SL3 Rumors

[ZHNL]

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If you are full time E shutter user, M11 sensor will be a downgrade compare to SL2. 1/40ish vs 1/10ish. Unless, they have much more compelling hardware update: light body, flip screen, 9+M EVF. I am not interested in M11 sensor in SL2. Sensor performance wise, They are all good enough to me. 

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[Guest]

9 minutes ago, ZHNL said:

If you are full time E shutter user, M11 sensor will be a downgrade compare to SL2. 1/40ish vs 1/10ish. Unless, they have much more compelling hardware update: light body, flip screen, 9+M EVF. I am not interested in M11 sensor in SL2. Sensor performance wise, They are all good enough to me. 

Depends on your care abouts. For me, ISO performance of the SL2 is a no-go (I have the SL2-S). M11 is borderline acceptable, I wish it were better - Monochrom to the rescue ...

[SrMi]

16 minutes ago, mzbe said:

Color banding can easily be reproduced by pushing blacks; due to the logarithmic nature of the encoding, even a +1 lift can 'break' larger gradients such as present in a night sky.

I can't scientifically say that the M11 is better/worse than other Leica cameras, but this issue is sufficiently annoying, albeit less than 5% of my images, to see an upside in higher sensor bit depth (a la Hasselblad X2D).

Do you have an example that illustrates it or a link to a thread on LUF that discusses it?

I do not think that a higher bit size will solve that issue.

[Olaf_ZG]

Can’t we start a rumor when it will come? Tired to read wishlists, would like to have some facts… 

[SrMi]

39 minutes ago, Olaf_ZG said:

Can’t we start a rumor when it will come? Tired to read wishlists, would like to have some facts… 

Only Leica's official announcement is a fact.

Unconfirmed rumor: The announcement is in January 2024; expect it in February or March.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, SrMi said:

Do you have an example that illustrates it or a link to a thread on LUF that discusses it?

I do not think that a higher bit size will solve that issue.

sorry, not at hand. here is an illustration of the 'theory' behind my experience. Due to logarithmic nature of lightness, as you can see for the darker shades there are much fewer 'buckets' (bits) available per 1EV to digitally encode. Example shows a 12bit encoding (M11 supposedly uses 14?):

 

Source: https://www.dpreview.com/files/p/articles/4653441881/12_bit.png

 

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Edited December 7, 2023 by mzbe

[trickness]

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4 hours ago, SrMi said:

Only Leica's official announcement is a fact.

Unconfirmed rumor: The announcement is in January 2024; expect it in February or March.

Timing seems right - and a TON of used SL2's and SL2-S's are hitting the used market right now, people trying to get out before used prices really tank like the SL 601 when the SL2 was announced.

[frame-it]

2 hours ago, mzbe said:

(M11 supposedly uses 14?)

open an M11 file in rawdigger and see the histogram to check, some cameras are 12 bit in a 14 bit container [the empty space at one end of the histogram]

[frame-it]

just got a notification from Leica Thailand,, they're giving a 20% discount on M and SL models

[Coral Palm]

@frame-it--The key to me is what is their list price. I remember years ago when they dropped the price of the M240 in USA $500, was curious how much price dropped in Thailand--they raised the price and was almost 2k more than USA! I have never understood people buying Leica gear in Thailand when they could fly a few hours to Hong Kong, have a holiday, and buy Leica stuff there far cheaper. A friend pointed out sometimes people just want to pay locally and not deal with the travel.

Edited December 8, 2023 by Coral Palm

[frame-it]

13 minutes ago, Coral Palm said:

@frame-it--The key to me is what is their list price. I remember years ago when they dropped the price of the M240 in USA $500, was curious how much price dropped in Thailand--they raised the price and was almost 2k more than USA! I have never understood people buying Leica gear in Thailand when they could fly a few hours to Hong Kong, have a holiday, and buy Leica stuff there far cheaper. A friend pointed out sometimes people just want to pay locally and not deal with the travel.

doesn't matter, if its for locals in Thailand.. the point is clearing old stock.

[Coral Palm]

Point taken if they can clear old stock at inflated prices power to them!

[Olaf_ZG]

21 hours ago, SrMi said:

Only Leica's official announcement is a fact.

Unconfirmed rumor: The announcement is in January 2024; expect it in February or March.

