brainiac wrote:
Guy - please don't be impatient with me. These things are just not obvious to me. I did read the DMR thread at the time. I didn't find it as conclusive as you did. One thing that bothered me was that I never felt that the issue of resolution was satisfactorily addressed. But here we are talking about two different cameras, mainly. I am not sure that the induction from 1DsII v DMR to 5D v M8 necessarily holds. The 5D may be better than the 1DsII in some respects, perhaps noise and shadow retrieval. AA filter strength is a variable that may have changed, for instance. That's why this comparison still interests me.
If I get a chance I will try to do a raw version of my previous test soon. I'll use f11 and bracket in tiny increments from one end of the focus range to the other with the M8. I'll post the DNG files so that anyone is welcome to do their magic on them....Show more →
Look foward to this test Richard . You've come a loong way from your first comparison test and I commend you for learning from those less than ideal and in my mind inconclusive tests. Your new proposal of posting DNG's is perfect.
While you're at it if you could do a quick DR comparison that's what I'd really like to see. Something like a scene shot at low ISO with a subject in the shade but bright sunny background should do it. Exposed equally of course by using the same aperature and close shutter speed and fine tuning by adjusting shutterspeed and viewing the histogram.
I often disagree with what Richard says.
But I have to respect him for the integrity he demonstrated here. He has been putting up with a lot of unfair personal attacks that he never deserved. And yet, he has not lost his control.
Pondria wrote:
I often disagree with what Richard says.
But I have to respect him for the integrity he demonstrated here. He has been putting up with a lot of unfair personal attacks that he never deserved. And yet, he has not lost his control.
I agree. But I am wondering if all there too much 5D stuff in this thread. I look here to learn about the M8. That said, Leica user is full of 5D discussion too. I'm getting sick of 5D discussions, and I own one.
Ok, since this thread is already wild enough I will offer my speculations why Leica might have chosen a thin IR filter on the sensor. This is a little techical, and if it is not appropriate let me know, and I will delete it.
Because the hot mirror IR filters are no good for acute angles they had to use an absorption IR filters. The ammount of the absorption is determined by the distance travelled by the light ( Beer-Lambert law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer-Lambert_law ). When the lite strikes the sensor at the normal angle the distance travelled by light in the filter is exacly the thikness of the filter. For acute angles the effective distance and the filter effect are bigger. For the 15mm lens the effective thikness of the filter in the corner is about 50% larger. It means that if the filter stops say 95% of infrared light in the center it will stop 99% in the corner. I beleive that for the wide angle lenses the magenta thing should go away in the corners. Does anybode care to verify this?
The catch with the absorption filters is that they cut into the red chanel. The green line below is the transmission function of a 2mm thick 489 IR filter. Because this effect depends on the effective thikness it becomes worse in the corners. I think that the cyan cast for noncoded wide angle lenses is exactly this - absorbed red chanel. And the correct it if the they know the focal length. And if they made the filter thick enough for IR the loss of the red chanel would have been urecoverable.
Thanks Pondria - that's a very nice thing to say. I think that I come over as more abrasive than I am and that's why I manage to wind people up without meaning to. I really just want to share information with all of the well informed people here, like yourself. For me agreement is not essential: I learn most from those with whom I don't completely agree. But I also want to be rigorous in that learning and I think a culture in which we are all prepared to support our views and alter them when good evidence is provided by others is conducive to rigorous learning. I have never meant to offend anyone, despite not always agreeing with everything said here. I have enjoyed this thread and learned a lot despite the fact that it has been a disappointment to some. Maybe it's just that you can't step in the same river twice.
Guy Mancuso wrote:
I'm just flat out tried of this stuff , want to enjoy my holiday with my family and it is all nonsense to me anymore. That all .have a great Holiday
Just not interested in this debate.
You are not serious, right ?
Well, every other day you say you are tired of this thread. And you are still found on this thread next day.
Happy holidays !
Pondria wrote:
I dont know how many of you have their cameras calibrated.
I havent and my Nikon, Canon and Leica all have different chracter.
The greens of the Nikon look a little different, the 5D doesnt do so well with red/orange tones and the DMR just looks overall a bit more saturated. The funny thing is if I push saturation of 5d or d2x files they start to look kind of unbalanced.
Another interesting thing is if I shoot the white side of my greycard which should work for white balance and do white balance on this card all three cameras still seem to have a different look in overall color.
They might look closer if they all were calibrated, but I dont believe they will look the same....Show more →
t_streng wrote:
the 5D doesnt do so well with red/orange tones and the DMR just looks overall a bit more saturated. The funny thing is if I push saturation of 5d or d2x files they start to look kind of unbalanced.
I think that might have more to do with the Canon lenses than the body. I've been using Zeiss lenses almost exclusively on 5D since I got it, and found that reds come thorugh quite nice nicely. I have a couple Canon lenses now but don't use them (perhaps I should do a test...). Here is an image I posted on this page of the Alternative Image thread that had a red sofa in it: https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/385342/183 This image (taken with a Zeiss N 24-85mm Vario-Sonnar) was not adjusted beyond a stock conversion in Canon's software and the red in the image is quite faithful to the actual red of the sofa.
I have found that on occasion, although the reds from my 5D look nice as they are in the file, there is almost no definition in them, if they are intense, and I cannot move the data around much before it just looks like bright red mud. I have a picture of a tulip like this.
