Leica M9 High ISO and Lightroom Comparison

This is a test I shot showing the Leica M9 at settings from ISO 800-2500.

The shots on the left are the unaltered camera jpgs and the shots on the right are after processing in the new Lightroom 3 Beta 2 version.

Please note this is how I would use the noise reduction parameters. They are pretty close to the default settings, however others may prefer less luminance "smoothing"

This is what I would use for sending images off to library websites, and is intended as a test for myself rather than an objective review.

One thing did occur to me because I think all the settings are better than I remember. These are taken using the new

firmware which may (or may not) have included a tweak for higher ISO's.

These are full size images with no cropping. They were taken in natural light indoors, hand held with a Voigtlander 35mm f1.7 Ultron at F2.8, which is intended to replicate the conditions under which I would use these settings.

Must say I was pleased with the results.

The file on flickr is a large one. Feel free to download it and view it in your preferred software.

Leica M9 at 1000 ISO

There is no doubt that the M9 is MUCH better at higher ISO's than the M8. I discovered how good it can be yesterday. On my way home from the Cotswold trip I passed a heritage railway station who were having a "Diesel Weekend" How people can get enthusiastic about these ugly, smelly monsters eludes me, but I stopped to take some pictures anyway.

The light was appalling & I wanted to use fast shutter speeds and small-ish apertures so I set the M9 to 1000 ISO.

When I returned home I processed them via the new Lightroom 3 Beta 2 and was very impressed.

This is a comparison shot - the shot on the left is the unaltered camera jpg and the one on the right is via Lightroom.

The image is a blowup from this:-

I'm particularly impressed with the luminance control in Lightroom as it "smooths" very nicely without destroying sharpness.

These images are done to my taste and others may process differently but I think its impressive and 1000 ISO is not something I will shy away from in the future on the M9.

Incidentally, I tried to replicate this in Photoshop CS4 with Adobe Camera Raw 5.6 and couldn't get near it. I either got noisy/sharp or clean/blotchy.

These two below were processed in Photoshop.

UPDATE

Obakesan has just sent me a comment:-

"just downloaded and examined the channels. LR does indeed neaten it up, but the camera JPG is pretty dam good.
maybe I should look at an M9 instead of a 5D and a E-P2"

which did remind me that I had meant to make the point he did about the original jpg being far better than I was expecting. I have largely ignored the high ISO performance of the M9. I took a few shots at 2500 ISO, saw that they were pretty awful and left it at that. I had assumed (wrongly) that settings such as 1000 ISO would be equally bad, but they are not. Combined with a fast lens the digital Leica can be seen as emulating its film ancestors as an unobtrusive, discrete low light camera. Just don't stick a vintage 135mm on it. All discretion will disappear!

Thinking about it further I will put together some test shots at high ISO's to see just what is possible.

More on the Lightroom 3 Beta.

After a very good initial response to the new Adobe Lightroom Beta released yesterday I spent yesterday working with it on the backlog of images I have waiting to be edited.

When the very first version of Lightroom was released it was in beta for a long time, and I got very familiar with it then. At the time it included many raw development parameters that Photoshop didn't have so I found it very useful. These were then incorporated into Photoshop so I stopped using it.

I started using this new version as it has support for the Canon 550D and I was interested to see what it could achieve with the outstanding files I had from that camera. Certainly my initial impressions were favourable and a full days work with it yesterday confirmed this.

I'm particularly impressed by the way that it handles noise, CA and fringing. The default settings produce very clean and sharp files and I had to spend far less time in Photoshop. There is a very real difference in how Lightroom processes raw files as opposed to the current 5.6 version of Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop and the Lightroom files look significantly better to me. I was particularly pleased with my Leica M9 files and my Canon 5D Mk II files were easily the best I've got out of that camera. Dpreview found an improvement too:- http://www.dpreview.com/news/1003/10032402lightroombetaupdate.asp

I'm a bit unfamiliar with the interface these days, but by the end of the day was finding ways to speed up the process.

It will be interesting to see whether these improvements in raw processing transfer over to the new version of Photoshop, announced yesterday.

However its something I would recommend you having a look at. Since at the moment it's free, its an easy recommendation.

Finally it even managed to get some decent results from a whole pile of Pentax K-7 files I have waiting. Not great but reasonable & better than I was able to achieve with either Photoshop or Pentax's version of Silkypix.

Words - D

Images - D & A