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 p.11 #2 · Sony NEX as a Leica M8 alternative | |
thrice wrote:
Joakim you sure seem to have a strong opinion about M8/M9 and their incompetently designed (albeit quite different) sensor systems.
Just to clarify a few of your not quite qualified statements.
I'm sure it will be a great sensor but there is very little information to class it as 'brilliant' before any real shots from the system have been taken and shared by real photographers.
It has a high ISO advantage over m4/3, do you have some other information with regards to dynamic range, low ISO noise and sharpness that you aren't sharing? Colour reproduction would be quite a definite factor in my evaluation of a sensor, and how it deals with high incident angles. Which leads me to the next point.
The angles of incidence on the M9, having a full frame sensor can be as extreme as 45 degrees to the film plane, or even more severe on the Hologon for example.
There are no vignetting issues with the M9, it vignettes exactly as film did with the same lenses. I have first hand experience with this. Please share your experience if it is to the contrary.
Leica also chose a thinner IR filter as a thicker one would degrade image clarity and contrast, this may be to blame for the red colour shift on the M9.
We also don't know if Sony are using software correction for known lenses in-camera. Leica employ a similar system for their own system lenses (which works great for all "Leica" lenses except the 21mm super angulon), and we might get a nasty surprise when we mount alt glass on these NEX cameras, but no one knows for sure. The cropped format will certainly help though.
The "smearing" in the corners on the NEX could be a result of simply transplanting the A550 sensor into the NEX cameras without a thought to microlens redesign... But that's unlikely as it's so fundamental in a system with a short registration. The requirement of telecentric lenses on the m4/3 system is one way to avoid colour shift (the severe crop helps as well), and the smearing with ultra-wides like the voigtlander 12mm on the m4/3 cameras is a clear indication that the microlenses don't have an extreme enough offset for such lenses on those cameras.
You do seem to have quite a biased opinion, for someone who comes in guns a-blazing against someone with brand loyalty....Show more →
Sorry for the long quote, but... some points in case:
The Leica IR filter is a thinner version (0.5mm) of the standard plate of the cheapest possible material, the Kyocera BS7. Other manufacturers choose a more expensive plate material that's half the thickness (0.28mm is standard) and still gives better cut-off steepness, better partial refraction index and lower reflection index than the 0.5mm Leica - even in the base models. Here you have half the angle-dependent problem.
So when Leica say "we chose a thinner plate" they're really feeding you a lot of BS, true only in the sense that they could have chosen a broken beerbottle in stead.
The angle-dependent efficiency of the sensor is clearly stated in the (now withdrawn and "classified", probably by Leica request) Kodak spec-sheet for the sensor - and it's "not good" to "really bad" depending on how you compare it to modern constructions. Loss at 25º incidence (with compensating microlenses) is more than twice that of comparable Canon/Sony/Nikon sensors - mostly due to the depth of the cell structure and the low fill-factor. In fact it's a lot worse than the 16x smaller cell compact-camera 1.65micron SONY BSI sensor...
The Leica has built in corner colour and vignette compensation in a firmware database, other manufacturers don't have to do this. Especially the (predictable) colour contamination between the cells would have gotten other brands' developing teams either sent back to the drawing board, or fired. Please do note that the corner colour cast follows the RGGB quad layout symmetry of the Bayer... The birefringence theory that many Leicaphiles state as the cause is purely fictional. Cell-cell leakage before the rays hit the sensor surface proper is the mathematical model that the Leica firmware correction is built after...
So yes, I do have some "personal" problems with the Leica digital bodies. You're paying quite a lot for stuff that's quite outdated, and for really quite low quality electronics in the sensor support functions. Which is too bad, as the system as a whole deserves better - the M-lenses deserve better.
Also note that the new M-lenses (the Summarits) are constructed to move the exit pupil away from the sensorplane - this is why they work better (smaller angle of incidence, higher retrofocal rate).
Regarding colour - yes I do have spectral filter data for the Leica M8 and 9. And they're no better than any of the current crop of entry-level cameras. They DO however have a very different way of handling colour in the postprocessing - less "consumer-oriented" than the normal "best-buy" camera of the month. This makes them "better" as I see it, not some mysterious sensor property (there is no such thing). There are however no reason why you can't process a N/C/S/P entrylevel camera to give the exact same colour (excluding metamerism differences, none being "better" than the other here).
I do however doubt that that ANY FF Bayer-sensor can make full use of the "harder" symmetrical wide-angle large-aperture M lenses. So if you want picture quality, and not just compactness and the right "brand" - choose a retrofocal WA on a FF dslr in stead. This is a new lens-construction constriction that the lens constructors have to learn to cope with.
And I still find it a wonder how many ways people find to make excuses for their favorite brand, no matter which it is. All brands have their followers (although smaller brands tend to have more dogmatic followers), and they all insist on turning a blind eye to weak spots in their system and when they no longer can do that - re-label them as positive personality traits that make them "special". I like the simple and to-the-point label: Defects, to be dealt with. All brands have them, brands who ignore too many of them for too long will die, be liquidated.
Since I do not wish to see Leica go this way, I want them to remedy those defects. If they wanted to do this, they wouldn't use 2002 technology in a 2009 product and charge six grand for it. THAT's my problem with Leica, and what I have a strong opinion about.
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