john_graham3

"Any thoughts on my conclusion? "

 

Yes, that like any foregone conclusion it's pointless to point out the numerous fallacies in your reasonsing.

Guys who pulled their pants pockets inside out for an old M6 and a couple of lenses aren't going to be buying the M8. The prices of M6's will drop because M7's and MP's will glut the market when the M8 is available.

I no sooner got my new Epson V700 than my GF's father asked me if I could scan

"a bunch" of his old slides onto a CD or DVD so he can look at them on his TV

instead of setting up his old projector and screen. I haven't even had time to

unpack the scanner out of the box yet but it looks like this will be one of my

first "jobs" with it. I would like to waste, er spend as little time as

necessary on this, so my question being, does anyone have experience with what

the <i><u>minimum</u></i> scan resolution would be for maximum quality on a

HDTV, beyond which it would be a waste? Thanx in advance.

Wait, make that <i>'Lil</i> PeePee :*)

"Piotr Panne , jun 22, 2006; 07:30 p.m.

<<<I think John G. here is a great photographer.>>>

 

Just call him JG. Or even J will work. "

 

Oooh, cool, we all get to have Rap names! Yours can be PeePee :*)

The very reason Leica teamed up with Panasonic is to get in on the frequent obsolescence, er upgrade cycle that their own budget doesn't permit. The downside is that this is obviously not a case of Leica subcontracting. Panasonic is calling all the shots. If Leica wants a rebadged version of the Panoly 4/3 I'm sure they'll get one. Meantime if someon's jonesing bad enough there's always ordering a red logo from Leica and pasting it on :*)

Got to bookmark this thread, for every time someone claims that being a great photographer and an obsessive gearhead are mutually exclusive :*)

Hey, no fair. You fight like a girl :*)

Even if I were a great photographer and displaying my work on a website bought me the right (which it seems to on pnet) to be a pr*ck, I would still have more class than to exercise that right.

"What's the objective?"

 

Why do you need to know? Other than to better tailor your insults?

"Who cares if doesn`t flare when it is not sharp until 5.6 or 8. Just look at the couple portrait linked above. The ones I looked at all made images like that shown, soft"

 

I don't know why your shots weren't sharp but that one is OOF, obviously. No one (except you) has ever said the Summi wasn't sharp until 5.6 or 8, just that it wasn't sharp out to the corners until then (actually in my experience, it's more like f/11 for perfect corner sharpness).

No, in that shot the lights are way OOF, unlike the subjects which are only a little OOF :*) What I meant was a night street scene where the streetlights are in focus, so that any coma halos are clearly portrayed. Though the 50 Summilux has always been considered very good in terms of handling point sources without overall flare (better than the Summicron AFAIK), it does have a tendency to a little coma in the corners wide open at night with point lights. Nothing even remotely as bad as the 35 Summilux (non aspherical). Considering when the 50 Summi was designed it's really remarkable how well it does and how many other 50 1.4's fell at its feet up until just recently.

Those stars are point lights but not very bright ones (7 minute exposure??!!) Try a line of street lights at night, which is closer to what most people would probably shoot with that kind of lens. IM--and it's just an--O, for $500-700 it's a heckuva lens, but I only see the 43-filter model going for that, the 46-filter seems to be $1300-1500 and I wouldn't pay that much for one when minty asphericals have been going for $1800-1900 lately on the 'bay.

"You can easily (?!) correct for CA using Panotools - see the "Correction: Radial Shift" option."

 

Maybe if you have a PhD in math it's easy in Panotools. For the rest of us I'd recommend CS2.

""my sensor is always dirty, I spend soooo much time in Photoshop, I've had to send my body in twice already for repair, I have terrible banding in my images, I can't read my images off of the CD I burned them onto last year, etc etc". "

 

All of those problems relate to sloppyness, lazyness, cheapness or just plain ignorance. What're the odds that people like that will have better luck with chromes?

The main problem on newer Leica lenses is they shortened the turning circle of the focusing helicals so the marked distances and the DOF markings are now around twice as compressed as they used to be.

"No USM or ICE or anything was applied to them - they are straight unmanipulated scans. I used Epson Scan for the 4990 and Nikon Scan for the 9000."

 

Your test tested the software as much as the scanner. Scan both using Vuescan. Further, with the manually-set multi-pass running for the 4990 I found I could "improve" the dmax significantly. All that aside, I can't disagree that if the aim is really large prints (larger than the R2400 for example can do)the 4990 (and probably the V700/750 too)aren't the best tools for the job. Neither is the 9000, although better than the Epsons. If you're into getting the most out of MF for huge enlargements, get them drum-scanned, do your own post, then have them pro printed. On an arbritrary scale of 1-10, if the Epson is a 4, the Nikon is a 5.5 and the drum scan is a 9.5.

