Noise on the M11

[Derbyshire Man]

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1 hour ago, adan said:

Many did, but the M11's lower resolutions are not "pixel-binning" (combining the signals from several pixels, to smooth out per-pixel noise). Just a tricky form of downsampling.

Main reason I skipped the M11 - it only marginally improved actual noise performance over the M10. A bit cleaner with a higher floor before banding set in - but the actual speckles were about the same.**

Bottom line - the base ISO of the M11 series is 64.

When you shoot at any ISO above 64, you are underexposing the sensor (less light/weaker signal), and then regaining brightness via amplification of that weaker signal.

Set for ISO 6400, you are feeding the sensor about 6.7 stops less light than it would get at an ISO 64-metered exposure. And since each stop is a halving of the light, that amounts to about one 104th (2ˆ6.7 or 103.9) as much light hitting the silicon - and then amplified 104x by the camera to get a final file of "normal" brightness.

Sine you are a musician and presumably "audio guy," it is like micing someone's acoustic guitar (or drum) from 10 meters away, instead of 0.2 meters or less (poor signal) - and then AMPLIFYING the mic's output by 104 to get normal volume (shades of Spinal Tap). You get "noise," as every other little sound the mic picks up gets amplified 104x also.

There is a reason Leica limits the ISO knob on the M10/M11 to 6400. "Beyond here there be noise-dragons - and this is pretty borderline already!"

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I do a lot of (coincidentally) music photography in borderline lighting - this was last Friday night at a "DJs" concert" at the Gallery. M10, 90mm F/2.0 (C/V APO-Ultron), ISO 10000 (my personal auto-ISO limit). The DJs wanted to use some cheap low-wattage laser-show device, so they turned down the stage lights even lower than normal, so the lasers would show up. 🤪

The scene:

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200% crops to show the noise - as out of camera, and as I worked it with Camera Raw's noise reduction. As far as I was willing to go - as with Dolby NR (at least the early versions) photo NR can "muffle" some of the clarity of the high frequencies (fine details, in photography-speak). It's a balancing act.

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** BTW, it is technically correct that - for same-size prints/viewing - the noisy pixel speckles will be smaller and harder to detect with the M11. But since the expressed use-case for the M11, by many anticipating it here, was "OH BOY! 60 Mpixels! Now I can make BIGGER prints! Or crop more!," I kinda consider "same-sized viewing" to be irrelevant obfuscation for practical use.

 

You can only print so big. 24mp was fine for huge prints, with 60mp the noise grain will be smaller for any sensible viewing distance.

Edited October 19 by Derbyshire Man

[adan]

1 hour ago, Derbyshire Man said:

You can only print so big. 24mp was fine for huge prints,

Well, I suppose that depends on the limits one puts on the definition of "so big" and "huge."

There is this - the smallest print is about 11x14 inches/28x35 cms; scale up from there.

https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/2429?installation_image_index=8

And this - 34m x almost 10m: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Picture

This photomural was on the wall of a relative's vacation home for years - about 2 meters x 4 meters/6.6 x 13 feet.

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[Chris W]

Back to noise...

It's unfortunate because ISO 6400 is quite often needed for indoor photography and events.

The SL2-S doesn't look a lot better, but when it was launched a lot of Youtubers claimed it was a'low light monster'.

[Alexander108]

I have used a Q3 with basically the same sensor as the M11. I wasn't overwhelmed by the ISO 6400 images of the Q3 nor the M11 which I traded the Q3 for.

For my low light b&w photography I am extremely happy with my M10-M. 

 

[250swb]

14 hours ago, Chris W said:

It's on the lowside, but the image is untouched, I haven't bumped up the exposure in post or boosted shadows.

You can only change the apparent exposure in post processing, not the actual exposure. It could well be that set on Auto the white wall has contributed to under-exposure and you need to compensate by dialing in a +. It's like photographing a snowy scene, you need to overexpose to make the snow white otherwise the meter wants to make it 18% grey (or thereabouts) so it under-exposes the scene. So I agree with the other comments, under-exposure equals baked-in noise.

[Chris W]

I didn't change the exposure in post processing.

The actual exposure is slightly low because I limited it to 6400 maximum as that is as high as I would comfortably use. The room was relatively dim, giving a low, but not drastically under exposed image at 6400.

I will shoot it again at 6400 and see if changing the aperture or shutter speed lifts the exposure, but again, it's not ideal shoot events with very slow shutter speeds.

Edited October 20 by Chris W

[SrMi]

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5 minutes ago, Chris W said:

I didn't change the exposure in post processing.

The actual exposure is slightly low because I limited it to 6400 maximum as that is as high as I would comfortably use. The room was relatively dim, giving a low, but not drastically under exposed image at 6400.

I will shoot it again at 6400 and see if changing the aperture or shutter speed lifts the exposure, but again, it's not ideal shoot events with very slow shutter speeds.

You are probably aware that the visible noise is not determined by the chosen ISO setting, but by the exposure. Therefore, visible noise at a given ISO can vary considerably.

[frame-it]

1 hour ago, Chris W said:

but when it was launched a lot of Youtubers claimed it was a'low light monster'.

it is not at all, anything above 800 is crap [im talking about available low light e.g. on the street, but indoors as well], unless one "fixes" it with other tools during processing

Edited October 20 by frame-it

[Chris W]

11 minutes ago, SrMi said:

You are probably aware that the visible noise is not determined by the chosen ISO setting, but by the exposure. Therefore, visible noise at a given ISO can vary considerably.

I thought it mainly became visible once you tried to correct the exposure in post, raised shadows etc. I didn't think it was so obvious in a raw untouched image.

