40mm f/2 Posted September 25, 2009 Share #1 Posted September 25, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) I am still using my M6 mostly with B&W film. I got rid off all my R stuff 3 years go. I want to use my M lenses digitally but I stayed away from the M8. From what I can see on the web the M9 has enough resolution for me (290 dpi native for a 12 x 18 print). Noise is significant better in all cameras close the price of the M9 but I am more concerned by a lot of M9 Web pics with blown high lights, steep contrast and too high color saturation (I was never a friend of Velvia). I liked Jono Slack M9 examples: M9 Crete The DR of the m8 is not great M8 . I want to see 10 EV at 800 ISO. I am worried that the processor is limiting the DR in the M9 even when using uncompressed DNG. The Interview with Stefan Daniel on Luminous Landscape made obvious that there were a lot of constraints in the development of the image processing for the M9. I don’t know how the S2 and the Maestro processor will do in respect of DR. Both cameras have related sensors. Is the M9 processor good enough? Or is it only a matter of raw conversion and image processing? Has anyone used Aperture? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted September 25, 2009 Posted September 25, 2009 Hi 40mm f/2, Take a look here M9 - DR good enough?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
mjh Posted September 25, 2009 Share #2 Posted September 25, 2009 DR doesn’t depend on the processor used, only on the sensor. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
LotharZhou Posted September 25, 2009 Share #3 Posted September 25, 2009 according to that website, the M8 is not even close to a Nikon D60 in all aspects, is it true? I don't think so, at least I own both cameras. The DR of M8 or 9 is very good to me. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pascal_meheut Posted September 25, 2009 Share #4 Posted September 25, 2009 according to that website, the M8 is not even close to a Nikon D60 in all aspects, is it true? I don't think so, at least I own both cameras. Same for me. DxOMarks is a joke... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
40mm f/2 Posted September 25, 2009 Author Share #5 Posted September 25, 2009 DR doesn’t depend on the processor used, only on the sensor. The processor can not improve on the SNR of the sensor but influences the final output files. Different cameras with the same sensor could yield different file quality Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shootist Posted September 25, 2009 Share #6 Posted September 25, 2009 The processor can not improve on the SNR of the sensor but influences the final output files. Different cameras with the same sensor could yield different file quality File qualities yes but not dynamic range. Unless the processor was total K-Rap. Then it would limit the DR. I don't think Leica would do that. There are unadjusted M9 DNG files out on the net. Why not go get some and look at them yourself. Even if they have been adjusted, like in ACR or LR you cna remove thos adjustment by using the same program and if the adjustments where made by C1 they don't get saved in the original DNG file. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted September 25, 2009 Share #7 Posted September 25, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) I can only say that If I expose a full histogram with only minimal highlight clipping on the M9 the image in total looks underexposed and needs quite extensive curves to be perfect. To me that means the DR exceeds the capacity of my monitor by a large margin. Anyway, who complains? The DR of our beloved slide film was only four stops...... Btw you mention the DxO test, which can be criticized. It shows a DR of 11.3@ ISO 160, which matches just about any film and certainly exceeds any printing or enlarging paper. What film do you use that is supposed to give a DR of more than 8 @ ISO 800? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
georg Posted September 25, 2009 Share #8 Posted September 25, 2009 The M8 uses a Full-Frame-CCD with a theoretical contrast ratio of 1:4000 (read noise -> saturation signal), you won't find many cameras with a better theoretical DR than that. Maybe the M9 is even a little bit better? You want higher DR? Use color negative film! As said, the processor limits processing speed and battery power, but not RAW-IQ. DxOMark is affected by internal processing/filtering of the RAW-files, which especially affects CMOS-based cameras. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
glenerrolrd Posted September 25, 2009 Share #9 Posted September 25, 2009 DxO mark does a good job with their sensor tests. You can see the characteristics of the M8 sensor quite easily if you go through each evaluation criteria and it exactly matches my experience. The M8 is right in there at 160 and the differences beween the M8 and say the D3 are small and difficult to see. They have a slider on the right that illustrates how differences affect a standard image. I found that if I stop comparing performance at the exact same ISO and looked at comparable performance with a variable ISO ..it made sense. For example the M8 at 320 performs a lot like the D3/D700 at 800.. So the D3 has a 1 1/2 to 2 EV advantage. (which I can match by using the summiluxes wide open) . The bigger issue is when you get to 640....the DR has dropped enough to lose range in shadows and highlights. Underexpose by 1/2EV and its hard to bring it back and - 1EV I can t . The higher MPs offset the impact of noise on the ability to render fine details ...but at least to my eye doesn t impact DR or color saturation..... So the M9 may have a apparent +1EV improvement due to the 18vs10 mps....but I haven t seen anything that showed an improvement in DR or color saturation. I am not sure we should expect any from the same sensor only larger. I am not saying its not good enough but for certain applications (street at night in color) there is room for improvement. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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