[Leica] Digital Leica M

[michael.francis at gs.com (Francis, Michael)]

Doesn't correcting for light fall off imply that the information at the
periphery of the image will be at a higher effective ISO and hence far
more noisy than the central part? So unless Leica is able to squeeze
lower noise out of the sensor (assuming a 1 stop falloff) an ISO 400
image would only be ISO 400 in the middle and ISO 800 at the periphery
... and even the Canon's struggle with noise when they are that slow. I
suspect that new 'digital optimized' lenses will be a requirement for
high ISO shooting at wide angles. Time will tell and I hope they get it
right as I'd love to be able to use my M Leica stuff for digital. 

Mike

  
-----Original Message-----
From: lug-bounces+michael.francis=gs.com@leica-users.org
[mailto:lug-bounces+michael.francis=gs.com@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of
Henning Wulff
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2006 1:05 PM
To: Leica Users Group
Subject: Re: [Leica] Digital Leica M

At 2:43 PM +0100 6/15/06, Peter Dzwig wrote:
>I can't help feeling that these dots and in-camera s/w adjustments 
>smack more than a little of a job not done properly. An attempt to be 
>"better" than the RD-1/1s that hasn't come off? Does the need for 
>adjustment hint at some basic incompatibility between Leica's design 
>and the M lenses? If Epson can build the RD-1 without this "dotting"
>why do Leica need it and a new mount.
>
>Sorry to say that I have this feeling that the "M-8" may only be a 
>half-way house to something else.
>
>Peter Dzwig

If the 8 bits can trigger certain software (or firmware) algorithms to
correct for falloff due to the angle of incidence on the sensor, and
possibly also to correct CA and other lens issues, then Leica has done
something useful. With the RD-1, you do this in post processing by
manually selecting options in the Epson software (which is poor like
most of the camera manufacturer's efforts) or Photoshop.

Epson didn't do a 'better' job; they just avoided the issues, as you can
do with the Leica by not getting the dots put on. No big deal.

Note that my assumptions about correcting for fall-off and CA are just
that; there could be other things that the dots are for but those two
are two of the most obvious. In any case, just because Leica does this
and Epson did not doesn't imply a failing on Leica's part, it just
implies that Leica is trying to make this same correction issue more
convenient. It also doesn't mean that shooting will be slower; image
processing has come a long way since the RD-1 came out, and that camera
certainly wasn't at the sharp end of development with respect to
processing speed.

Maybe the Leica won't be better than the Epson; most likely it will. 
The dots or lack thereof imply neither.

Justifiying the price is another matter and has little to do with the
above.

-- 
    *            Henning J. Wulff
   /|\      Wulff Photography & Design
  /###\   mailto:henningw@archiphoto.com
  |[ ]|     http://www.archiphoto.com

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