rscheffler wrote:
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. ...Show more →
Lightroom specific. I will PM you instructions and the profile file.
Mine is coded as a cron ASPH, as the lens diagram is the most like the C-Biogon I figured the exit pupil location and resultant angle of incidence would be the closest. Very rarely get red edge.
Charles, agree, 3 looks (without being there) to be the most natural. I've been debating ordering the cc passport, think I will now, results are tangible and positive it seems.
Singletrack- I like the shot out of the back window a lot, but I can't help but wish the composition was a bit more to the left..either way good stuff.
@all - you're making it very difficult for me not to buy an m9, the saving grace is that I know it's more about seeing things than gear (but I'm in the camp that gear matters as well as skill). I may not be posting too much for a bit, but I'm checking daily for inspiration. Well done to all.
Luka, that shot that makes you laugh is deserving of its own print IMO. It may tell more than the print subject, which is excellent.
Thanks to everyone here, I really enjoy this thread.
kidtexas wrote:
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.
You are probably right, just like some Canon users believe themselves to have hit the motherlode once they start buying L glass These kinds of people exist for every brand.
I still see a big difference between the Noctilux and the Nokton wide open. The Noctilux has this special veil of softness over sharpness look, like the 75 Lux or the 35 Cron IV, etc. It is not low contrast. The Nokton is low contrast and a little soft.
Edward, the results normally are more pronounced. This has been known as blushed or sunburnt look (not too untypical for this time of year ). If you look at #4 the chest seems sunburnt or flushed. Sometimes this is very pronounced in mixed lighting, but I am very pleased with the X Rite profiles now. It is very quick to incorporate it in the workflow.
Keeping the thread flowing, a portrait shot with the 90 Elmarit
Nice shot Charles, did the lens just come home? Yes, the 3rd shot looks most natural to me, still a tad little greenish, but it could be my monitor calibration. 2nd shot greenish, 4th too pinkish. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Joe No the lens has not come home yet The 3rd shot should not be greenish, though it was shot under mixed lighting. The hair now looks natural as what I perceive it to be
I finally manged to make some time to go out and shoot and the weather was quite nice (i.e. not absurdly cold). I have not had time to process the shots yet, but I'll post some later.
Very interesting discussion about colors. I'm using a custom DNG profile in lightroom instead of the embedded one but I can't really say that I'm too pleased with the results. Apart from a typcially green/yellow cast there's also the question of tonality. The colors on the M9 are much more "thin" or "transparent" than they are on a 5DII in the same way 5DII colors are much more "thin" and "transparent" than the "thick" rendering of a Sony A900. I'm using quotation marks as I have no idea how to describe it in proper technical terms. The M9 < 5D < A900 comparison is the best I can make.
Rumorex Sigma evil with m mount. Interesting news if true. Looks like a smaller sensor but it would be nice to have more options for m mount. foveon color is great, printing big could be an issue I guess. Sorry if this is too off topic.
Charles, I agree that #3 looks the most pleasing and has a nice warm feel. To my eye it is a touch on the yellow side, but it's very, very minor and is my personal preferences at play.
The Adobe profile isn't all that bad IMO. It's a tad cool and lower in saturation due to the additional cyan in the skin tones. Cyan will have a dual cooling and desaturating effect on any warmer colours.
As a bit of an aside, skin tones can be very subjective, based on my 10 years working in prepress. Give five prepress techs the same file and each will analyze and tweak it differently. I've visited Taiwan a few times and on occasion browsed sample albums of high end wedding studios in the bigger cities. I'm not sure it can be described as a pan-Asian preference but I noticed that most wedding photos had a strong tendency towards pinkish skin tones, whereas the reality is Asian skin tones typically shift towards yellow. My GF says this is because people want to 'look fresh' in their wedding photos and a pinkish bias is one way to show this. She also spends a lot of time browsing Japanese cosmetics websites, etc. and says her feeling is it's even more prevalent in Japan to shift skin towards a very strong pink bias in glamour and entertainment type photos. Maybe Adam can comment on this for the Singapore market?
I would guess that built-in colour profiles are biased in certain directions. While it's purely my speculation that Leica might intentionally shift towards pink/magenta, one has to remember that a huge percentage of their market is in Asia. From my years of experience with the Canon system and use of their DPP RAW converter for most of that time, the portrait picture style is strongly biased towards pink/magenta skin tones and I can only assume it's geared towards the preferences of the Japanese market.
