I’d to like see an updated CCD sensor in future Leica M because I believe CCD is superior to CMOS with respect to image rendition at base ISO.
Do you agree?
Please consider signing my Open Letter to Leica.
—Peter.
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Related posts:
This was photographed through the arena glass and under poor lighting, using the Leica M9/M-E and 75mm Summarit (see my review here). Not exactly “sports gear” but good enough to get this shot of my daughter.
Technical considerations:
—Peter.
10? 20? 30? 40? 50?… 1?
And would you change anything if you knew the answer?
I would.
The obvious question is:
Why am I not doing that already?
—Peter.
As the winter approaches and the light recedes, I may not have the aurora borealis in my backyard, but I’m grateful to have the sparkle of family life inside.
—Peter.
I always have a difficult time capturing her, when she’s aware of the camera.
This time, I was able to photograph surreptitiously, with the help of the Ice Light (on the table).
—Peter.
The Mamiya RZ67 is a large camera.
But it’s fairly nimble at field level.
—Peter.
Conventional internet wisdom states that the Leica M8 is a better camera than the M9 for B&W file conversion — True or False?
The answer: True… but barely.
My old B&W conversions with the M8 were more pleasing than the ones I subsequently obtained with my M9/M-E, but now I realize that the less pleasing M9/M-E conversions were mostly secondary to my use of Silver Efex Pro. Lately I’ve been doing straight de-saturation of my M9/M-E files, and they look more natural and almost as good as my M8 files. The M8 still wins because of its greater IR sensitivity — this allows for slightly better B&W output.
For all practical purposes, however, the M8 and M9 sensors behave almost identically (for both B&W and colour). This shouldn’t be too surprising, given how the sensor in the latter evolved from the former.
Which makes me want to re-state something I’ve been saying for years: the M8 was the most under-appreciated and underestimated digital camera ever.
If there’s anyone from the original Kodak KAF-10500 (APS-H 10.3-megapixel) CCD sensor development team reading this, I sincerely thank you for your fine work.
—Peter.
[Upcoming Insight: Film vs. Digital].
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist.
Yes, all Canadians use 3D glasses to hypnotize our children into submission.
All frames shot at 1/30 sec.
Happy Canadian Thanksgiving everyone!
—Peter.
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—Peter.
It comes in black and silver, of course.
A very intriguing lens.
If the Zeiss 35mm f/1.4 Distagon T* ZM truly surpasses the performance of the Leica 35mm Summilux FLE, it will be impressive. Even if the published Zeiss MTF graphs are misleading and this lens “only” comes close to the FLE, it will still be impressive, given it’s 50% the price of the Leica equivalent.
However, it’s larger than the FLE (but has less distortion).
Looking at the few sample images on the ‘net, it renders very similarly to my 50 Summilux ASPH and the Zeiss 21mm f/2.8 ZM (two lenses I love), at least with respect to the way it draws the (in-focus) subject. Bokeh is not the same.
Did I mention I’m intrigued?
—Peter.
The reddish skin rendering may make you believe this was shot with a Leica M240, but she was in fact sitting in front of a large illuminated red sign.
So now I know how to achieve the M240 look, with respect to skin tones anyway.
However, I don’t know how to produce the muddy rendering of the CMOS-crippled Leica M240, as all I can get out of my Leica M9/M-E are those lovely CCD crisp files with superior tonality and colour reproduction, at base ISO.
For those of you who haven’t already done so, perhaps you may be interested in signing My Open Letter to Leica.
(over 280 signatures so far…)
—Peter.
Chris Niccolls and the rest of the crew from The Camera Store in Calgary (Canada, eh?) always do a great job previewing new cameras, and I often look forward to their video segments.
For those of you who haven’t seen their Pentax 645Z “hands-on field test”, have a look here.
—Peter.
Please hurry up Sony and release a fixed-lens “medium format” digital camera.
Those of us who place a high value on image quality but prefer to be discreet with our cameras want an alternative to the current gargantuan digital MF offerings.
—Peter.
Not too long ago, 36MP digital sensors were introduced into 35mm cameras. Not too long after that, many photographers (including some well respected ones) proclaimed that these pixel-rich 35mm cameras could produce “medium-format quality” images.
I don’t subscribe to this view, at least when it comes to portrait photography.
If you examine the images I’ve taken with the Mamiya RZ67 (6 x 7 medium format film), you will note that they look more “true to life” as compared to images from 35mm cameras (digital or film). The tonal transitions are subtler, the separation of subject matter from the background is more natural, and the overall rendering is somehow “more grand” than 35mm camera images (like these ones from the Nikon D800E + Zeiss Otus – a supposed “medium-format-quality” producing combination).
Even the Pentax 645D, a camera that possesses a digital sensor that is only a little bit larger than the one in the D800E, somehow produces “grander” images (but not as “grand” or true-to-life as the larger 6 x 7 film “sensor” in the Mamiya RZ67).
As I’ve written before, sensor size matters:
So, if you’re looking for a medium format look (at least with respect to portraiture), you will not get it from a Nikon D800E/D810, or Sony A7R, etc.
If you’re looking for medium format resolution, that’s another story…
—Peter.
Prosophos 