[Bliz]

Noise at high iso is relatively good on any modern sensor if there’s light and you use iso high to freeze motion. In low light unfortunately no M camera can rival with something ibis equipped, the difference between my m10r and my a7c II is impressive at the expense of the former.

Edited October 20 by Bliz

[Chris W]

I thought it was advised to stay around 250th shutter speed to avoid blurred images on the M11. I like to be around f2.8 or f3.6 on aperture and try to avoid difficult focusing on F1.4 to f1.8. So getting a correct exposure at ISO6400 or below is going to be almost impossible.

[Bliz]

4 minutes ago, Chris W said:

I thought it was advised to stay around 250th shutter speed to avoid blurred images on the M11

On what focal lenght? 50? Yeah probably, on the 40mp of the 10r I try to use at least 1/160 with a 50 even if 1/125 is doable with careful technique. I imagine half a stop more on the m11 makes sense.

Mind that it is all in function of how big you print, if you end up printing 13x18cm pictures you can basically shoot at the same speeds you would use in a m10 or a film camera.

[Chris W]

It is better when you make sure to get plenty of light to the sensor. Strangely the SL2-S doesn't seem thatch cleaner than the M11.

SL2-S at 6400, 100% zoom, no processing

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Edited October 20 by Chris W

[Chris W]

M11 6400 100% zoom no processing

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[Chris W]

M11 6400, not zoomed in, a little bit of processing. I'm ok with the level of noise below.

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Edited October 20 by Chris W

[SrMi]

4 hours ago, Chris W said:

I thought it was advised to stay around 250th shutter speed to avoid blurred images on the M11. I like to be around f2.8 or f3.6 on aperture and try to avoid difficult focusing on F1.4 to f1.8. So getting a correct exposure at ISO6400 or below is going to be almost impossible.

I use 4*focal length, so 1/120 for 35mm, though I may occasionally go even lower to 3*focal length.

[Jamie Roberts]

5 hours ago, Chris W said:

I thought it was advised to stay around 250th shutter speed to avoid blurred images on the M11. I like to be around f2.8 or f3.6 on aperture and try to avoid difficult focusing on F1.4 to f1.8. So getting a correct exposure at ISO6400 or below is going to be almost impossible.

I often shoot the M11 (35mm / 50mm) at shutter speeds much lower than 1/250th and with no visible shake. It's where technique (and luck when it comes to age) comes into play. Also, FWIW, I don't find it hard to focus a 35 (or wider) at f2. In a pinch, if I didn't need focal depth, I'd still try 1.8 or 1.4 (or faster) to get enough light on the sensor. 

It's important to get a enough capture exposure the higher you go in ISO with any digital camera not applying in-body NR. In earlier digital days the mantra was always "expose to the right" (IOW, expose so you raise shadows at the expense of blowing top-most digital highlights, which would shift a typical histogram "rightwards"). Digital is much, much better now, but when you're pushing sensitivity, the old rules apply

It would be nice to have some image stabilization in an M body, though I don't think it's forthcoming. 

Having said all that, I've been *extremely* impressed with DxO noise reduction. DxO goes beyond the current capabilities of C1, works with C1, and returns a raw file for further processing, which is just about perfect for my workflow.  

[Chris W]

23 minutes ago, Jamie Roberts said:

I often shoot the M11 (35mm / 50mm) at shutter speeds much lower than 1/250th and with no visible shake. It's where technique (and luck when it comes to age) comes into play. Also, FWIW, I don't find it hard to focus a 35 (or wider) at f2. 

Yeah, my staple is a 35mm F2 lens. I think there is a difference between F2 and F1.4

At F1.4, a lot of the image is out of focus. And it's tougher to make sure the subject is IN focus. I hardly ever shoot below F2.

It comes across that there is technique or experience lacking. No, the M11 is new to me that's all. I had an M10 before which I happily used without issue. I started shooting M bodies and lenses in 1990. 

 

[Jamie Roberts]

20 minutes ago, Chris W said:

Yeah, my staple is a 35mm F2 lens. I think there is a difference between F2 and F1.4

At F1.4, a lot of the image is out of focus. And it's tougher to make sure the subject is IN focus. I hardly ever shoot below F2.

It comes across that there is technique or experience lacking. No, the M11 is new to me that's all. I had an M10 before which I happily used without issue. I started shooting M bodies and lenses in 1990. 

 

Sorry Chris--not trying to imply a lack of experience except for the point about "1/250s on the M11" being advisable.

You're absolutely right about there being a big difference in focusing from f2 to f1.4, but I still do it, because I'd rather have a clean file with a point of focus and some details than a noisy one with more depth, usually--and all other things being equal, which they usually aren't--see comments on DxO  

In my experience, the M11 is not worse than an M10 (or any high pixel camera). Yes, more pixels peeped at 100% means you might see more shake when it occurs, but in practice, I'm lucky I can handhold the M11 at speeds down to 1/30 without seeing any trouble in the final result.  

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[lct]

21 minutes ago, Jamie Roberts said:

I'm lucky I can handhold the M11 at speeds down to 1/30 without seeing any trouble in the final result. 

Congrats for your rock solid hands 👍 I must set shutter speeds to 1/(2f)s with the M11 personally and i know good colleagues here going up to 1/(3f)s or even 1/(4f)s. Not a problem per se but i must take my M240 or a Sony for speeds slower than 1/(1f)s. Strangely enough my Sigma FPL seems to do better than the M11 with the same lenses in spite of a similar sensor. The FPL has EIS instead of IBIS but i've been told EIS works in video only so i have no explanation.