Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/02/05
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Tina, Ted, Ted, Unfortunately I have not seen yours. Tina, Your pictures are beautiful, real works of art. >From a technical point of view however, there is strong noise (grain?). It is barely visible and not so disturbing at small size and 72 dpi web resolution. I wonder how these pictures would look when printed in A3 (11x16) size. I wonder if you could upload the original (RAW?) file of one of these pictures for readers to experiment with. Perhaps the whole discussion in this thread was incomplete. When saying that a camera is not good at 800 or higher ISO it is tacitly implied that at these camera settings noise might become too prominent for a "technically perfect" photograph out of the box. We were talking only of technical perfection. In your pictures noise is present but (at least at the resolution/size shown) not disturbing. We accepts the technical imperfection because of the over all impression and beauty of the picture. When we judge modern paintings, we do not look at the technical perfection of the details that we appreciate in a Piero della Francesca, Botticelli or Raffael. We take it for granted that the artist did not care for this "academic" perfection. In photography we do look and discuss technical quality because the medium photography is mainly used to achieve a documentary, realistic reproduction of a subject. If we make abstraction of this praemissum, we are able to appreciate even a Holga picture without being disturbed by the limitations of the tool. Changig subject: The DMR is tuned for maximum technical picture quality (sharpness, dynamic range, color fidelity), for instance by not having a hardware filter in front of the sensor. This technical choice makes for sharper, more detail-rich pictures with a higher dynamic range and microcontrast at the expense of higher noise level at higher in-camera ISO settings. We can overcome the noise problem of the DMR by applying certain techniques, i.e.: - underexposing in the camera by up to 3 EVs and pushing in RAW conversion - performing noise reduction in post processing when necessary Some may say "Why bother if I can achieve good high ISO results straight out of the box". They forget that they pay a price for the better out of the box high ISO performance by having less detail, microcontrast, dynamic range at lower ISO settings. It is like comparing a car with automatic or manual gearshift. Technically, you can achieve better results (lower petrol consumption, higher top speed, better acceleration) with a manual shift transmission used by a good driver. Most people do not care about top performance but prefer easier handling, auto-everything. Peter >These were all shot at 800 or higher. There was no other way to >shoot them. I ate worms at times, too, but I still prefer >photography in low light. ;-) > >http://www.leica-gallery.net/tinamanley/image-29684.html >http://main.nc.us/openstudio/tinamanley/Honduras/kit1.htm >http://main.nc.us/openstudio/tinamanley/Honduras/murillos.htm >http://main.nc.us/openstudio/tinamanley/Honduras/tortilla.htm >http://main.nc.us/openstudio/tinamanley/Honduras/tortilla.htm >http://main.nc.us/openstudio/tinamanley/Honduras/jesusita.htm >http://main.nc.us/openstudio/tinamanley/Honduras/moskito.htm >http://main.nc.us/openstudio/tinamanley/Honduras/maria.htm >http://main.nc.us/openstudio/tinamanley/Honduras/salina.htm >http://main.nc.us/openstudio/tinamanley/Honduras/paulina.htm >http://main.nc.us/openstudio/tinamanley/Honduras/weldi.htm >http://main.nc.us/openstudio/tinamanley/Honduras/ordinand.htm >http://main.nc.us/openstudio/tinamanley/Honduras/amilcar.htm (3200 >for this one! Horrors!) > > >It's really, really dark in Honduras. > >Tina > Naw peter you got it all wrong it's the kind of available light assignments > we shoot or books we produce why we use Leica M7's and R8's. with Leica > glass. > It has nothing to do with how many pictures we take in producing the books > or getting a picture. However in general the latest book, "Women in > Medicine. A Celebration of their Work" was shot on Tri-x at ASA 800 and I'll > admit there were a few locations it would've been very nice to have 3200. > Fortunately my Noctilux came through as usual. ;-) > ted