Really curious what it will bring and what will I do: either add a SL2 or replace the 2s with the 3. Not sure - based on discussions with the m11/q3 - if I will order right away…

[JohnathanLovm]

On 11/23/2023 at 3:11 PM, John Smith said:

A commenter on Leica Rumors site. 

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After few nights of internet surfing, the unknown claim of 80MP do have some weight about it. My theory would be the SL3 sensor are made by Tower Semiconductor (the one make SL601 sensor). Their website have some clues about the possibility making 80MP full frame sensor (no global shutter). But with info we currently known, it’s would be very surprising the SL3 come with 80MP rather 60MP.

On 12/8/2023 at 4:53 AM, SrMi said:

Only Leica's official announcement is a fact.

Unconfirmed rumor: The announcement is in January 2024; expect it in February or March.

Even if SL3 do announce in early 2024, the waitlist probably go as far as 2025 for me.

[frame-it]

Now i'm seriously wondering if the SL3 will have a 4-way pad like the M's and not a joystick

[JohnathanLovm]

16 minutes ago, frame-it said:

Now i'm seriously wondering if the SL3 will have a 4-way pad like the M's and not a joystick

Something similar to Q3? It’s would be disappointing to be honest.

[SrMi]

On 12/7/2023 at 2:51 PM, mzbe said:

sorry, not at hand. here is an illustration of the 'theory' behind my experience. Due to logarithmic nature of lightness, as you can see for the darker shades there are much fewer 'buckets' (bits) available per 1EV to digitally encode. Example shows a 12bit encoding (M11 supposedly uses 14?):

 

Source: https://www.dpreview.com/files/p/articles/4653441881/12_bit.png

 

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!

I do not understand what you want to say with that graph.

AFAIK, in the current state-of-the-art FF sensors, the lowest of the 14 bits is mostly noise (Q3 uses 13 bits). With 16 bits, at least the lowest two bits will be only noise and therefore not contribute to improving IQ.

In the post, you probably work with 16-bits (or 15-bits in Adobe?).

Edited December 10, 2023 by SrMi

[BernardC]

21 hours ago, SrMi said:

I do not understand what you want to say with that graph.

Imagine a perfect sensor: your minimum exposure is one photon. The next lowest exposure is two photons. That's 1 stop of difference, with nothing in between. On the other hand, an extra photon in your highlights will go unnoticed.

Actual image sensors are not that sensitive, but the principle holds true: there isn't as much discrete information in the shadows as there is in the highlights. All modern raw formats use log encoding (as did Cineon, one of the first commercial raw formats). Highlights are compressed because half of the theoretical information content would be in the last stop otherwise, and shadows are expanded. That creates a more even distribution of tonal values in the file. The trouble is, you can only expand shadows so much before you run-out of data.

Imaging software use high bit depth for a different, related reason. Imagine you have a 14 bit file in a 14 bit container, and you decide to lighten it a step. Where would the values in the 14th bit go? They would be clipped. Having a 16 bit container for a 14 bit file solves that problem to a large extent.

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[SrMi]

1 hour ago, BernardC said:

Imagine a perfect sensor: your minimum exposure is one photon. The next lowest exposure is two photons. That's 1 stop of difference, with nothing in between. On the other hand, an extra photon in your highlights will go unnoticed.

Actual image sensors are not that sensitive, but the principle holds true: there isn't as much discrete information in the shadows as there is in the highlights. All modern raw formats use log encoding (as did Cineon, one of the first commercial raw formats). Highlights are compressed because half of the theoretical information content would be in the last stop otherwise, and shadows are expanded. That creates a more even distribution of tonal values in the file. The trouble is, you can only expand shadows so much before you run-out of data.

Imaging software use high bit depth for a different, related reason. Imagine you have a 14 bit file in a 14 bit container, and you decide to lighten it a step. Where would the values in the 14th bit go? They would be clipped. Having a 16 bit container for a 14 bit file solves that problem to a large extent.

When you process images, you always work in the same-sized containers, regardless of whether the raw input has 12, 14, or 16 bits.

 

[frame-it]

52 minutes ago, SrMi said:

When you process images, you always work in the same-sized containers, regardless of whether the raw input has 12, 14, or 16 bits.

 

no, one can upscale the container bit depth to e.g 32 and then work on the image.

 

Edited December 11, 2023 by frame-it