CCD vs CMOS

[Anthony MD]

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7 minutes ago, Einst_Stein said:

up.

 

7 minutes ago, Einst_Stein said:

No, that is not true. Leica has never tried to product Kodachrome like digital camera. 
One important sensor requirement of M9 is to have special arranged micro lenses. 
You must have a lot of false background informations. Clean them up.

 

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[Anthony MD]

10 minutes ago, Anthony MD said:

 

 

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Edited October 28, 2024 by Anthony MD

[Anthony MD]

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Edited October 28, 2024 by Anthony MD

[Anthony MD]

7 minutes ago, Anthony MD said:

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Give me time to clean this up…📷

[Einst_Stein]

Go to find authorized infos. Let me repeat, any claim that a Leica M9 or whatever was aimed to produce Kodachrome like digital camera are stupid false claim. Period.

On the other hand, if you insist your beliefs. That is OK. 

Edited October 28, 2024 by Einst_Stein

[Anthony MD]

11 minutes ago, Einst_Stein said:

Go to find authorized infos. 

On the other hand, if you insist your beliefs. That is OK. 

Can you show authorized information on the M8 & M9 sensors so we can see the truth about this…📷

Edited October 28, 2024 by Anthony MD

[frame-it]

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>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

September 9, 2009

World-Class

Michael DeLuca

Marketing Geek, Rochester, NY, USA

 

When two great people team up, the results can be spectacular.  Fred and Ginger.  Abbott and Costello.  Batman and Robin. 

Or Kodak and Leica.  Over the past several years, Leica has used KODAK CCD Image Sensors in their most advanced digital products – most recently, the LEICA M8 (which brought the legendary Rangefinder family into the digital age) and the new LEICA S2.  World-class products from Leica, all powered by world-class CCD Image Sensors from Kodak.  

And now, there’s one more.

Today, Leica unveiled their latest Rangefinder camera – the new Leica M9.  (The M9 on 09/09/09 – get it?)  And just like the M8 camera before it, the M9 is based on a CCD Image Sensor from Kodak – this time, the new KODAK KAF-18500 Image Sensor. 

 

While the KAF-18500 includes a number of key improvements over the sensor used in the M8 (such as a new red color pigment and new IR-absorbing cover glass to improve color fidelity and overall image quality), one of the big changes in the new sensor is that, well, it’s big – as big as a 35mm frame of film.  In fact, it’s almost twice the area of the sensor used in the M8 camera.  That means that the new camera can make full use of R-series lenses (which were originally designed for use with 35mm film).

At first, making a “full frame” sensor might not sound like a big deal – Kodak already manufactures several image sensors that are 35mm format or larger (the 50-megapixel KODAK KAF-50100 Image Sensor, for example, is almost twice the size of 35mm film).  But because of the way M-series cameras and lenses are designed, making a 35mm format sensor for the M9 is a little more complicated that you might think. 

One of the hallmarks of Leica’s M-series of cameras is that they are very compact, making them comfortable and convenient to handle.  But to be this compact, the camera’s lens needs to be very close to the surface of the sensor – a lot closer than it would be in a standard DSLR camera.  And because the lens is so close, light coming out of the lens ends up striking the edge of the sensor at a pretty sharp angle. 

 

Now for a film camera this isn’t a big deal, because film is really good at detecting light that comes in from almost any angle.  But image sensors tend to work best when light comes in “straight” (at a 90 degree angle to the surface of the sensor), so if you’re not careful about the overall design, the performance of the camera can degrade around the edges of the sensor if these angles are too steep.  You can correct for some of this with software, but the problem just gets worse as the lens gets closer to the sensor – or as the sensor gets bigger and bigger.  And it’s a problem you just can’t have if your camera is going to be a Leica.

Since the sensor in the M9 is about twice the area of the one used in the M8, we had to make sure that this larger sensor would work properly with M-series lenses (where the lens is really close to the surface of the sensor).  That meant redesigning both the actual pixel as well as the microlenses used in the KAF-18500 – all without impacting the performance that customers have come to expect when working with an M-series camera.  A tall order, but one that needed to be done – and done properly – in order to help bring M-series photography to a new level.

Left to Right:  KODAK KAF-10500 (in Leica M8), KAF-18500 (in Leica M9), and KAF-37500 (in Leica S2) Image Sensors

In the end, we solved this by using the most powerful resource we have – really smart people who know a lot about image sensor design.  The result is a sensor that really helps Leica’s new camera shine – all the way out to the last pixel. 

We’re pretty excited to be working again with Leica on the M9 camera – a product that Leica customers have looked forward to with great expectation.  And I can’t wait to see the images that photographers will be able to capture using this latest world-class camera from Leica. 

Especially since they will be taken using world-class CCD image sensors from Kodak.

 

 

[frame-it]

20 minutes ago, Anthony MD said:

Can you show authorized information on the M8 & M9 sensors so we can see the truth about this…📷

ask Leica 

info@leica-camera.com

[Anthony MD]

2 minutes ago, frame-it said:

ask Leica 

info@leica-camera.com

Now we’re getting somewhere…📷

[pedaes]

6 hours ago, Einst_Stein said:

requirement of M9 is to have special arranged micro lenses.

If @Anthony MD can find some of the technical stuff Leica put out at the time the M9 was launched (we were still in the era of printed brochures), the need for the special micro lenses to cope with the short rear element to sensor distance was well covered. You are correct, there was no mention of Kodachrome and this story is a bit of urban myth.

