISO settings.

There is a default, IIRC it's 1/4xfocal length

[SJH]

Leica Australia did a good YouTube video on this subject which has been referred to before in the M11 forum - for the M11 they recommended 1/4f as a minimum but as people have said you really need to run your own tests. For me sometimes I can easily do 1/1f but then too much caffeine or wine and that slips a bit!!

[vikasmg]

On 8/5/2022 at 4:58 AM, Herr Barnack said:

I have read some commentators who recommend shutter speed x3 for the M11, as in 1/125 minimum for a 35mm lens, 1/150 for a 50mm lens, etc. 

I am inclined to agree with this recommendation.

I use shutter speed x2 with my M10 Monochrom and have had good results.

I took a few shots yesterday with a 35mm summicron that happened to be at 1/40th of a second and was disappointed by them when looked at a little closely.  I’m doing to go at a faster minimum in future.

[vikasmg]

On 8/5/2022 at 5:46 AM, hdmesa said:

The pixel density of the M11 sensor is brutal on sharpness at 1:1 or higher magnification. You can shoot at 1/4000 sec. and still be slightly off with your focus, and that will have a similar detrimental effect on sharpness. Sometimes you get an infinitesimally-small amount of both shake and misfocus, and you will lose your mind trying to figure out what went wrong.

If you want perfectly-sharp landscape shots with the M11, use a tripod, set shutter timer delay to 12 seconds not 2, and be extremely precise with focus. If you want infinity in focus, anything short of infinity focus will give you a less than sharp result at the horizon (ultra-wides like 15mm may be an exception). I hate using a tripod with every fiber of my being, so I may go back to an IBIS camera for landscape and only use the M platform for film. Still considering.

For street, just leave it at 60mp unless you have limited storage space. Unless you're a purist about getting it perfect in camera, the ability to crop with 60mp is great for street – it can save you from missing the shot while changing lenses.

IBIS would have been quite useful in an M11.  Never felt that with the M10.

[eyeheartny]

On 8/4/2022 at 5:16 PM, hdmesa said:

The pixel density of the M11 sensor is brutal on sharpness at 1:1 or higher magnification. You can shoot at 1/4000 sec. and still be slightly off with your focus, and that will have a similar detrimental effect on sharpness. Sometimes you get an infinitesimally-small amount of both shake and misfocus, and you will lose your mind trying to figure out what went wrong.

If you aren't looking at 100%, does this same "brutal" characterization apply? Or less a problem if looking at smaller screen sizes? 

[hdmesa]

1 hour ago, eyeheartny said:

If you aren't looking at 100%, does this same "brutal" characterization apply? Or less a problem if looking at smaller screen sizes? 

I only have what I have: MBP M1 16” screen and not even using an external monitor. I don’t know about 50% magnification, I only review at 100% or zoomed all the way out. Does the math sound right to say 50% magnification would make it half as likely to notice these things versus 100%?

[eyeheartny]

16 hours ago, hdmesa said:

I only have what I have: MBP M1 16” screen and not even using an external monitor. I don’t know about 50% magnification, I only review at 100% or zoomed all the way out. Does the math sound right to say 50% magnification would make it half as likely to notice these things versus 100%?

When you're zoomed all the way out are these issues less noticeable? Any difference in using S-DNG or L-DNG? 

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[hdmesa]

2 minutes ago, eyeheartny said:

When you're zoomed all the way out are these issues less noticeable? Any difference in using S-DNG or L-DNG? 

Definitely can’t see very minor microblur or misfocus when zoomed out fully, which is no different than any other camera in that regard. Exported for social media also hides these minor flaws when they happen (<3,000 pixels on the long side). I have not looked at the smaller DNG sizes with regard to inspection for user-related IQ flaws, I only shoot at 60mp. But I think it makes sense that the lower resolution 36/18 files will hide minor flaws that show up at 60.

[Tailwagger]

7 hours ago, hdmesa said:

I have not looked at the smaller DNG sizes with regard to inspection for user-related IQ flaws, I only shoot at 60mp. But I think it makes sense that the lower resolution 36/18 files will hide minor flaws that show up at 60.

Been a while, but early on I did some brief testing on this subject. IIRC, S and M files looked similar or worse, which made some sense to me at the time. I assume that any shake found in the original winds up influencing the outcome of the interpolation.