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Official Leica Statements


sean_reid

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One more time, Sean has been a tremendous friend to this Forum in publishing this information publicly here.

 

If you have concerns or issues, the place to take them is to the salespeople and the dealers who are part of Leica's network of associates worldwide and are paid to respond to situations like this.

 

Please don't take it out on each other or on any public voice that is attempting to shed light in this dark corner.

 

Thanks.

 

Allan

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[quote name=

I found a Leica M8 owner in the UK who is willing to experiment and I may send him a suitable visible blocking, UV transmitting filter plus an UV capable (most modern M lenses will not pass much UV) lens to figure it out.

 

[/quote]

 

I wonder if it's so that modern leica lenses don't pass much UV as we are seeing the UV sensitivity with the new lenses. I agree that the other edge of this sword is that the M8 may be a terrific camera for IR, I hope I CAN use my new Leica lenses for this!...Peter

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I wonder if it's so that modern leica lenses don't pass much UV as we are seeing the UV sensitivity with the new lenses. I agree that the other edge of this sword is that the M8 may be a terrific camera for IR, I hope I CAN use my new Leica lenses for this!...Peter

 

Peter, Old Elmars will do quite well for UV. IR (only limited spectral band will register on the M8's sensor due to the IR cut filter on it) or rather false color IR should be doable with the current M lenses on the M8.

 

Amazing that many of the Leica users here, it seems, have not tried Kodak's HIE or (for false color UV and/or IR) EIR!

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I have just emailed my dealer requesting a formal clarification of the situation.

 

I have commented that failure to provide a reasonable time frame and or a workable solution in resolution of issues highlighted thus far, will result in me rejecting the M8 as unfit for purpose and seeking a full refund.

 

Having ordered the M8 based on my experience of the DMR I have been very surprised at the issues popping up at this stage, especially since the official statement would seem to suggest a prior knowledge of the problem.

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Hi sean,

 

 

The mesenger always get's shot no escape possible, you should know that.

 

 

Have you got any idea whether an on/off switchable high pass filter in the software could be anything like a solution. A filter is no option to me.

Although the changed angle of view the lux 35 asph will remain to be one of my most used lenses, and it produces ghost images with a filter attached.

Who knows if the highlight blowouts that have been suggested as a possible cause of the sensor to overload and produce the purple lines has to do with the same isseu.

No mention of the green blobs how ever.

 

 

Question to you personal, are you satisfied with the Leica reaction.

 

 

Regards,

 

 

Fr.

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....................

The elimination of color fringing and the improvement of image resolution results in higher IR sensitivity. This causes some synthetic textiles to appear an artificial-looking purple.

 

If the higher IR sensitivity has a disturbing effect in certain applications, e.g. fashion photography, LEICA Camera AG offers its customers a special IR barrier filter. This is screwed on in front of the lens and is an ideal combination of IR, UV and protection filter.

 

The use of the additional IR filter in front of the optical system has big advantages, as the filter does not create reflections inside the optical system. This enables the reproduction of the finest tonal values even in shadows.

 

The filter is supplied as an accessory with a special firmware adjustment, which will be available shortly after the planned market launch of the camera at the end of November 2006.

 

The IR/UV filter is only suitable for use with digital M cameras and 6-bit coded lenses.

 

The high IR transmission may also be a creative advantage for applications in the area of infrared photography.

-

 

I'm happy to provide this kind of information specifically to this forum. I don't believe that this information has yet been issued as a general release. I hope it leads to productive discussion. If it instead simply leads to a series of attacks on Leica, I doubt that I will publish statements like this to a forum again.

 

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

 

Sean,

 

First you, as a resource for the Rangefinder community, deserve thanks for your personal effort and frankness.

 

Understand that some guys, whose hopes were hyped, (by their own love for Leica) have taken an unexpected fall so soon after the exhilaration of shooting their first pictures with this wonderful camera. So some excess indignation is to be expected! However, it needs to be within bounds.

 

Reminds me of Biblical Moses returning from his arduous meeting with god on top the the mountain returning to find the people had gone nuts and become toally out of control!

 

So he smashed the two tablets of stone, and we lost the first edition of the ten commandments. Still it all came out fine with the new edition.

 

BTW, Sean, I didn't see the banding coming from overexposed or bright light/windows addressed. Did I miss it somewhere else?

