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M9: CCD or CMOS


wilfredo

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For one thing, the ( unlikely ) Live view feature on the M9 would be a sort of temporary and partial solution for the orphaned R lenses. You just stick a M-to-R adapter into the M9 body and 'voilà" !.

Way cheaper than designing an EVIL camera from scratch. :D

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I also have an intuitive preference of the CCDs over Cmos. However, so far, the best prints I ever got were actually from a Cmos sensor,that is, the one in the Kodak slr/C. I never fell for my Canon cameras, not that I have anything "technical" to say against them but I always found the prints from the M8, the Kodak and even the R-D1 more appealing (to my taste) than the ones from the 10D, 20D, 5D (I). I think the issue is mainly about the lack of AA filter, (or the very weak one in the Epson).

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Also heard that CMOS rumor a few weeks back but decided not to bring it further as it doesn't make sense with the S2 sensor development. Also, the reason for the CMOS should be "to get higher ISO capabilities," but then they should go with Nikon sensors I guess ;-)

 

Anyways, I feel certain M9 is coming and I can't think it wouldn't be a great camera. So far, Leica has overall made better and better digital cameras, superior to others in terms of image quality. And if they develop an M9 along the line of the S2 where they have paid special attention to buffer sizes and speed, everything should be fine!

 

I'll be sitting ready with the plastic cards on September 9...

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Peter,

 

I haven't concluded anything. All we have are rumors which feed the hipe around the M9 but no factual information. My main concern is that the image stamp of the M8 not be lost in making a "better" digital M.

 

I shoot with Canon gear as well, but for my most meaningful people work, the CCD censor on my M8 is what really stirs my soul.

So why are you choosing to make something out of nothing on this forum? Why don't you concentrate on using the camera you have, get some fresh air and take some photo's? Look at the bright side if the rumor turns out to be true think of the endless opportunities to post negative diatribes at Leica for letting their faithful down AND the endless speculative posts about the M10.:eek::eek::eek:

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I used a D3 for about six months. While the camera was killer for low light and action, I just never felt as attached to the final images as I am/was to M8/DMR images. Something about the clarity of the DMR/M8 images as a result of a weak AA filter feels right to me.

 

For any who may be interested. Here is a link as to how Nikon have done wonders with CMOS sensors. I personally think that they have done a very good job. If only they had Leica lenses too. :)

Nikon Imaging | Nikon D Technology THE POWER TO CHANGE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY

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I used a D3 for about six months. While the camera was killer for low light and action, I just never felt as attached to the final images as I am/was to M8/DMR images. Something about the clarity of the DMR/M8 images as a result of a weak AA filter feels right to me.

 

Which brings to question about the unbelievable Leicaness of being -- is it the sensor or the glass?

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Which brings to question about the unbelievable Leicaness of being -- is it the sensor or the glass?

 

It's both. I get excellent results even from my non-Leica lenses (Zeiss and Konica) on the M-8. I played with some Voiglander lenses a few months ago belonging to another member of this forum and got some surprising results. With the M8 I seem to get excellent results from just about any half decent lens, and then to boot, I get excellent + results with the newer ASPH Leica lenses.

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As far as I know (too), CMOS sensors actually natively have more noise than CCDs. Canon et al have just done an awful lot of work on the processing, to benefit from CMOS' other advantages. Michael Hußmann would have more authoritative information on this.

My understanding was the opposite, that CCDs have inherently higher noise due to their higher temperature but much higher image quality.

The big expensive engineering exercise, which so few could afford, was to get reasonable quality out of CMOS sensors.

CMOS chips are much cheaper to manufacture than CCD so whilst the up-front engineering costs of getting acceptable quality from CMOS was high the gain in reduced production costs made it worthwhile for the mass market.

Perhaps I remembered this wrong though.

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For any who may be interested. Here is a link as to how Nikon have done wonders with CMOS sensors. I personally think that they have done a very good job. If only they had Leica lenses too. :)

Nikon Imaging | Nikon D Technology THE POWER TO CHANGE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY

 

HI Nicole

Well, I think they've done a fine job with respect to high ISO . . . but I actually sold my D3 /D700 and all the lenses because I simply couldn't get the colour I wanted for landscape and nature photography - of course, it's all a matter of taste to some degree, but there seemed to be a pervasive yellow cast which was really hard to remove. My personal feeling is that the more work you do to provide high ISO, AA filters, skin tones, the further you get from natural colour.

