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M9 real world experience


chris_tribble

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Hey Jaap--that's flattering, but let's wait until C1 actually releases a compatible update and *then* we'll see if we need profiles or not.

 

I hope not. The skin color, so far, from LR / ACR is not very encouraging, I have to say.. it's a bit blotchy. But I'm sure that's still being tweaked on both sides.

 

I said it before but I think that in some cases, red/pinky skins are caused by IR contamination. So it does not appears always, mainly under some close IR rich lights.

 

On the pictures I shot but was unforturnately not able to keep, I had black nylon backpacks becoming violet. Remember the M8?

 

It says so in the FAQ btw:

 

"In extreme situations (black synthetic fabric under low tungsten illumination), a slight IR effect (Magenta color shift) can be seen"

 

And if it can be seen on some synthetic fabric, my guess is that it can been on skins too.

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I said it before but I think that in some cases, red/pinky skins are caused by IR contamination. So it does not appears always, mainly under some close IR rich lights.

 

On the pictures I shot but was unforturnately not able to keep, I had black nylon backpacks becoming violet. Remember the M8?

 

It says so in the FAQ btw:

 

"In extreme situations (black synthetic fabric under low tungsten illumination), a slight IR effect (Magenta color shift) can be seen"

 

And if it can be seen on some synthetic fabric, my guess is that it can been on skins too.

 

Probably true Pascal, but what I'm talking about isn't IR contamination; it's color blotchiness far beyond anything I saw with the unfiltered M8.

 

I just think there's a lot of weird stuff out there right now; it's early days yet.

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Using an M8 profile in C1 will be a problem - the color response of the M9 is different (the ColorMatrixes in the DNG show substantial differences)

 

Sandy

It is indeed a problem. I never saw such purple faces as when I put Chris'conversation shot through the M8 profile.

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Probably true Pascal, but what I'm talking about isn't IR contamination; it's color blotchiness far beyond anything I saw with the unfiltered M8.

 

I just think there's a lot of weird stuff out there right now; it's early days yet.

 

I agree. Profiles/Calibration problems, firmware not final...

DMR first weeks were a nightmare and M8 was far from perfect too.

 

I'm just saying some of the pictures shown here reminds me of the skins tone I got 3 years ago with the M8 under halogen light.

 

Wait till someone posts pictures of an black-dressed orchestra turned out violet.

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One of my experiments will be to try lenses with and without the filters. Has to be done I suppose. A tester told me he thought they introduced cyan, so I'm not to sure what to do. He also said that magenta was VERY easily fixed with LR calibration - I think we'll need to do some tweaking to PRESETS - I've avoided the DNG editor thus far, but may have to look at it...

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LR isn't good with reds, but could you take similar indoor shots of people with and without an IR filter, to see if there is any difference? It would be best with a lens longer than 50mm, to avoid funny corners.

 

Edit: ack, I should read the thread to end first...

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Dear Chris,

 

I hope you don't mind... I used Aperture and Nik plugins.

The results are good, but are they 'that' different from the M8?

In any event it must be wonderful to have the correct focal lengths back.

Saying this, the crop factor hasn't bothered me that much.

 

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Guest guy_mancuso

I think and i don't have the damn thing but a lot of people are shooting with the shipping firmware and the new firmware is what they should be updating which is 1.02

 

I don't understand why their is no immediate announcement on this but any dealers out there i would advice your customers to update when they get home with it. I'll be perfectly honest here I am seeing a heavy red bias and will reserve judgment on this because LR, ACR, Aperture and C1 will mostly likely need a update as well.

 

But I could use some raws to test it out more and pick it apart

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Very, very exciting times and I pre-ordered an M9 last week - so it is interesting to see the first pics. I was so looking forward to not having to lug around my 5d Mk11 - but I am sorry to say that having played around with these pics in Lightroom they are nowhere near my expectations. I am finding the night shots noisy in the shadows and the portraits not as sharp as my Canon. I really want this as my go anywhere camera and I do not want to upset anyone - I'm not a troll so please tell me if I'm wrong.

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I can't - I haven't got mine yet. I am convinced your concern is unfounded. However, in your case, wait a few weeks before buying. These are early days and for a full system change at Leica prices, it is wise to be sure before you jump.