An important fact, is that the 'new-new' non-corrosive sensors any sensible person would want in their M9 for longevity were not made by Kodak.

PS. Back in the day I was an Ektachrome user myself.

Edited October 28, 2024 by pedaes

[250swb]

6 hours ago, Anthony MD said:

Can you show authorized information on the M8 & M9 sensors so we can see the truth about this…📷

The simple fact is that you haven't shown any authorised information to back up your claim about the M8 and M9 being designed around the Kodachrome palette. You've created a typical internet argument where you invent a wild theory and ask everybody else to prove you wrong rather than you prove it right, and I guess if it can't be proved to be wrong with official authorised documents you'll assume you were right. However I think for anybody who has used an M9, and I'll include myself among them, this will be the first time they've ever come across the 'Kodachrome theory', indeed I would bet the opposite and you'd find a ton of posts about 'how to make an M9 image look like Kodachrome' in film emulation software or by custom formulas.

And it should be noted that going way back in time and contemporary discussion about the M8/9 the point about a filmic look with the CCD sensors it was never about colour anyway, it was about how the mid tones rolled off into the shadows and highlights, so a result of the shape of the characteristic curve and contrast. This same filmic look carried over when converting the image into B&W, proving the point that colour wasn't a factor.

 

Edited October 28, 2024 by 250swb

[Ray Vonn]

To be honest, as someone who likes and uses a CCD sensored rangefinder, I'm quite happy to sit quietly in the corner here minding my own business without entering into this sort of "this vs that" thread which is of little interest.  It's of course subjective; I know what I like and at the same time know that most people can't tell any discernible difference, that it's certainly not this which attracts most new-ish users onto the platform or those not chasing the latest M12/13 etc etc, all of which is perfectly fine.  I'd never say I like this so I think you should too and and would be quite happy if thing could be kept that way.

[Anthony MD]

1 hour ago, 250swb said:

The simple fact is that you haven't shown any authorised information to back up your claim about the M8 and M9 being designed around the Kodachrome palette. You've created a typical internet argument where you invent a wild theory and ask everybody else to prove you wrong rather than you prove it right, and I guess if it can't be proved to be wrong with official authorised documents you'll assume you were right. However I think for anybody who has used an M9, and I'll include myself among them, this will be the first time they've ever come across the 'Kodachrome theory', indeed I would bet the opposite and you'd find a ton of posts about 'how to make an M9 image look like Kodachrome' in film emulation software or by custom formulas.

And it should be noted that going way back in time and contemporary discussion about the M8/9 the point about a filmic look with the CCD sensors it was never about colour anyway, it was about how the mid tones rolled off into the shadows and highlights, so a result of the shape of the characteristic curve and contrast. This same filmic look carried over when converting the image into B&W, proving the point that colour wasn't a factor.

 

I’m not concerned anymore if Leica used a Kodak designed sensor or not for their early CCD cameras.  The MD 262 had a sensor made in Belgium for Leica and it’s CMOS.  
I’m 100% satisfied with the excellent images it gives.  Who started this discussion anyway…!

[Anthony MD]

By the way, it isn’t my claim that Leica used a Kodak designed sensor for a color palette in the M8 & M9.  It was the hundreds of articles and reviews saying Leica did.  If it’s not true clean it up for me, I’m new to digital…!

Edited October 28, 2024 by Anthony MD

[Stuart Richardson]

Not to really blow up the thread, but there is not really an "objective" color to begin with. https://www.livescience.com/21275-color-red-blue-scientists.html

I think I do remember Leica marketing mentioning Kodachrome at some point, but I think it was just some random marketing message. Basically it was a brand that people love and recognize, and they were trying to connect their brand to it. It is the kind of thing marketers do. But I don't think the M9 looked like Kodachrome. It was more like E100G than Kodachrome, but slides don't compare all that well to digital, even at the closest of times (which would have been then). I shot a lot of slides, even when I was using the M9...and in fact I did a comparison with my last roll of Kodakchrome and they don't look that similar. The Kodakchrome might be a bit magenta from age, but anyway, here you go. They were shot at the same time with the same lens, M7 and 75mm APO Summicron with Kodachrome 64 sent to Dwayne's, one M9 with 75mm APO Summicron. one was scanned on an X5 and lightly processed to look like the slide, and the other was done with the embedded profile and white balanced. I did not try to match them. They just are what they looked like. They are small because the old one was from 2011 and 800 pixels wide, so I did the recent one the same size.

 

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Edited October 28, 2024 by Stuart Richardson

[Stuart Richardson]

These are not the same photo, but the only two I had of my friend and her jacket. Again, not really processed, but you can see how differently Kodachrome renders than the M9. Apologies to my friend...not the greatest pictures...just here for the comparison.

 

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[pedaes]

5 minutes ago, Stuart Richardson said:

just some random marketing message.

Personally, I don't remember it, but in marketing terms why piss off all the Fujichrome users, who would have significantly outnumbered Kodachrome users at the time.

[Anthony MD]

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Edited October 28, 2024 by Anthony MD

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[Stuart Richardson]

9 minutes ago, Anthony MD said:

P.S.

 

I don't think anyone is saying that Leica did not work with Kodak, Anthony. It was a Kodak sensor. I think they were saying that the colors were not tuned to look like Kodachrome specifically.

[Anthony MD]

10 minutes ago, Stuart Richardson said:

I don't think anyone is saying that Leica did not work with Kodak, Anthony. It was a Kodak sensor. I think they were saying that the colors were not tuned to look like Kodachrome specifically.

Good point…!