Leica M11 Monochrom Pattern Noise

[Chaemono]

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C1 linear tone curve renders skin tones darker than LR linear tone curve. 

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[radialMelt]

Back to this thread since I'm currently working my way through a bunch of nighttime street shots done with my Q2M. When I mentioned earlier that C1 doesn't suffer from this issue I was mistaken. I just noticed that C1 has a degree of luminance noise reduction applied by default, and this setting seems suppress the waffle pattern. When you turn that off, the waffle pattern appears.

I've also been experimenting with RawTherapee thinking that maybe it is Adobe's raw conversion causing the issue. In RawTherapee the pattern is still there on high-ISO shots, but perhaps slightly less offensive than what I'm seeing in LR.

I think my approach going forward is to limit the camera to ISO 12500 and boost exposure in software later. In my tests you have far more latitude with in-software exposure compensation and contrast adjustments at 12500 and below, versus 12500 and up where the waffle pattern appears very quickly when pushing the files.

(of course exposing properly in the first place thus negating the need to push exposure in post is always the best solution, I admit)

Would love to hear from others who come up on this obstacle!

[radialMelt]

It's actually really, really frustrating that this happens. Honestly, I would rather a more random noise pattern than this.

Here's a screenshot from within C1, zoomed 100%, no adjustments, no noise reduction. ISO 25000.

 

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[Budfox]

Does it disappear if you don't use the lens profile corrections as per earlier posts?

[radialMelt]

Sorry, I forgot about this thread. I will give that a try and see if it helps.

[n8fire]

I recently bought an m11 mono about a month ago and I've been noticing the weird noise patterns at high iso as well.  For me, the issue doesn't materialize when i look at the preview in lightroom, only when the file is exported in JPEG.  After reading this thread, I tried disabling the lens correction in lightroom as suggested and I can confirm that doing so makes the output images behave the way i would normally expect and with a much more predictable and pleasant noise pattern.  Given there was no reply on this thread i thought i would share my experience in case anyone else is trying to figure this out.  

[Derbyshire Man]

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I find that sometimes, turning off lens correction does not remove the waffle. Here is the same image, first light room (lens correction off) and then C1 (no noise reduction or lens correction).

Lightroom;

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[Derbyshire Man]

Capture 1

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[brickftl]

in the above 2 images, I'm not a fan of the C1. To me it looks over-processed and too much reduction of the beautiful grain appearance of the noise in the Lightroom image.

[Derbyshire Man]

On 11/7/2024 at 9:03 PM, brickftl said:

in the above 2 images, I'm not a fan of the C1. To me it looks over-processed and too much reduction of the beautiful grain appearance of the noise in the Lightroom image.

Neither of those are down to C1 or lightroom, it’s just a different film stock/development in silver efex. 
 

The issue is the fresnel. I’ve another image I’ll post later but the point is lightroom is doing something very unhelpful to the M11M files in low light vs C1. 

[Derbyshire Man]

I’ve done a bit more work on this. The degree to which the waffle shows up isn’t it seems simple between the two packages, I’ve noticed that for my normal workflow which is camera -> LR/C1 -> Silver Efex the degree of internal contrast in LR + SE images is much stronger for any given structure/clarity setting. So the smoke/grain on the LR shot is more pleasing but the waffle more evident. 
 

I still haven’t settled on an answer but I think my normal strategy of expose for dark and push is probably wrong and expose as if day & crush would be better. Or if exposed for dark accept that you are not going to be able to pull things out of the shadows/dark mid tones at all and if you try it and get away with it you’ve been lucky!

[n8fire]

On 12/21/2024 at 7:33 AM, Derbyshire Man said:

I’ve done a bit more work on this. The degree to which the waffle shows up isn’t it seems simple between the two packages, I’ve noticed that for my normal workflow which is camera -> LR/C1 -> Silver Efex the degree of internal contrast in LR + SE images is much stronger for any given structure/clarity setting. So the smoke/grain on the LR shot is more pleasing but the waffle more evident. 
 

I still haven’t settled on an answer but I think my normal strategy of expose for dark and push is probably wrong and expose as if day & crush would be better. Or if exposed for dark accept that you are not going to be able to pull things out of the shadows/dark mid tones at all and if you try it and get away with it you’ve been lucky!

 

How high are you pushing you ISO?

I've not experienced the fresnel like effect often like in your image but it has occurred to me a very limited amount of time (mostly in the first few months of mastering the metering) but I agree, turning off Lens Correction doesn't solve it.  It does seem to be tied to how the image was originally exposed AND using a high enough ISO.  I typically shoot up to 40k ISO at night and I expose for the highlights and it has limited this phenomenon greatly since.  

I only use Lightroom and I don't use SilverEfex or Capture 1 so I don't have anything to compare with.