[Leica] M8 RAW--high ISO improvement!

[Peter Klein]

No argument there, Nathan--the Fujis do an amazing job in low light.  I'm
just pointing out a way to extend the M8's low light abilities. My E-M5 is
a little too laggy to be a real decisive-moment camera.  I often prefer RF
focusing and direct optical viewing in low light situations. If I can get
it with a little computer-geek sleight of hand, why not?  The jury is still
out on whether the con side is worth it--i.e, the buffer limitations and
the fact that you have to turn off battery save to avoid losing the RAW
setting.  But so far, it looks promising. And it's cheaper than blowing $7
or $8K for an M240 or an MM.

--Peter

On Tue, Mar 10, 2015 at 1:31 PM, Nathan Wajsman <photo at frozenlight.eu>
wrote:

> When the light is good (i.e. ISO less than or equal to 640) then my M8 is
> the best camera I have ever owned. And so that is the camera I use much of
> the time around Alicance, a rather sunny place. But when the light is not
> so good, then my Fuji X-T1 is far superior, and so this is the camera I am
> taking to Brussels next week, to Geneva the week after that and to Paris
> that week after that—because those are business trips and so most of my
> photography will be after sunset.
>
> Cheers,
> Nathan
>
> Nathan Wajsman
>
> Alicante, Spain
> http://www.frozenlight.eu
> http://www.greatpix.eu
> PICTURE OF THE WEEK: http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws
> Blog: http://nathansmusings.wordpress.com/
>
> Cycling: http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/belgiangator
>
> YNWA
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On 10 Mar 2015, at 21:22, Peter Klein <boulanger.croissant at gmail.com>
> 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.
> >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Leica Users Group.
> > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>