This was also a bit of a debate during the film era when Fuji became more popular in North America. Their film tended towards cooler, pinker skin tones than Kodak emulsions.
Another ZM 35 2.8 photo. I was a bit slow to see this shot, with the older woman in the spot of sunlight, and it ended up being a bit tight, cutting into the Frauenkirche steeples. Also perhaps a bit on the yellow side, but it was very warm late afternoon sunlight.
thrice wrote:
Lightroom specific. I will PM you instructions and the profile file.
Mine is coded as a cron ASPH, as the lens diagram is the most like the C-Biogon I figured the exit pupil location and resultant angle of incidence would be the closest. Very rarely get red edge.
Thanks Dan, I'll give the Cron ASPH a shot and it will be interesting to see how the profile works out.
Regarding the red edge - it's the #@$!! lens coding. I'm having problems with primarily the 18/4 but also the 25/2.8 with ink coding rubbing off and producing an incorrectly interpreted code. In the case of the 25/2.8 it should have been coded as a 24 Elmarit but is instead been coded as a 24/3.8. In the case of the 18/4 it was incorrectly coded as a 28 Elmarit insead of a 21 Elmarit - producing some really nasty color shifts. I have however a decent corner fix profile for the 18/4 so I fix the images that way.
Luka, preference to the 18/4, 50 Sonnar shots. Don't want coding issues? Buy a coded Leica lens
Ron, I can't say about Canon/ Leica preferring colors to suit Asian market as North America and Europe is still a huge market for them. From my experience, yes, Asian/Oriental women tend to want to look "fair/white" with a touch of rosy cheeks (signs of good wellbeing?), so desaurated and slightly pinkish looking skin tones are for them. Its all cultural biases when it comes to color. Just my 2c.
joe88 wrote:
Luka, preference to the 18/4, 50 Sonnar shots. Don't want coding issues? Buy a coded Leica lens
Aha, so that's why people keep buying the Leica lenses. I knew there had to be a reason. I personally appreciate good coding like the next guy but it isn't exactly my first priority when choosing a lens. For instance the color of the plastic blue dot on the lens
Joakim, nice - I approve of the ducks
One more set of one image per lens in my kit:
This last one was shot a few days ago when the light was very nice:
Thanks Luka Excellent shots!!! Great work with all the lenses. My favourites are with the 50 Sonnar and 75 Cron I loving the snow scene with the ZM 18 in first set too.
Luka, yes I am now using a number of custom profiles in different lighting and lenses, and this seems to work well now. Still learning...
Ron, very nice shot! Thank you for your perspective It is excellent to have people with experience in colour management. Colour management is important per se, regardless of gear, but with the M9 it is so important to have a workflow that works
Joakim, great shots!!! The great bokeh must be the 50 Lux
Regarding color management, I'm a bit surprised that there are not any online repositories of DNG profiles, cornerfix profiles etc A lot of people seem to be constantly reinventing the wheel.
Great image sets joakim and Luka! I liked the Swedish Christmas market images, as it's an interesting contrast to what I'm used to whenever I'm in Germany at this time of year.
A few days ago in Munich at the Christmas market in Marienplatz (before the snow storm hit later in the day):
ZM 21 f/2.8 at either f/8 or f/11 to get some depth of field. In hindsight I should have tried one wide open to see the difference, but I didn't want to wear out my welcome standing in the vendor's stall with no intention to buy.
Luka, I'm curious about your experiences with the 18 as it's a lens that interests me too. Have you been shooting it mainly stopped down, and if so, by how much? How is edge/corner performance wide open, etc.?
As I think I've mentioned before, the ZM 21 2.8 is somewhat soft towards the corners wide open but is very nice by f/5.6. That assessment is based on near infinity shooting. I've been using it lately for near subjects (people rather than landscapes) and have the feeling that it loses a bit in central sharpness when shot wide open and very close, though I've also been using it primarily at ISO 1250 and higher in those situations, which probably also affects sharpness/resolution.
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.
These kinds of people exist for every brand.
The 3rd shot should not be greenish, though it was shot under mixed lighting. The hair now looks natural as what I perceive it to be 