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Very, very exciting times and I pre-ordered an M9 last week - so it is interesting to see the first pics. I was so looking forward to not having to lug around my 5d Mk11 - but I am sorry to say that having played around with these pics in Lightroom they are nowhere near my expectations. I am finding the night shots noisy in the shadows and the portraits not as sharp as my Canon. I really want this as my go anywhere camera and I do not want to upset anyone - I'm not a troll so please tell me if I'm wrong.

 

Yeah, I don't have one yet either, but wait a bit... these are *really* early days, and even the 5d2 had some weird imaging problems for the first 4 months or so.

 

Don't forget that with a CCD you have a lot more detail than you will with your Canon, but you have to expose it correctly. It's also complicated by the fact that the Ms tend to under compute ISO compared with Canon and Nikon, so don't take the exposure from one cam and apply it to another... you have to shoot a metered test setup to see how they're different.

 

Also, Lightroom is not known for resolving fine details, but it probably hasn't even been updated for the M9 yet. It will be, and then you're more likely to like the results.

 

How are the JPEGs?

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I have just worked on the dark street shot again with much improved results. Lightroom imported this file and applied an auto white balance which was very noisy. When 'as shot' is selected there is much less noise. After LR adjustments and Nik's Dfine the file looks very clean with no loss of detail. It seems we must wait for the correct profiling in LR - sorry about panic

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Far from perfect but the image below was adjusted in a couple of seconds to remove the strong magenta in LR. I'm guessing the lady actually looks more like the lower image.

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Back on line - Arwendur - spot on! I've been playing with calibration and you're very much in the same ball park as I am . I'm finding that it's worth playing a little bit with the green and blue primaries as well.

 

1/ Leica should have got this right before launch - but!

2/it's not a reason for dissing the whole project - I'm personally DELIGHTED with what I'm getting from the M9. An example of 1250 using this profile below (but with WB adjusted - HORRIBLE lighting to deal with and get something that looked natural...)

 

28mm Cron Asph / 1/20th of a second (!) / ISO 1250. I could not have got this with the M8.

 

Interestingly, this latter was shot with uncompressed DNG - it may be the way to go. I'm ordering some 8GB SD cards...

 

No time to experiment properly at the moment - life's a bit hectic - but I'll try to keep in touch.

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Surely this is the only way to shoot on both M8/ M9, they are both essentially RAW cameras.

 

If you didn't know and or haven't heard the M9 can shot in either compressed or uncompressed DNG. This has nothing to do with any JPG setting.

As with the M8 all DNG shots are of a compressed nature.

So when users of the M9 talk about uncompressed DNG's that is exactly what they mean, IE not something in the JPG format.

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If you didn't know and or haven't heard the M9 can shot in either compressed or uncompressed DNG. This has nothing to do with any JPG setting.

As with the M8 all DNG shots are of a compressed nature.

So when users of the M9 talk about uncompressed DNG's that is exactly what they mean, IE not something in the JPG format.

 

Thanks for the heads up... I'm still waiting to see if M9 photos look significantly different to those taken on an M8x.

 

Out of interest, I assume any form of compression degrades image quality?

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Back on line - Arwendur - spot on! I've been playing with calibration and you're very much in the same ball park as I am . I'm finding that it's worth playing a little bit with the green and blue primaries as well.

 

1/ Leica should have got this right before launch - but!

2/it's not a reason for dissing the whole project - I'm personally DELIGHTED with what I'm getting from the M9. An example of 1250 using this profile below (but with WB adjusted - HORRIBLE lighting to deal with and get something that looked natural...)

 

28mm Cron Asph / 1/20th of a second (!) / ISO 1250. I could not have got this with the M8.

 

Interestingly, this latter was shot with uncompressed DNG - it may be the way to go. I'm ordering some 8GB SD cards...

 

No time to experiment properly at the moment - life's a bit hectic - but I'll try to keep in touch.

 

I agree, I like the images from this camera albeit every image so far seen shows the reds are off but this seems easily manageable in LR and hopefully will be addressed in firmware. It's early days yet. :)

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Thanks for the heads up... I'm still waiting to see if M9 photos look significantly different to those taken on an M8x.

 

Out of interest, I assume any form of compression degrades image quality?

 

 

From what I have read NO the M9 images are basically the same as the M8 just more pixels.

 

Well that is yet to be explored. But will be by many much better then me.

I don't have and will not buy a M9 anytime in the near future.

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