 

Guys,

 

Accept that just getting a Leica-feel rangefinder body to produce fine well toned high resolution rich color pictures in most circumstances with all Leica lenses is a miracle. not on biblical scale, but nevertheless extraordinary!

 

I don't imagine that Leica has anywhere finished their analysis or development of solutions. I have no doubt that ordered, organized, well thought out feedback of concerns as a group will do more good than recriminations.

 

This area of photography does not depend on a mass market. Rather, it's just the people here and a few more. For photography of nature or most still life, these limitations may not be important.

 

B&W photography again, should be mostly fine. The green nuns would be a good fashion change, I must admit, but no satisfaction to the street photographer! Yes this is a real practical problem for ad hoc color work.

 

I remove filters for photography, not add them! However, in this circumstance, I'd try to buy lenses/adapters with the same filter size.

 

Knowing limitations allows one to evaluate whether or not one can use the M8 in one's work. I see the benefits in no moiré filter, great tones and resolution might out way negatives.

 

I remain overwhelmingly positive about this camera. When I tried the camera, I wanted to take it with me and I couldn't so I decided to wait a while. So, of course, it's easier for me because I wasn't dropped from a "high" while the wrapping was still on the table, so to speak!

 

Yet I can look at this in a more dispassionate way and see more of the cameras place in a defined work environment.

 

With a 1Ds or 1DsII, one looks for moiré. One has to. We do this at the time of the shoot. So, one would do the same for false color from synthetics, add a filter if needed.

No difference than opening a stop or moving a light!

 

Still, I would want to learn more about the bands that originate from areas of high exposure.

 

Asher

 

The Open Photography Forums Initiative

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In response to my requests, Leica USA's Christian Erhardt recently provided me with two official statements related to the M8. I've already integrated a discussion of the first into my M8 review series and will be integrating the second as well. I'm publishing these here as well as on my site because I know this is important information. To my knowledge, they have not yet been released generally.

 

Christian Erhardt Statement 1:

 

Background information on the IR barrier filter of the LEICA M8 and its positive effect on color fringing, image resolution and the rendering of black synthetic fibers:

 

The glass cover of the image sensor of the LEICA M8 is a combination of the IR barrier filter and a specially coated protective glass. The transmission in the red and infrared region of the spectrum can be controlled by the layer thickness of this filter. In the case of the Leica M8, which is a very compact system, the thickness of the filter, 0.5 mm has proved to be ideal. The short back focal length is the base for the compactness and the high quality of the standard and wide-angle lenses. However, the resulting oblique angle of the incident light on the sensor requires special adaptations of the filter.

 

Absence of color fringing / Image Resolution

The extremely thin layer of the filter, 0.5 mm prevents color fringing at the corners of an image. This phenomenon, which is also known as astigmatism and is frequently encountered with digital SLR cameras, is not a problem for the LEICA M8 because of the thin glass cover on the image sensor. This feature, plus the particularly high imaging quality of Leica M lenses, is the reason for the high corner-to-corner image resolution.

 

Rendering of black synthetic fibers

The elimination of color fringing and the improvement of image resolution results in higher IR sensitivity. This causes some synthetic textiles to appear an artificial-looking purple.

 

If the higher IR sensitivity has a disturbing effect in certain applications, e.g. fashion photography, LEICA Camera AG offers its customers a special IR barrier filter. This is screwed on in front of the lens and is an ideal combination of IR, UV and protection filter.

 

The use of the additional IR filter in front of the optical system has big advantages, as the filter does not create reflections inside the optical system. This enables the reproduction of the finest tonal values even in shadows.

 

The filter is supplied as an accessory with a special firmware adjustment, which will be available shortly after the planned market launch of the camera at the end of November 2006.

 

The IR/UV filter is only suitable for use with digital M cameras and 6-bit coded lenses.

 

The high IR transmission may also be a creative advantage for applications in the area of infrared photography.

--------------------------------------------------------------

 

Christian Erhardt Statement 2:

 

White balance ensures neutral rendition of color in any light. It is based on the M8 being preset to reproduce a particular color as white. The AUTO WB provides neutral results in most situations.

 

Leica is currently working on fine-tuning the Auto-White-Balance. Future Firmware updates will show the improvements achieved.