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For any who may be interested. Here is a link as to how Nikon have done wonders with CMOS sensors. I personally think that they have done a very good job. If only they had Leica lenses too. :)

Nikon Imaging | Nikon D Technology THE POWER TO CHANGE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY

 

Nicole,

 

What Nikon is telling in this link, is that they do everything possible to avoid any further corruption of the signal coming from the Sensor, by placing the Amplifiers (and the A/D conversion) as close as possible to the Sensor.

This might do a great job to reducing non Sensor noise, but the Sensor itself is not producing less noise because of this all.

But from publications on noise measurement, I have read that the pre A/D signal to noise ratio from a D3 is very low, in fact a factor 2 to 3 times lower than from the M8, so it is not just all commercial bla bla.

Sensor noise can only be further processed in the digital domain, so an additional and also important reason for having low noise in high ISO pictures has probably to be found here.

When gaining on one aspect, you will mostly lose something else. So when reducing high ISO noise, you will at least lose on resolution and maybe on colour faithfulness.

 

Hans

Edited by t024484
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HI Nicole

Well, I think they've done a fine job with respect to high ISO . . . but I actually sold my D3 /D700 and all the lenses because I simply couldn't get the colour I wanted for landscape and nature photography - of course, it's all a matter of taste to some degree, but there seemed to be a pervasive yellow cast which was really hard to remove. My personal feeling is that the more work you do to provide high ISO, AA filters, skin tones, the further you get from natural colour.

 

Hi Jono,

 

I had mainly posted that link as it seemed quite informative about CMOS developments. I too have a D700 that I use for my Nikkors (Manual and AF), but I haven't noticed any colour casts myself. I tend to agree with you about some of the super-dooper technology though. :)

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My understanding was the opposite, that CCDs have inherently higher noise due to their higher temperature but much higher image quality.

The big expensive engineering exercise, which so few could afford, was to get reasonable quality out of CMOS sensors.

CMOS chips are much cheaper to manufacture than CCD so whilst the up-front engineering costs of getting acceptable quality from CMOS was high the gain in reduced production costs made it worthwhile for the mass market.

Perhaps I remembered this wrong though.

No - the basic CMos sensor does have higher noise in its native signal. It is however reduced electronically by circuitry on the sensor itself. The circuitry,again, reduces the amount of light striking the photosites, thus contributing to noise again. A fine balancing act. Sony has overcome this by placing the circuitry behind the photoreceptors in its new Exmor sensor, gaining about one stop in noise over traditional CMos sensors, but it still needs quite aggressive noise reduction on the sensor itself.

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The thing I've noticed in every CMOS image I've worked with (Sony R-1, Canon 5d/5dii) is that sharpening brings up a "needlepoint" or "fabric" texture - almost a warp-and-woof. Very different from regular "noise", and very processed-looking.

 

I've wondered if that was due to the low fill-factor of CMOS, which means gaps and jumps in image detail between one pixel and the next (even with microlenses). But the Dalsa page linked to above also notes that signal uniformity is an issue with CMOS, in that you have up to 24 million individual amplifier circuits, one for each pixel, instead of 1-4 off-sensor amplifier chips.

 

One of the principals of W. Edwards Deming's Total Quality system is - stick with one supplier, and work in partnership with that supplier for improvement. "Shopping around" from supplier to supplier is one of the best ways to wreck quality control. I hope and expect Leica is going to stick with Kodak CCDs for a long time, for their prime cameras (What Panasonic chooses to do is a different matter).

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I'm confused about the idea of Leica using the same sensor as the S2. Wouldn't they (and we) be paying for a large number of pixels that will never be used?

 

If I understand all those articles in LFI correct, there is a Kodak sensor of FF format available too, of the same lineage and high pedigree as the S2 sensor which is 30% larger than the FF. This works with the same basic chipset, but probably could have a 2x as high throughput . . .

So I expect that one to be presented.

Alberti :-)

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Not read all the posts here so if this is duplicating old news sorry.

Apparently a French site had the M9 up for pre order delivery Sept, who knows?

Leica M9 FF on coming in September?: Leica Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review

 

Kevin.

 

You are number four or five to tell that story. There is also a shop in Jakarta taking preorders, but none of them can actually confirm anything.

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