Leica M8 Noise vs. Canon 5D

[frank]

Let's hope the M9 will have a Canon sensor. Maybe that will be

the end of all the nitpicking...

 

;-)

[Uhooru]

Ditto Ray. though I know for a fact that Tina Manly is much more known for her photos then

her testing regime.. I'd much rather see pics to see what people can do with this stuff.

[rtrace]

"Wow Dan lucky you did not buy an M8. Be happy with your choice and leave others to be happy their's be it Leica, Nikon, Pentax, Sony or anything else that does not have the high ISO performance of the Canon 5D."

 

It's been like this forever with Dan for some reason - Nikon jabs, M8, etc.

 

Dan, what you don't seem to understand is that many don't care solely about noise. Picture taking is not just about noise. Many don't shoot at ISOs > 400/500/640, like myself. Why? I'll let you figure it out one day - it's not that difficult. Let it be and take pictures - stop pixel peeping so much!

 

I'd rather have a camera I like to work with than one with clean ISOs (but crappy DR at those high ISOs and all sorts of other issues) at 1000 or whatever, because I will NEVER use those ISOs. Get it?

 

Bogdan

[john_brewton]

I believe Bob Blakley has hit upon the real reason to get an M8. All those who insist on comparing the M8 to Canon for noise and anything else are once again comparing apples to oranges. The purpose of the M8 is to provide a rangefinder experience using Leica glass in a digital environment. The examples I've seen demonstrate that Leica has suceeded in producing a device that emulates the Leica experience most of us have experienced with our older M bodied cameras - terrific b&w capture along with color that seems to me to be equal to slide film. All these high ISO threads are tedious and boring and reflect that many digital users are merely pixel-peeping technocrats.

[ross_wilson1]

Leave iso 1600 film out of this, digital noise looks like a crappy malfunction, grain looks like the world is falling apart at the molecular level and infinitely more pretty. Grain also lends it's very real texture to a 2D print.

[ken_jeanette1]

Andy, I don't understand why you feel the necessity to get on here and poke a stick at "Leica fans with well heeled wallets". Did they spend YOUR money??

 

I'm sure the entire community is happy that you have found your 5D so pleasing, and look forward to the wonderful images you will post. To sit there and do the 'mine is bigger than yours' routine is childish.

 

I don't own an M8, I never will, but I also wouldn't taunt them over their decision to spend THEIR money on the camera good or bad.

 

All you M8 owners, enjoy!!

[jerry_kirkwood]

I was enquiring yesterday about possibly buying a 5D with the current rebates and the dealer is also big into Leica so I asked him what he thought about the M8. He told me he had close to 200 orders for it in November, all but a 2 or 3 he sold were returned, and he now has 60-some orders waiting, the rest cancelled out. Something about some special lens filter the M8 has to use and customers aren't interested. He recommended getting the 5D now if I wanted it, and wait until next Summer if I really wanted the Leica. He said he wasn't at liberty to say why, just gave me that advice as a long-time customer. So far I haven't bought either, the Canon rebates go until Jan.

[ken_jeanette1]

Andy, I apologize for using your name in my first sentence. My last comment was directed to Dan Lovell

[cebes_johnson]

@Ray- Well said, both times......

 

regards

C

[mark_amos]

Hey, can you guys believe that with the Leica M8, you don't even get a TTL viewfinder...and most those Leica M lenses are expensive and they don't even have an 8x zoom. The bodies don't make much use of wonderful modern plastics either. Also, can you believe a $5k camera doesn't have a built in flash.

[jake_tauber]

Years ago, I was learning how to fly a sailplane. When I went to the airfield there were always guys in the hanger tinkering with their very expensive high performance airdcraft. Then they would sit around talking technical minutia. Then they would go home having NEVER FLOWN THEIR PLANES!

 

Take pictures...make prints...fly within the capabilities of your machine.

[roger_michel]

i am really surprised at the hostility toward what was obviously intended to be serious comparative testing of the M8. i don't think leica's goal was to get an M mount on just any camera body. for $5000, and in the tradition of leica cameras of the past 80 years, i think the M8 was supposed to be, within in the limits of its design portfolio, a non plus ultra camera. certainly that design portfolio included low light performance. the M cameras have always been great available light cameras. if the high ISO performance is comparatively poor, then that is a serious defect. and the point of comparison is NOT film IMO, but other digital cameras. the M8, after all, IS a digital camera and so should offer the best of that technology. if leica is not held to a high standard, we can't complain when the cameras they produce disappoint us. i think leica should have gone for a full frame sensor, or at least a sensor with very large pixel sites. a usable 6400 should have been the goal, not a usable 800. a noctilux at 6400, hmmmm . . . .

 

anyway, i think the M8 has been a mixed success, at best. i am hoping for a mark ii very soon. canon is pushing full frame, so i think there will be more choices in full frame sensors before long. i hope leica builds its next M digital around one.

[frederick_muller]

"I'm waiting for the day when someone who can actually make interesting photographs does these tests."

 

Not a chance. The guys who want to take interesting shots spend more time making photographs than setting up perfectly controlled technical experiments. The times they've put up good samples, or informal "tests" they've gotten stomped by critics on the basis of what I'd call "poor experimental technique". Well, if one is more interested in making photos, one isn't going to take the time to set up perfect controls.

 

By the way, Bob ... it's nice to see you taking that 1.2 Noct out again! Always a pleasure.