"Leicas don't go stale! They get better with age."

 

If only they could impart that trait to their owners :*)

"I would like to find a forum or discussion group interested in the art and aesthetics of photography rather than the acquisition of camera gear."

 

Here's a thought: look for one without an equipment name in the title :*)

 

Ah, but you said Street and Documentary doesn't meet with your standards either.

 

Ok, here's another thought: start one of your own, where you can dictate what should be considered important and what should be considered silly. And hope that once you've assembled a group of people willing to submit to your opinions, there will be any kind of stimulating discussion. Good luck with that.

"The exit pupil is somewhere forward of the rear element of the lens"

 

That is a very interesting point. Looking at (at least the last 2 versions)of 50 Summicron, 50 Summilux, and every 90mm I have looked at, those rear elements are, even with the lens at infinity, recessed almost an inch fwd into the barrel, meaning the exit pupil is even further fwd. So unless I'm not following, those lenses probably won't be plagued by sensor vignetting and it would be a waste of money to have them retrofitted with code dots. Basically 21, 28 and 35mm's would need coding to automatically compensate sensor vignetting. Unless the coding also will compensate for CA, fringing, flare and poor composition too. And then I suppose, waxing philosophical, there's a point at which you yell "whoa" and ask yourself, if all these fixes in software are needed to get decent image quality from the Leica lenses, WTF did you pay all that money for, status?

"You have given a fair demonstration of how software can enhance digital files - so why bother, and for whom? The digital snapper who wants prints right out of the box? Will this person pay $$$$ thru the nose for a Leica DM? Or is the camera rather targeted at experienced photographers, willing to squeeze the very best out of their files?"

 

The camera is probably targeted at garnering the widest market possible, which would include both types. The .jpeg snappers will ante up for the coding if it produces a noticable effect, while the experienced digital shooters probably won't, unless they happen also to be in the group that wouldn't want to look like they couldn't afford to get their lenses upgraded :*) The truly sad thing would be if the dots affected RAW files, especially if the camera's processing isn't as good as the users' or aftermarket plugins.

 

 

 

 

"What Leica is doing with the six dots now makes more sense to me."

 

Great, except that Leica hasn't specified anywhere exactly what the dots will do. The whole vignetting-compensation issue is pure speculation, even if it makes sense.

This subject or one that devolves into it constantly comes up and the same useless responses are always given, by people who ought to know better, that fail to ask the pivotal question: how are you planning on getting from film to print? If you scan 645 with a flatbed (including the latest 700-series Epson's)you will not get anywhere near what it's capable of, and the 8.2MP digital will look like the clear winner. If you scan with a 4000dpi home film scanner, the 645 will look better, probably on a par with the 8.2MP give or take. All depends on your skill with scanning. The only way you will get your money's and trouble's worth out of medium format film is if you have them drum scanned professionally. And FWIW if you're going to the trouble and expense of shooting rollfilm and paying for scans, for gosh sakes skip 645 and go to 6x7 or 6x9.

Would you please provide a link to the passage or passages within the official Leica document wherein it specifically says this? I read the annoucement and the PDF from Leica's website and neither one mentions vignetting or any other specifics as to just exactly what types of image "optimization" the coding will allegedly provide. The only mention of the vignetting I've seen has been in various forums in the form of speculation from posters, none of whom can answer how the camera can correct vignetting without knowing the set aperture, since it is a determining factor with almost every lens. One such poster hazarded a guess that there will be a laser beam inside the camera that bounces off the inside of the diaphragm and "tells" the camera what aperture is in use. I wasn't making that bit of Star Treck hilarity up :*) And even if it does somehow make a generalized/compromise guesstimated vignetting compensation, it would really only be of issue with wide angle lenses so paying for 50mm and up lenses to be coded would be of even more questionable value. And, Leica also does not say whether these "optimizations" will be applied to RAW files or only to JPEGS. If JPEGS then it has little relevance for most serious digital shooters. If RAW then the question becomes, is it then really RAW or does it counteract the main reason we shoot RAW, which is to gain total control over the image.

 

 

Marc: the other brands all have CPU's in the lenses and electronic data bus strips to transfer the info. Leica's system consists simply of 6-bit coding on the lens flange.

Perhaps the M8 firmware will contain a library of thousands of images by famous Leica photographers cataloged according to which lens was used. The camera will know from the dots what lens is mounted and each time the owner takes a shot the M8 will compare it to the closest matching shot in the image library and write the better one to the SD card :*)

"Do it safe & right!"

 

Where's the chain and handcuff?