 

For the best image quality, Leica recommends the use of the RAW mode (DNG). When working in the DNG mode, customers have the option to change the Kelvin temperature to their desired WB. For best results, it is further recommended that the specific lighting situation within the WB setting is selected.

 

Capture One is the ideal software for converting the Leica DNG files.

 

-------------------------------------------------

 

I'm happy to provide this kind of information specifically to this forum. I don't believe that this information has yet been issued as a general release. I hope it leads to productive discussion. If it instead simply leads to a series of attacks on Leica, I doubt that I will publish statements like this to a forum again.

 

BTW, to make things crystal clear....I was not an official beta tester for Leica. Along with many journalists, I had the opportunity to twice work with pre-production examples of the M8 this past August in order to write about the physical camera (viewfinder, speed, ergonomics, etc.). These cameras used pre-production firmware and file quality was not at "shipping" level (as defined by Leica). My file quality assessments of the M8 are all based on the test unit I received October 20, 2006 and have been testing since, as time allows. No one person will discover all there is to know about the M8 so let's use this forum to educate each other about the camera, not to attack each other.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

 

 

Sean

 

No worries. You told it as you saw it. Sad that these IR issues have made such a mess of the introduction of an otherwise very fine camera. Leica needs either to find a way to make a thicker barrier glass on the sensor substrate or at least to provide their "solution" of an accessory IR filter on the front of the lens. If they insist that this is a paid for option then they will absolutely bury themselves and deservedly so!

 

Woody Spedden

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New to the forum, old to the leica, I have been digesting all this info regarding the new M8 with a lot of sadess, I was hoping it would be my dream camera.

 

It is a little mystifying that Leica would respond with the idea of a filter to eliminate IR, but there is one thing I would like to pass along-as much as no one wants to put a filter in front of a 2800$ lens, I have always had a B+W UV filter on all my leica lenses as they ride in my bag-no lens caps to worry about or lose, and easy to clean the filter in rain rather than the lens. I have learned to remove the filter if I am shooting into the sun for example, it does cause streaks-(hey where have I seen that before :)!) but all in all for practical reasons, it is something I live with.

 

No one likes filters of course, but in terms of resolution they might be on to something, better to have the IR filter out front where it will not affect resolution or how the light hits the sensor than have it on the sensor where it could do the most damage. Same logic as removing the AA filter too. Consider the trade offs that Canon has made in terms of resolution, the D5 is a great camera, but there is this "veil" on all digital, and from the samples I have seen from the M8, this veil is gone. So it happens there are good reasons to have a low pass and hi pass filter on the sensor, but that is the trade. No one ever equates canon and excellent wide angle performance wide open....I believe you cannot have it both ways, unless perhaps the entire imaging chain is redesigned, the lenses, etc. You could design a rangefinder a little thicker with a larger lens to sensor measurement. The leica measurement is not the only one. But all the lenses would have to be recomputed...starts to sound the olympus doesn't it...

 

What is more mystifying is that it got out of the door like this, as if they released the camera and said, lets just see how much of a problem it is in the real world. I cannot understand in all the testing that it was not completely obvious that the IR problem was not controlled. There is IR everywhere, in studio strobe, on sunny days, on overcast days, it is unavoidable. It is not just in textiles as their press release states.

 

As a sidebar, if anyone here is a quantum physics geek, they might be able to explain why the IR filter works-just like multicoating I imagine, it creates numerous light/material interfaces and puts the photons out of phase with each other, and then quantum wave effects cancel out thus removing the IR or the glare in the case of multicoating. It's true, we have quantum reality to thank for multicoating, and I bet IR filtering as well...don't know if that makes anyone feel any better....or if its all just a "black hole" of despair..:)

 

I might still get one...

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Thank you Sean. The statement seems toidentify a clear path forward for the IR.

 

Not sure when you would be able to remove the IR filter with confindence though ?

 

B&W work...<G> I actually rarely shoot in color except for commercial work but I realize I'm probably in a minority in that respect. There may be a solution that comes from color profiles but, until then, the filters seem to be the answer.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

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Thanks for this information. The IR related statement clears up something.

 

One question. You say that these are official statements. Why doesn't Leica by itself provide the public with this kind of useful information? Will there be an announcement on Leica's website in the next days that goes more into details such as why the filter only works with 6 bit coded lenses?

