[Leica] Comparison of M8 Photos in Infra-Red

[rdandcb at home.netspeed.com.au (Rick Dykstra)]

Henning,

your findings and letter to Stephan Daniel would be of great interest  
to the Leica Users Forum - Digital section.  The reaction would be  
like throwing handfuls of pellets into a well stocked trout pond.  Or  
a side of pork into a pirahna pond.

But only do this if you are feeling strong.  :-)

Rick.


On 20/11/2006, at 6:57 PM, Henning Wulff wrote:

>> David,
>>
>> It was interesting to read about your test.
>>
>> It gave me a much better understanding of the (then) rather  
>> cryptic wishes expressed by Henning: "If there ever comes a  
>> dedicated B&W M8 with special IR sensitivity, then I will be  
>> interested" - or something to that effect.
>>
>> And I now understand that the self-induced censorship may not only  
>> have been confined to Michael Reichmann et al.
>>
>> Mads
>
> Not at all. Nothing cryptic. Just a straightforward preference for  
> a specialized tool that would be better at its task than anything  
> else out there.
>
> That had nothing to do with the 'magenta' IR effect. It's just that  
> I mostly use my M's to shoot B&W, and a dedicated B&W camera can  
> produced much better B&W images than one that is basically a colour  
> camera. No bayer pattern which means greater sensitivity and  
> greater resolution with less artifacts. Also the rumours suggested  
> a higher pixel density. A totally win-win situation for me. If it  
> also kept the IR sensitivity, it would be an almost ideal M camera  
> for me.
>
> If there had not been the slight promise of this B&W digital M, I  
> would have ordered and taken delivery of an M8 by now. And I would  
> have been happy with it. I noticed the high IR sensitivity the  
> first weekend I used the camera, when I took pictures at a family  
> gathering where someone wore a black t-shirt, which exhibited the  
> magenta cast. I've shot enough extended spectra stuff over the  
> years to make the connection, and hauled out my IR filters right  
> away, and was delighted with the results. I posted most of this  
> information before, and also wrote Stefan Daniels about the results  
> of my testing.
>
> At that time I didn't know what might still be done with the  
> firmware, but I knew it had to something pretty creative as I  
> didn't think that the 'colour accuracy' issue could be fixed that way.
>
> What I sent him, in part, was this:
>
> ----------------------------------------
>
> 3. With regard to the very strong Infrared sensitivity that I've  
> noted; I assume that the production M8 will have the same  
> characteristic as that is not something that is firmware related.  
> That is something that I'm very interested in, as I've been  
> shooting infrared material for decades, and with film it's always  
> been a huge aggravation and cost, considering the need to always  
> bracket. I did, however, notice that especially under tungsten  
> light the colour accuracy was affected. Again, for my use that is  
> less important than the useability in the infrared region. Please  
> keep the infrared sensitivity.
>
> ----------------------------------------
>
> The only thing is that I got the camera fairly late in day, in that  
> what was presented was that the camera was final in its physical  
> form, and only the firmware had yet to be finalized (version 0.23).  
> So the information I sent Stefan Daniels definitely got to him too  
> late to change much. He could have maybe gotten his superiors to  
> delay the launch at that point, but not much else. He must have  
> known about the spectral response before. In any case, at that time  
> the inertia of the whole thing would probably have been immense.
>
> I still feel the same way, and would rather use hot filters over  
> the lenses than compromise the IR sensitivity. Obviously, I'm in  
> the minority in this.
>
> I'm not a wedding photographer, nor fashion photographer, nor any  
> of the other areas were the use of a hot filter is a big pain and/ 
> or a ridiculous expense on top of an already overly expensive  
> camera. My use, and particularly the B&W use would not be adversely  
> affected by good IR response.
>
> -- 
>    *            Henning J. Wulff
>   /|\      Wulff Photography & Design
>  /###\   mailto:henningw@archiphoto.com
>  |[ ]|     http://www.archiphoto.com
>
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