kidtexas wrote:
Yeah it's not THAT big. I don't imagine it will be a lens I'll carry around just in case. If it's in the bag, I will most likely be using it some. Unlike my 90/4 - that goes on trips and sometimes never comes out. But it's pretty small and light so it's not a big deal.
Do you find the focusing to be stiffer than your other Leica lenses? It's very accurate and precise, just has more damping than my other ones.
I find it marginally stiffer. I find also the 50 Lux Asph, somewhat stiffer too, but with more than 95% keepers wide open for both lenses now... I'm happy
My travel kit will definitely include the 75 Lux, just so good to have the low light abilities for evening shots in the streets.
I thought this may be interesting to share thoughts and feedback, in using ACR raw conversion trying to get the right skin tones. With the M9 auto WB and skin colour is a challenge. Appreciate everyone's input I know this is very subjective When I am using ACR, using the embedded profile and Auto WB in ACR, I usually end with skin tones that have too much magenta, and leaves the skin unnaturally red and blotchy.
Using a combination, of what I have read, the best and most natural skin tones I have found was using these settings:
in ACR RAW: Using embedded profile, and ACR Auto WB if no gray/white available
Hue:
Orange -18
Yellow -18
Blue +18
Saturation
Magenta -40
Here is an example from last night, with these adjustments. Appreciate your thoughts and methods
Charles, I'm using Lightroom to work on M9 RAW files. I'm new to the program, having only started to use it since acquiring the M9 last week, but I do like it for its range of adjustment options, gradations and the ability to brush in localized adjustments.
The first three photos above were all taken at the same subway station in nearly the same spot, so I did a WB from the white baseball cap in the foreground of the first image and tweaked it to where I felt it looked OK, and used that WB for the other two images. The the third image of the people leaving the train was tweaked a bit more to reduce strong yellowishness in skin tones (though the image is still a bit on the yellow side).
The last image was WB off the neutral metal display case beside the couple and then tweaked a bit.
The light in the stations is fluorescent tube and with the click WB I find it often shifts a bit too blue and magenta, whereas the feeling in those stations is a bit more yellowish/greenish, so I try to get back to a slight feel of that after the click-WB.
Regarding skin tone issues and your sample image... the sample is too blue IMO. For blotchy skin I find it's best to move the hue adjustment slider for red to the right, which will shift red tones towards yellow, and the yellow slider to the left, which will shift yellow tones towards red. This will reduce the difference in hue between red and yellow blotches in skin, however it will also shift other red and yellow tones in the image and therefore affect colour accuracy of those areas. The best way to manage this for individual images is as a hue/saturation adjustment layer in Photoshop by masking out everything except the skin areas you want to affect. Set the layer to hue rather than normal. Doing so will shift only the hue values while leaving the luminance values unchanged. If left set to normal the hue shifts will also result in luminance changes that sometimes don't look right.
Blotchy skin is often due to the quality of the light source. For example on-camera flash is fairly blue and if you make the colour balance bluish it pulls a lot of yellow out of the skin tone, resulting in ruddy reddish/magenta skin. Fluorescent lights are also troublesome because they generally aren't full spectrum. Same with mercury vapor and sodium vapor.
Ron, very nice shot! Great balance of light and shadow.
Thank you for you input. Just I thought it might be interesting to share ideas and techniques. Yes I agree the sample shot is too blue. The red/magenta hot spots seem to only happen in ACR and not Capture One. Maybe an algorithm in conversion in ACR.
I shoot AWB on the M9 all the time and adjust the tones by eye on the monitor and LR3, but then again I'm shooting for myself, not for commercial clients. The AWB on my previous M8 is definitely more accurate than my M9.
Skin tones are subjective and different cultures have different biases. The "real" WB might not be to the liking to the subject. Wonder why Velvia is so popular?
For critical shooting, use a white bal card for reference. For fill flash, I always have a warm gel attached all the time, even outdoors.
Ron, I can create a profile for the ZM C-Biogon in daylight for you? Then you just punch it into a specific lightroom folder (I can find out exactly which one if you tell me which OS you're running). Will have to wait until tomorrow (it's night time in Australia at the moment) but it's no trouble and I have a profiling chart and software.
Singletrack, congratulations on the 28 Elmarit Very nice shots. I really like #2
Joe, yes WB and colour is so subjective. The warm gel is almost a necessity I suppose I raised the question, as I am trying to minimize workflow, and maintain consistency with colours under different lighting conditions. I do have the Spyder cube too, which is excellent too. The better method is X rite colour profiler. I know some pro's with the M9 just use daylight WB, and adjust in PP. I love the colours from the M9, as there is so much that can be done with the DNG files.
kidtexas wrote:
CV 35/1.2 - even faster, large, still not that expensive, somewhat low contrast wide open, but as someone once said, "If it had the Leica name on it, people would sing it's praises for eternity" (see Noctilux 50/1 for example). Don't think it has focus shift
I have never heard this said, and from the samples I have seen, I wouldn't agree either. It has it's place, and some like it very much, but it is too low contrast to be a Leica, and the look is different too.
Leica 35/1.4 ASPH (old) - Just like the new one, but has focus shift.
Some do, but not all, and many only have a little. Mine is almost perfect, as are many other chrome and titanium copies, and also some mainly older black copies.
I personally think the 35/2 pre-ASPH's bokeh can be a bit strange at times despite it's nickname.
"The king of boke" you mean? Agreed, anywhere near wide open it is flaky. Mike Johnston wrote that, but although it isn't generally known, he wrote that only for its performance around f/4, where it is sharp and creamy. Look around on his site for his boke essay.
Dan, that would be very generous of you! Do you mean a specific Lightroom profile, or cornerfix? I'm on OSX Snow Leopard. You might have to give me a few basic pointers about how to use a profile in Lightroom as it's new for me. I guess send me a PM or through the 'contact me' link on my website.
I'm curious if you bothered to code your lens and if so, which did you select? I tried the 35 Cron non-ASPH in the M9's menu and currently have the lens hand coded as the 35 Summarit. Either seem to be OK but in some images I still see a slight magenta shift along the lower left side/corner.
Along another tangent, does anyone else have an M9 that doesn't keep accurate time? It seems the clock in mine stops as soon as the camera is turned off or goes to sleep between shots. It's a bit annoying as I'm used to my Canons that keep accurate time and it will be an issue when using it with my Canons to sync photos in chronological order. I'll admit, I haven't read the manual yet...
carstenw wrote:
I have never heard this said, and from the samples I have seen, I wouldn't agree either. It has it's place, and some like it very much, but it is too low contrast to be a Leica, and the look is different too.
You mean like the Noctilux? I think the statement I was referring to also alluded to the fact that if it has the Leica name on it, there is a segment of Leica fans that will love it no matter what and proclaim it as the best thing ever.
Agreed about the king of bokeh thing - It still has the nickname though and some people set their expectations based on that.
denoir wrote:
I don't really have anything new to post - have not had time to shoot the past few days. I did find this photo that made me laugh (I'll explain why):
This is a photo of a 100 cm x 70 cm print from an M9 image and the print looks really nice. Now for what made me laugh: Look at the bottom edges of the first and second window - doesn't it look to you like the windows are "peeling" off the print? That's Zeiss that can't help being a Zeiss, producing 3D where there is really none That scratch seen on the print is also actually just on the printed image and not on the physical print.. ...Show more →
I got the same feeling before reading your post. Amazing.
I know this is very subjective 