 

Best regards

Philip

 

These statements were in direct response to questions by myself and, I believe, other journalists. I don't know about follow-up announcements but I know there's a lot of activity in Solms right now and they certainly are not ignoring the criticisms, from my perspective.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

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Thank you, Sean. Do you have any idea why the IR filter would require a coded lens? In combination with a firmware update it sounds as if the colour response is going to be adjusted according to the focal length of the lens, and since the magenta problem occurs anywhere within the frame I don't quite understand. Maybe they will give us a filter for each lens as we send it in for coding, but sell it for ones we don't?

I have to admit my interest here is academic, as I have only used B&W film in my M7, have a nice Epson K3 printer, and have all my B&W conversion tricks already in place as presets or recorded PS actions. My wife can take all the 'record of our life photos' with her Canon P&S; I like to make B&W pictures and probably won't bother to send the M8 back if it needs a hardware intervention. I'm lucky that I just do this for pleasure, not for income, and do appreciate the alarm of those who need more.

 

Chris

 

I'm also primarily a B&W photographer but we're probably in the minority.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

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The IR/UV filter is only suitable for use with digital M cameras and 6-bit coded lenses.

 

Some of you have asked why the IR/UV filter would only work with the 6-bit coded lenses. Well, I'm no expert, I'm just a photographer and consultant to a few digital imaging firms, but the 6-bit coding could potentially be used to remove center hot spot sometimes created by the IR filter.

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As I read these Leica statements, they seem so far off target from the concerns expressed here, that I wonder if they could possibly be made by someone who has listened at all to the complaints. So this guy is the head of Leica USA?

 

No, Christian is in charge of Leica USA's marketing and what he sent me was an English translation of what Germany sent him. If people want to criticize Leica generally, I understand but leave Christian alone. He's a very good guy and was just trying to get me the information I asked for.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

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Hi,

 

Been digesting all this info too, as I pre-ordered a Leica M8 but now I am re-thinking my decision.

 

I shoot primarily BW, but I'm wondering something. The magenta cast depends on materials and how they reflect the infrared light. I believe the raw/dng file captured, will then have the wrong data for these type of materials, namely some blacks becoming magenta.

 

Doesn't this mean that when converting the raw files to b/w images, you will have gray tonal values where you would expect a black value.

 

Am I wrong in assuming this? I don't understand how this situation is better for BW photographers at all.

 

Thanks,

.: a

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Doesn't this mean that when converting the raw files to b/w images, you will have gray tonal values where you would expect a black value.

 

Am I wrong in assuming this? I don't understand how this situation is better for BW photographers at all.

 

Yes. It's impact will depend on the actual B&W conversion method you use (channel mixer, extracting the Luminance channel, etc.) For B&W photography, IMPO, it's not a critical issue or a deal breaker.

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No, Christian is in charge of Leica USA's marketing and what he sent me was an English translation of what Germany sent him. If people want to criticize Leica generally, I understand but leave Christian alone. He's a very good guy and was just trying to get me the information I asked for.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

 

Fair enough. Thanks for clearing that up for me, Sean. I wasn't aware of his role.

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If I read this correctly to eliminate the 'purple' problem we will need to purchase a filter - in practice one for each lens, and will have to pay for the lenses to be coded.

 

As someone who doesn't normally use filters except for b&w work I find this solution disapointing to say the least.

 

I'm trying not to indulge in 'bashing', but if that's the only solution I think it's a disaster for Leica.

 

 

Steve, I don’t think there is any other way to view this unless Leica can come up with a reasonable solution.

 

Here it is as shot,

50ASPH@f2.0,ISO1250.jpg

 

after being worked in PS, which I had to do today - pull the first photo and try this for yourself to see how long it takes,

Eric-Himy,0096-2.jpg

 

basically, unless you spent several hundred dollars and do without your Leica lenses for what - weeks?, plus purchase filters, and do a software change (which affects what else?) it looks like you cannot use the camera to photograph people. That is primarily what I use a Leica M to photograph. That simply is not going to fly. What other possible solutions can you guys suggest?

 

Every photo here,

http://homepage.mac.com/billh96007/PhotoAlbum196.html

 

is like this,

28mm,1:22,ISO1250.jpg

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