 

On another matter ... I'm wondering what the pixel size of the RD-1s is.

[carbon_dragon]

Were the pictures taken at the exact same shutter speeds and apertures? Because longer exposures tend to have more noise. Also depending on what you have the Noise reduction set to on the 5d (there are about 3 settings I think) you'll get a different result. And noise reduction tends to lower sharpness slightly too and the M8 is configured I think to yield maximum sharpness.

 

However, one would expect the larger pixels of the 5D to have less noise. You might be better off comparing the M8 to the 30D or the Nikon D80 or D200. And if the M8 has no onboard noise reduction, I'd try using something like Noise Ninja on the picture, and then set the 5D to no noise reduction and use the same program on that to see what the result is. You can also compare that to the 5D with noise reduction on.

 

As it is, your test is not definitive, and I say that as a Canon 5D owner.

[blakley]

Tina has provided some more information about her posted results <a href="http://www.leica-camera-user.com/digital-forum/10965-m8-canon-5d-comparison-pix-high-6.html#post113274">here</a>.

<p>

Based on her comments, Tina doesn't seem to have intended the test as "serious competitive testing" as Roger asserts.

<p>

Oh, and thanks, Frederick :-)

[lovcom_photo]

Bogdan, what you don't get is that I have an opinion. You think differently. Okay, get over it. Noise performance is supreme for me, and not for you. Ok. Good. Fine. For paid work, I demand the least amount of noise. For me it is mostly about noise.

 

Is that okay with you? Can you show some tolerance?

 

For digital capture, and I am not talking about the M8 now, but a noisy camera negates ALL of a cameras features and qualities for me.

 

Bogdan, if I diss your Nikon or whatever you have don't take it personal...it's just a camera...it's not your mother, girlfriend, or grandma. If you can remove your soul from your Nikon, then you'll find yourself object and tolarant. If you want to call my 5D a pile of doo-doo, I'm cool with that. ;-)

 

Someone mentioned that noise is not a big deal because of products like Noise-Ninja which removes the noise. This is deceptive because when these products do their magic, sure the noise is gone, but so is image detail. These products have their place and purpose, but at a price.

 

Why would anyone complain about boring test images? This is weird thinking, to be sure. Test images are not supposed to be interesting.

[lovcom_photo]

I wasn't taunting Leica owners. If anything I wanted to give them a heads up on an interesting site someone emailed me. I found it interesting.

 

So Ken, don't get mad at me...get mad at Leica...I'm just a messenger, and you and anyone else can check out the site and make up your own minds.

 

By the way Ken, if you come across any site that shows a flaw with my 5D, please to send it to me, or better yet post on the EOS forum, and we all will appreciate it very much.

 

Ken, lets be pragmatic, mature, tolarent, and lets all try to keep emotion out of it.

 

If you want to say that I wasted my $$ on my EOS, or that my 5D is crap or the EOS lenses are crud, that's fine....I won't accuse you of "taunting" me.

 

The thing is, I was hoping that the M8 would be a great camera, as I would love to own one....perhaps I will get the Mark II or M9. I do have an appreciation for rangefinders and Leica in particular although I'm still learning about them and look forward to using one some day.

[ray .]

A real test is when people start to do good work with this camera. If nobody doing

good work uses it for good work, it's not going to have a good reputation. Nobody's

going to be inspired to go out and buy it. If there's a technique that's important it

becomes evident when someone does something with that technique. Technique for

its own sake is useless.

 

This is not news anyway that the M8 does not compete with 5D on noise at high ISO.

[lovcom_photo]

Ray, tests for any camera are important...why try to do real work before you even determine if the camera is up to par with whatever application one does?

 

Regardless of one's genre, application, uses, when it comes to any digital camera, especially for high quality work, noise is going to be an issue.

 

So then how does one determine if the noise is acceptable? Wll, one tests the camera with boring unremarkable shots indoors, at night, in different light levels.

 

If one does not do this, and instead realies on so-called real world shots, then one could own the camera for a very long time before certain defects/behaviors come to one's attention.

 

Before a race car driver starts the race, you can be sure he already spent days prior running practice laps, pushing the car, to determine if it is up to snuff.

[-raoul-]

Why don't everybody reads Ray's first post and stop all that useless nonsense?

[bobtodrick]

Thing is Dan, statements such as "Surely you Leica fans with well heeled wallets would expect better, yea?" would in my opinion classify as an ignorant 'opinion'.

[lovcom_photo]

My, we are so touchy today...if you re-read my statement it does not imply that all Leica owners are "well heeled"...I would suggest you read my statement with a dictionary at hand ;-)

 

The comment was light hearted....what happened to your sense of humor?

[bobatkins]

Anybody still think the description of this forum as...

<p>

<em> "Leica and Rangefinders - feisty bunch of guys wondering why a $5000 camera won't automatically take a great photo.</em>

<p>

...is inappropriate?

[michael s.]

Perhaps a sub-heading would work, too:

 

"Bunch of feisty guys who did not (and will not) buy a $5000 camera wondering aloud and repeatedly why the guys who did are feisty enough to contend -- all charts, graphs, lab tests, and expert opinions to the contrary notwithstanding -- that such a camera can actually take a good photo."

 

:-)

[harvey_edelstein1]

My $200 dollar Fujifilm F30 does better at iso 1600 out of the camera than the M8. And even having better lenses on the Leica won't make up for the loss of detail caused by the noise.