Busy Week

The end of a busy week, including band photography, video in a factory and several stock shoots saw the first hint of summer with a couple of warm sunny days. I must have had a good time since I'm lying here typing this with a sore back!!

All above taken with Samsung NX10. The more I use this camera, the more I like it. The 18-55mm kit lens is a real surprise. A very good lens indeed. When I carried out some tests on this lens compared with the 30mm F2, I found it to be very similar in performance. http://soundimageplus.blogspot.com/2010/04/samsung-nx10-prime-or-zoom.html

It is astonishingly good for a kit zoom, excellent sharpness. Plus of course this wonderful Samsung colour. Who would have guessed?

The rest are Leica M9 shots. This is a camera I would use a lot more if it wasn't for the fact that it is VERY bad for accumulating dust spots. Shots at f16 with a blue sky take ages to clean up. I've taken to blower-brushing the sensor every time I use it to keep the spots under control. Full-frame sensors are all very bad for this. I also doubt whether the rangefinder construction will ever allow any kind of dust removal system.

Still, incredible performance as usual.

D

Panoramas

m4/3 and lenses

Reading a recent forum post on using Leica lenses on Micro four thirds cameras we felt there was an amount of misinformation and some misleading recommendations. The originator of the post asked if the current m4/3 sensor, made by Panasonic, was incapable of resolving Leica lenses. In some of the replies there seemed to be an exaggeration of the difference that Leica lenses make to the results obtained by m4/3.


While being enthusiasts for the m4/3 system we would hesitate to make over-hyped claims about the quality of that sensor and would be concerned if people were contemplating buying Leica lenses in the belief that they would get substantially "better" results from their m4/3 cameras. Since Leica and most M-Mount lenses are comparatively expensive this could prove a great disappointment.


There is no doubt that the Panasonic sensor is an excellent one and in terms of comparison with other 12MP sensors at low ISO's it more than holds its own. There are concerns about the dynamic range but it gives very pleasing and high quality results. However having used a series of M-Mount and other lenses with it, we would hesitate to say that buying alternative or legacy lenses of any brand will provide resolution and sharpness advantages over the currently available Panasonic and Olympus lenses.


There are very good reasons to use non-proprietary lenses on m4/3 cameras. There is only one genuinely "fast" lens in the entire system and that is the Lumix 20mm f1.7 pancake lens. If you want other focal lengths with large apertures then you will have to look elsewhere. We use lenses such as 35mm f1.7, 50mm f1.2, 85mm f1.8 etc. none of which are, or we suspect likely to become, available anytime soon. However to assert that using these alternative lenses will give sharper results and higher resolution is we believe misleading. We have found no evidence of this and in fact have always stated that we find many of the branded m4/3 lenses to be of excellent quality, particularly the 20mm f1.7 and 45mm f2.8 lenses from Panasonic.


The image at the top of the page is the results of tests we carried out. It is hosted on flickr and there you will be able to download the largest size which gives an idea of what the comparisons are.


We tested the Panasonic 20mm f1.7 against a Zeiss 21mm f2.8 M-Mount lens at 3 different apertures. f2.8. f5.6 and f11. We used a GH1 at ISO 100. As a further comparison we photographed the same setup using a Samsung NX10 + 30mm f2 lens and a Leica M9 with a Voigtlander 35mm f1.7 Ultron lens. The results are on the image.


We could not see any significant difference between the 20mm f1/7 and the Zeiss 21mm f2.8 in terms of sharpness. There was a slightly different colour balance but that was all. The Samsung NX10 was very marginally sharper but there was so little in it that we don't regard that as being significant. The Leica images were easily the best of all, which is what we would have expected.


This confirms to us what we suspected all along, that the sensor is the element in the camera /lens/quality equation that has the most impact on image quality. We would advise that if you are considering buying an expensive M-mount lens in order to achieve a higher level of sharpness and resolution, that you be wary of people telling you that they are worth the extra money. We have no evidence that is true. You may well want to use a lens with with a wider aperture, but other lenses such as the Canon FD range or the NIkon F range will provide that at a much lower cost. You may well want a small lens and M-Mount lenses can certainly provide that, though do remember that most are made of metal and while small may be substantially heavier than their modern plastic equivalents.


Micro four thirds is what it is. A high-quality small light alternative to a DSLR. Adding a Leica (or other high quality M-Mount) lens may make your camera look good, but don't expect to add a Leica lens to a m4/3 camera and expect to get Leica type results. It just won't happen.

Cross Dressing

Panasonic GH1 Voigtlander 35mm f1.7 Ultron

Panasonic GH1 Leica 135mm f4 Tele Elmar

Panasonic GH1 Leica 90mm f2.5 Summarit-M

Panasonic GH1 Zeiss 21mm f2.8 Biogon

canon 550D Nikon 85mm f1.8D

canon 550D Nikon 50mm f1.2 MF

Here are some shots taken with the 550D fitted with the Nikon 50mm f1.2 MF lens.

Very sharp indeed.

The image below on the left is shot at f1.2. The image below on the right at f16.

Note the completely different colour balance.

Two lenses in one!!!

Leica and Voigtlander lenses

A sunny bank holiday afternoon gave me the opportunity to try out my Leica Summarit 90mm f2.5 lens in a real world situation on the M9. These are from the in-camera jpgs. I used the standard jpg settings which meant everything was set as "flat" as possible. There is no in-camera or post-processing sharpening. Leica M9 jpgs are the closest I've ever got to a "neutral" jpg. When I bring the raw files into either Photoshop or Lightroom and set everything at zero I regard that as close as I can get to what the camera is recording without doing any processing. The in-camera jpgs are very close to that, so they are a good guide to what the camera/lens combination can produce.

The 90mm lens is 6-bit coded which means the camera spots what it is without having to be told.

I'm always going on about my Voigtlander 35mm F1.7 Ultron.

So here's some from that lens on the same day.

Images - D & A

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.

Cotswolds with M9

A trip to the Cotswolds. One of those days with grey skies and occasional shafts of light. I used my Voigtlander 35mm f1.7 Ultron - Above and my "new" Leica 135mm f4 Tele-Elmar - Below.

There's a full set in the gallery section at:-

http://soundimageplusgallery.blogspot.com/2010/03/march-cotswolds-walk.html

Images - D & A

Adobe Lightroom 3 beta

I downloaded the new Adobe Lightroom 3 beta - which you can get here:-

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom3/

Some nice results -particularly with regard to CA removal.

It supports the Canon 550D which Photoshop doesn't yet. Even managed to get some good results from files I had shot with the 18-55 kit lens.

Images - D & A