[Leica] M8 RAW--high ISO improvement!

[Ken Carney]

Thanks, I see the issue now.

Ken

On 3/10/2015 3:22 PM, Peter Klein wrote:
> Ken, the uncompressed files were just too big for the M8 electronics to
> handle at any reasonable speed. Reviewers and many users would have
> screamed bloody murder. Leica found that when they compressed the M8 files
> using a square root algorithm, they "couldn't tell the difference" between
> the uncompressed and compressed files.
>
> That was true at low ISO, for files that didn't require much stretching or
> pushing of the dark tones. But as we know, things fall apart above ISO
> 640.  The M8 met Leica's initial goal of getting a digital M into the
> marketplace as a "Kodachrome camera" – one that could utilize most of the
> Leica lenses' image quality, as long as the light was a reasonably good. So
> we ended up with 10 MB compressed files as our only choice. That didn't
> help those of us who regarded the Leica as an available light camera.
>
> IIRC, M9 users have a choice of compressed or uncompressed DNGs, so they
> can get the same advantages without having to mess with extra software.
>
> Nathan's observation tells us exactly why Leica made the decision to go
> with compressed DNGs for the M8. But since I don't have an M240 or MM
> (yet?),  the M8 uncompressed RAW files give me a way to shoot in darker
> dark with what I have now.
>
> --Peter
>
> On Tuesday, March 10, 2015, Nathan Wajsman <photo at frozenlight.eu> wrote:
>
>> Interesting indeed but what you write below is a deal breaker for me.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Nathan
>>
>>
>>> On 10 Mar 2015, at 08:07, Peter Klein <pklein at threshinc.com
>> <javascript:;>> wrote:
>>> The disadvantages are that the files take almost forever to write to the
>> SD card. You can only take a couple of shots before the buffer fills up.
>>
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