[Leica] Digi Low Light

[Will von Dauster <vondauster@earthlink.net>]

Hi All,

On Sunday, June 29, 2003, at 07:10 AM, Tina Manley wrote:

> Digital is not there yet for low-light, but it's getting there.  I 
> love the depth of field of the M lenses and doubt that can be 
> duplicated in digital, but you never know!

I would have agreed with Tina on this without reservation until my 
recent acquisition of a Canon 10D, after playing with - er, evaluating 
- - one owned by friend Bill Nelsch.

Its low light performance is, in a word, excellent. To my eyes it 
matches film through ISO 800, and produces usable if pixelated images 
at ISO 1600. At ISO 400 it is at least as good as film for my purposes, 
perhaps better.

Dynamic range is also vastly superior to my previous digis, both the 
Olympus E-10 and E-20n. Remember that dynamic range must match the best 
scanned range available to the photographer, not necessarily the range 
of the film itself. Even so I am hard pressed to tell which is better 
(Nikon IVED), in itself a tremendous improvement.

Speed of image acquisition, focus, shutter delay, write time, etc, all 
match or beat the Canon film bodies I have used (1N, 7E, etc). It is a 
fully competent professional tool. I am shooting much much less film 
now than 6 weeks ago.

As for the digital resolution subject, 6.3 MP is plenty for my 
purposes. I have 20 x 30 inch prints (Epson 9500P) from these files 
that are stunning. Leica's 10 MP sensor will provide, if competently 
implemented, plenty of image for cropping and printing at any size one 
is likely to need. A 40 MP camera would simply require me to throw away 
a great deal of data.

And, of course, it is a simple matter to create an aperture-priority 
"Leica" using the Novoflex adapter and Leica R lenses using this - much 
lighter than a 1Ds - body.

Find one and play with it and the files you get, if you're interested 
in digital. It is an eye-opener.

Will von Dauster
Denver

(Who is keeping his M outfits and his Dad's IIc)

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