Black and white with M10 and M10 Monochrome

[adan]

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On 1/25/2023 at 1:26 AM, shanefking said:

Wow, this is the first I’ve heard of this.  Does rotating appear to negatively affect prints?

It could in many cases.

But I've been experimenting, and

1) it is much more obvious in the "on-the-fly" raw developing window than it is when the picture is finally exported to Photoshop.

2) it can also appear, to a lesser extent, even with rotating in Photoshop itself.

3) it also changes with the method of calculating the new pixels in the rotated image chosen in PS (bicubic auto/sharper/smoother, bilinear, nearest neighbor). Nearest neighbor produces no moiré at all (but of course can result in "jaggies" in straight edges and similar).

I may make a separate detailed post in the Monochrom forum once I've played with more of the variables.

[Nimar]

1 hour ago, adan said:

It could in many cases.

But I've been experimenting, and

1) it is much more obvious in the "on-the-fly" raw developing window than it is when the picture is finally exported to Photoshop.

2) it can also appear, to a lesser extent, even with rotating in Photoshop itself.

3) it also changes with the method of calculating the new pixels in the rotated image chosen in PS (bicubic auto/sharper/smoother, bilinear, nearest neighbor). Nearest neighbor produces no moiré at all (but of course can result in "jaggies" in straight edges and similar).

I may make a separate detailed post in the Monochrom forum once I've played with more of the variables.

Believe this is just adobes preview rendition and doesn’t effect output. I’ve also seen this with zooming in too far. 
 

Actual export to jpg or print have none of these artifacts. 

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[jimofnyc]

The cool effect I have found using a color digital Leica is that I can adjust the amount of any particular color before converting to B&W.  It's almost like having every available color filter mounted on a black and white camera.  Not enough contrast in the cloudy sky?, reduce the blue channel before conversion.  Plants to dark? Increase green gain before conversion, etc.

[pgh]

On 1/17/2023 at 9:59 PM, Jeff S said:

One can use a phone camera for similar online pics.  Better to make prints with both using your own shooting, editing and print workflow. No two people will produce the same results… thankfully. Note, too, that one difference in the workflows will be due to the use of colored lens filters (M10M) vs ability to use color channels in post (M10). 

FWIW, the most significant benefit I realize from using my Monochrom(s) is a mindset derived from the lack of color distractions when looking for pics.  
 

Jeff

This seems hardly worth it then, IMO.

I've had no trouble getting this effect from keeping my M10 jpgs set to monochrome. I've been vacillating on the M10M vs R because the low light quality and resolution seem to be the obvious biggest selling point - with a quality drop off but post flexibility (and color, obviously) of the R. The color channel editing for monos is what makes an image work sometimes, so it would be hard to give up. M10 files make great monochromes in my experience, they just have a lower ceiling. Thing is, I end up printing over 30" often enough, so this matters. 

If one only ever shot for screens I can't imagine getting an M10M or even M10R. 

Edited February 12, 2023 by pgh

[adan]

On 2/8/2023 at 4:17 PM, Nimar said:

Believe this is just adobes preview rendition and doesn’t effect output. I’ve also seen this with zooming in too far. 

Actual export to jpg or print have none of these artifacts. 

Well, some examples have made it as far as jpgs uploaded to the forum. And if printed might show.

See this thread, in pages 4-5 and later (jlomley posts)

 

AND the effect has also shown up in Q2M posted images - with the addition of curved "waffles" created by the camera correcting (straightening) the 28 f/1.7's native fisheye distortion. Note especially deep shadow and hair above the face.

 

[Nimar]

19 minutes ago, adan said:

Well, some examples have made it as far as jpgs uploaded to the forum. And if printed might show.

See this thread, in pages 4-5 and later (jlomley posts)

 

AND the effect has also shown up in Q2M posted images - with the addition of curved "waffles" created by the camera correcting (straightening) the 28 f/1.7's native fisheye distortion. Note especially deep shadow and hair above the face.

 

Neither of these threads appear to be relevant to the suggestion that one shouldn’t rotate images or that there is some other moire issue. 
 

If you push dials too far stuff looks bad… 

[adan]

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4 hours ago, Nimar said:

Neither of these threads appear to be relevant to the suggestion that one shouldn’t rotate images or that there is some other moire issue. 

I'll assume you missed this specific part of the extended discussion

However.......

4 hours ago, Nimar said:

If you push dials too far stuff looks bad… 

That was more or less what I said at the time, and I got this response....

Quote

Thanks for the lecture of how we should post process our photos. 

I'll let you guys sort it out between you.

[Besprosvet]

I both have the M240 and the M246, so, same generation. The difference I see with my own eyes, is that black and white from the M240 looks really nice and organic, BUT, it has less nuances compared to the M246, as expected by the loss of gradients and "micro contrast resolution" of the demosaicing.

All in all, on such a surface 1/4 of the data is blue, 1/4 is red, 2/4 is green. Nobody can expect to have to same "gradients' resolution" of a sensor that uses 100% of its date to do it with no demosaicing with no light wavelenght filtered in different ways from each pixel etc etc...

Even the Pixii that tries to do all this from the raw (starting from a color sensor compensating the wavelenght filtered from each pixel, so avoiding demosaicing) gets very close but still, can't really match the monochrom.

That said, I believe that Leica does an amazing job with color tuning (beside IR pollution...), to the point that I don't miss at all the rendering of my Sigma DP2 Merrill (going on the bay very soon). But I still wish Foveon was in the hands of Leica, not Sigma with their awful """art""" lenses and "lots of resolving power but not enough micro contrast"...

Long story short: to me, any monochrom looks like a superior format device compared to any color bayer sensor, and post processing is really nice, given that 90% of what you have to do is the curve, even the jpgs from my M246 (with contrast maxed out in camera) look already stunning. If you do a lot of black and white and like the idea of NOT having the choice of color, get it, if not, maybe it's not worth it for you.

PS: all this is what I see using Capture One, on Lightroom the experience may differ, Idk.

[charlesphoto99]

Not to mention that the M10M is the best built of all the digital M's I've owned so far (at least my copy). Much tighter feeling than my M10-R black paint. A real work of finely machined art, esp with the bespoke Leica M10 grip attached.

[Jeff S]

39 minutes ago, charlesphoto99 said:

Not to mention that the M10M is the best built of all the digital M's I've owned so far (at least my copy). Much tighter feeling than my M10-R black paint. A real work of finely machined art, esp with the bespoke Leica M10 grip attached.

Mine are equally robust, except of course for the black paint surface.

Jeff

[charlesphoto99]

20 hours ago, Jeff S said:

Mine are equally robust, except of course for the black paint surface.

Jeff

Yes, both are equally robust, but there's a certain overall svelte feeling to my M10M that the R black paint doesn't have. Might just be aesthetics (I do wish they hadn't used chrome highlights on the R BP) or the fact that my R has been used 10X more than my 10M! 

[Jeff S]

My M10-R is newer than my M10M, and also  gets far less use. It operates just as smoothly, however. The M10M is special, but I think more due to aesthetics and to the unique monochrome experience it provides.

Jeff