Digilux 2 ISO 200 & 400

[IcemanYQQ]

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I have noticed that when shooting with my Nikon DLSR, that shooting in RAW always yields an image with lower noise, than if it is shot in JPEG. Of course, correct WB and exposure go a long way to ensuring acceptable noise levels in a photograph.

[sean_reid]

Christian,

 

Pushing ISO 100 to 400 by underexposing two stops originally was discussed on the old forum as a way to work in JPEG without the smoothing that's applied to higher ISO JPEGs in the D2. I've actually never been an advocate of that approach myself but the best way to find out for yourself would be to do some experimenting. See what you think based on your own tests.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[volkerhopf]

Hi Christian and Anthony,

 

To quote from the review (with respect to your questions):

 

"At ISO 200, the Leica applies a smoothing filter (which cannot be switched off in JPEG mode) to, presumably, mask the noise in the files. The very fine detail given to us by that excellent zoom lens is partly destroyed by the smoothing of that in-camera processing. The file still looks very good but the detail which is lost to the smoothing cannot be recovered in subsequent sharpening....

 

At ISO 400, the Leica’s aggressive in-camera smoothing obliterates a large amount of fine detail and creates an overall kind of “waxy” look to the file which, combined with what’s left of the noise, creates a rather ugly and artificial looking file when viewed on screen at 100%. Reducing the in-camera sharpening (in the hopes of reducing artifacts) doesn’t help matters at all."

 

In my experience, the D2 is at it's best recording RAW files at ISO 100. ISO 100 JPEGs are certainly very useable as well. Above ISO 100, the RAW files from the D2 are actually quite good so long as they're not under-exposed at all (as Imants mentioned above). At ISO 400 in particular, the files really do not tolerate underexposure.

 

When I've worked with the D2, I've almost always used it in RAW mode (at all ISO levels) and converted the RAW files in Photoshop. With ISO 400 files, I tend to manually filter just the chrominance noise and leave the luminance noise as is (so as to not destroy detail).

 

Best,

 

Sean

 

Hi Sean,

I am rereading your artikle just now and I was wondering if you have an opinion on that:

 

There are many new and fast SD cards out right now - at what do you think will the old Venus engine become the "brakeing" factor and it becomes useless to buy a faster card?

After I got an LC1 on laon from my son I do enjoy the light weight setup with this wonderful lens.

Regards

Volker

[sean_reid]

Hi Volker,

 

Unfortunately, I don't think faster SD cards will be able to help the D2 write RAW files faster. I think that 6-second shot to shot time is the ceiling for RAW speed in the D2.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[cbretteville]

There is no need to think about that Sean. This fact was established very quickly after the release of the D2 in early 2004. It can't do it any faster than 6 seconds. Sandisk's Ultra II cards (by no means the fastest cards around anymore) have a write speed of 9Mbyte/sec about the size of a RAW+jpeg file pair of the D2. Potentially the camera should have been able to flush the data to the card in just over a second. The SD write bus is just slow, I still cant understand how that bit of "engineering" got past quality controll at Panasonic and Leica. They must have lived in bubble where everyone shoots jpegs only and only single exposures. Oh, well I guess we should be thankful for the fact that there is a RAW option and be content with that.

 

The only card I've ever found that gives me an even slower write time than 6 seconds is the 64MB card that came with the D2, a joke that should have been left out of the box. This would even have increased Leica's margin on each sale a little.

[etanguero]

Unfortunately, I don't think faster SD cards will be able to help the D2 write RAW files faster.

 

True (unfortunately!): My Digilux 2 has a SanDisk III Ultra 1 GB as primary card ... and RAW is way to slow!!! I also have two high speed 1 GB Toshiba cards for it ... no difference felt. Also my 'old' DaneElec 1 GB card doesn't make a difference.

 

Writing performance is one of the terrible shortcomings of the Digilux 2.

A new modell from Leica would need the be a lot better at this point. Including a high speed RAW buffer for serial shots (I terribly miss that feature for my low light dancing pictures).

 

eT

[jojet]

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Well,

 

 

I actually shot some pictures at 100 iso with underexposing of 1 to 2 stops.

 

Hereby some examples and a 100% crop of one of them (the crop is of the first picture that was shot at 100 iso with 1,66 underexposing and with ACR "developed" and setting 1,66 overexposure, the third picture (arne overwiew) is shot at iso 100 with -2 and in ACR developed with +2, all picture shot in RAW).

 

I've read somewhere that there are some people that uses Dropraw which should even given better results.

 

I think the noise in the shots is acceptable considering the circumstances and the purpose you use it for (that is to say: where you want to use the picture for). For me it was the possibility to be at a main event in Europe: the opera in Verona. I was told I couldn't bring in any camera's. So I left all mine Canon stuff at home and took the little panasonic lc-1. It was no problem at all bring it in the Arena in Verona and taking pictures was finaly also no problem at all. So these pictures are just for mine memories. No commercial intentions etc. When I print these pictures at 6x4 or 8x10 the look fine and very acceptable. When you look at the crop of 100% the noise is evident. But at 6x4 you can't harldy see it. I've print this in a album (an online album which give you a hard copy) and that looks just fine.

 

 

 

So I'm glad I took these pictures despite the noise issue with the digilux 2/lc-1. I'm aware that these pictures perhaps will do nog good for commercial purposes but that's why I'm just an (enthousiastic) amateur.

 

john

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[mwilliamsphotography]

The camera is noisy @ ISO 400 when used in lighting conditions requiring that ISO speed.

In perfect light (meaning even light as opposed to contrasty conditions) it's okay at 400.

 

When processed in Adobe Camera RAW you can use the Luminance Smoothing slider under the advanced tab to control noise somewhat. Then in PSCS2 the "Exposure" tool under Image Adjust can be employed to adjust the Gamma settings in combination with the Offset slider to further adjust for noise control.

 

The only reason to use this camera in low light @ 400 is where any other more capable low light camera would be outlawed ... like at a performance where P&S cameras are just tollerated because everyone has one. Like this non-flash shot at a Las Vegas show I did this weekend ...Leica D-Lux 2 using16.9 panoramic setting @ ISO 400:

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[elansprint72]

I have been using a D2 for close-up action motor sports photography (amongst other stuff) for a couple of years; RAW is just too slow for me to catch the money shots so I shoot hi-res jpeg. I try to use 100 ISO, or sometimes 200 ISO (if I really have to) for colour work. For B&W 400 ISO is no problem whatever, giving a result similar to Tri-X, although I agree with Sean that it can have a "waxy" look, which is not unpleasing. I shoot in colour and just do the greyscale conversion rather than any fancy tech stuff, levels adjustment is usually all that it requires.

No doubt I could get better results of static shots if I used RAW, but then I could get very much better still if I used the Speed Graphic on a tripod!

All round I find the D2 a brilliant tool; not quite sure how they are going to follow it because first reports on the new Panasonic don't bode too well.

 

Cheers,

Pete.