I agree that red's are terrible with the 5D. I also wondered if it was the camera or the lens. probably both: using lenses with different color cast attenuates the ugly red sensor effect. Leica's deifinitively have the nices reds, IMHO, with the Zeiss, you have to pay for the improvement with an overall cooler color cast.
carstenw wrote:
I have found that on occasion, although the reds from my 5D look nice as they are in the file, there is almost no definition in them, if they are intense, and I cannot move the data around much before it just looks like bright red mud. I have a picture of a tulip like this.
Carsten: What raw converter do you use, what colorspace and bit-depth do you convert to out of raw and what space do you edit in?
What's common in 5D and 1DsII calibrations that I have seen so far is that Red Hue and Saturation need much more correction than Green than Blue. For instance for my 1DsII;
Red-Sat=30, Red-Hue=-18, G-Sat=10, G-Hue=-7, B-Sat=-3 and B-Hue=2.
Just FYI, for my Friend's Nikon D70, Here is what I got
27, -15, 28, 17, 8, -2 - It needed more correction in Green than Red.
If you just play with overall Saturation slider on the first tab, you won't get the right amount of saturation across the board. This is one of the reasons that I cannot easily accept certain Camera body produces more Saturated images than another. It's all about RAW setting. RAW setting has 1000 times more power than any lens+sensor combo can do.
It's not all about the raw settings as I have treid to explain to you before - if one sensor has a bigger gamut than another then the advantage cannot be made up by post processing. Also the Hand S sliders in ACR are petty crude so an adjustment that acheives a certain colour saturation in a bold colour may totaly destroy the subtle differences in another - power is not the same as control.
shirozina wrote:
It's not all about the raw settings as I have treid to explain to you before - if one sensor has a bigger gamut than another then the advantage cannot be made up by post processing.
Regardless of Gamut, as long as the patches are within the smaller Gamut, both cameras will be calibrated same way, although wider Gamut camera can capture more saturated colors that smaller Gamut one may overblow.
Calibration is not post-processing. Actually, in digital I don't know what is Pre and Post any more. M8 does more sophisticated processing in-camera than any other RAW converter would
Also the Hand S sliders in ACR are petty crude so an adjustment that acheives a certain colour saturation in a bold colour may totaly destroy the subtle differences in another - power is not the same as control.
Agreed. That was also my point.
Pondria wrote:
[Regardless of Gamut, as long as the patches are within the smaller Gamut, both cameras will be calibrated same way, although wider Gamut camera can capture more saturated colors that smaller Gamut one may overblow.
That's assuming that both cameras have a similar color response within the shared gamut area. I don't think that's the case with digital. The color response curve for any range of color(s) may not be linear for any given CCD, and definately not identical from one type of CCD to another. It may not even be identical from camera to camera with the same CCD! The mathematical value for the color will be there (because it's digital), but the true color requested by the value may not be. The CCD itself, associated electronics, and firmware, all determine the final result. Camera manufacturers may even decide to mute some color response intentionally to improve noise performance (supress noisy parts of the color gamut).
carstenw wrote:
Well, I went and pestered my dealer again today, asking this time for a *reason* that my M8 was taking longer to come back than other units shipped to Leica later than mine. Apparently there was a defective piece in it which took a while to come back into stock. I wonder what that was?
Anyway, I got my 50 Lux Asph back. It still feels a little stiff to focus, especially with the little focus-nub. Does anyone have one which is butter-smooth?
I have a butter smooth one Carsten but it went back to Leica N.J. twice to finally have it right. Mine was really a problem because the stiffness only occurred at certain places on the focus ring. I suspect it was a lubrication problem but I am not sure because Leica repair gives no details on what they did. The lens just shows up one day and that is it. No notification that it was shipped at all. Howevew to give credit where deserved, I have sent 8 lenses to Leica for coding and CLA and several DMR bodies for repairs, and have never had a problem. I guess I just get nervous when I have $25K in lenses in for repair and other than an invoice no communications until the lenses arrive back at my house again.
> ...When properly profiled and/or calibrated, a camera should generate identically matching values for standard color patches, for instance, like Macbeth chart. Be it 5D or DMR, it should yield the same Target RGB values for all 24 color patches. If NOT, it is producing wrong colors.
From this perspective, How one camera can generate better tone, color and saturation than the other ? Once properly calibrated, every camera should generate the same tone, color or saturation. What am I missing here ?
A sensor with a gamut of only 24 colours, each of which happen to be one of the Macbeth chart colours would pass the calibration test beautifully, but only be capable of saving shockingly posterised images.
As the number of colours between any two colours is reduced, loss of colour graduation, a.k.a. 'posterisation', will hurt the veracity of the image, where those colours need to be recorded. That kind of failure can't easily be fixed in post.
Richard et al, re: Colors,
Before spending time and energy to debate on the colors in academic level. Let me first make my point clear. My level is low and naive It seems that I am not communicating well.
My point is that;
A photographer used the default or a preset setting of his RAW converter. And he claims Camera A gives more Saturated colors than Camera B. Well, just by selecting another preset or curves or knobs, he could have had different colors. Different profiles or calibration would have created different colors, too. What really is inherent to the specific camera here ?
For instance, someone above mentioned that 5D produces poor Red. ( No offense please ) I'm like, "Dude, I'm telling you that you have wrong calibration !". Right calibration will give you the better Red.
You are not serious, right ?