I've posted some M9 impressions on my blog (www.derrickchoo.com/blog/) with some photographs from a recent trip.
M9 Impressions
- Thread starter Derrick
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Royale With Cheese
Senior Member
I prefer the Myanmar pictures you had at the bottom of the page, beautiful work of art! :thumbsup:
third3rdwheel
New Member
Derrick,
Thanks for sharing your impressions of the M9. I am considering adding a digital M to my equipment and certainly benefitted from your insights. Regards.
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lovely captures with the m9.
thanks for sharing. :thumbsup:
iso1600 would indeed be a major improvement in terms of versatility of the M9 vs the M8s.
and agree with RWC, myanmar pics are really good!
gommy
Senior Member
Thanks for the comments. For Myanmar, i used 2 M8s with a 28mm Summicron on 1 body and an old 50mm pre-asph summilux on the other. 28mm was used 80% of the time with the 50mm mainly for portraits. This setup kinda mirrors what i was using with the film Ms (35mm & 75mm).
I did not take alot of photos using 1600 cos it was bright enough most times and shooting wide open (f1.4) i could get acceptable shutter speeds. I think i have some shots at 1600 with a shutter speed of around 1/8 sec. Will have a look see. ISO 1600 on the M9 is acceptable for me (coming from a b&w film background) where i love the look of b&w grain. Part of my workflow actually introduces grain into the images from the M8. If you are coming from looking at Nikon and Canon high ISO images, there's no debate, the Nikons and Canons are much much better. I use a 5DM2 for the times when the lighting is too low that i need high ISO (e.g. 1600 to 3200) and a fast lens (f1.4) in order to get acceptably sharp photos. So really depends on what the situation calls for. ;p
As for point and shoots, i normally use one to take photos of the food i eat when traveling or using the video function. Their quality is definitely improving, especially at higher ISOs but they don't do too well when blowing up for printing and there are limitations esthetically (e.g. DOF) due to the smaller sensor. Anyway, it is really hard to compare quality of cameras and lenses online. My test is normally actually prints. ;p
I did not take alot of photos using 1600 cos it was bright enough most times and shooting wide open (f1.4) i could get acceptable shutter speeds. I think i have some shots at 1600 with a shutter speed of around 1/8 sec. Will have a look see. ISO 1600 on the M9 is acceptable for me (coming from a b&w film background) where i love the look of b&w grain. Part of my workflow actually introduces grain into the images from the M8. If you are coming from looking at Nikon and Canon high ISO images, there's no debate, the Nikons and Canons are much much better. I use a 5DM2 for the times when the lighting is too low that i need high ISO (e.g. 1600 to 3200) and a fast lens (f1.4) in order to get acceptably sharp photos. So really depends on what the situation calls for. ;p
As for point and shoots, i normally use one to take photos of the food i eat when traveling or using the video function. Their quality is definitely improving, especially at higher ISOs but they don't do too well when blowing up for printing and there are limitations esthetically (e.g. DOF) due to the smaller sensor. Anyway, it is really hard to compare quality of cameras and lenses online. My test is normally actually prints. ;p
third3rdwheel
New Member
Haha, they say great minds think alike right? :cheers:
I actually like shallow DOF. ;p Yup, noise for digital and grain for film. Dunno about the noise in the M9 being more pleasing. Might just be a way for some people to convince themselves that its not as bad as it looks. For me, i don't mind the noise if the detail is still in the image. Noise which is splotchy i don't like. Different people will have different thresholds for noise tolerance and the look of noise from different cameras. For me, the M8 is usable up to ISO 640 and the M9 seemed ok up to ISO 1600.
Royale With Cheese
Senior Member
I guess that depends on the focusing distance as well wouldnt it? Wide open at F1.4 but distance closer to infinity it isnt that shallow right? :dunno:
pls correct me if i'm wrong here...
my layman "IT idiot" assessment is that the pixel density of the 2 cameras are the same (2.1 MP/cm²), abeit that the m9 has more pixels (18mp for the m9 vs 10mp for the m8). so aside from digital noise algorithms, the 100% view results from 2 sensors should be pretty much identical (be it that m9 output would be 5212x3472 vs 3936x2630 for the m8), meaning the noise should be the same(?)
might it be that when you view the pictures from the M9 and M8 which are both reduced to
the same size e.g. 1800x1200, the viewing of the m9 picture (5212x3472) having more information to compensate for details to "cover" away some of the noise, is more pleasing that the m8 (3936x2630)? thus explaining the difference between the iso1600 and iso640?
anyone "understanding" me here? :dunno:
what u say makes sense - what you are saying here is that the noise performance for M8 and M9 should be similar.
but remember being digital, the processor contributes a lot to the IQ.
a very common example is that of the sony a900 and the D3x. both use the same sensor. but D3x noise performance is leaps and bounds better compared to sony's simply because of the nikon's proprietary processor.
Derrick
:thumbsup: Beautiful photos and thanks for the effort in putting ur thoughts together. I am interested in a range-finder type camera, i'd like to know on a 35-50mm lens, what is the lowest hand-held shutter speed u can achieve? I assume it should be lower than 1/focal length rule of thumb.
:thumbsup: Beautiful photos and thanks for the effort in putting ur thoughts together. I am interested in a range-finder type camera, i'd like to know on a 35-50mm lens, what is the lowest hand-held shutter speed u can achieve? I assume it should be lower than 1/focal length rule of thumb.
Yah, they probably improved the way they process the files. The hardware is also not identical. I was actually hoping that Leica would improve the ISO performance to the level of the Nikons and Canons. Now hoping that they would work on the ISO performance of the M8/8.2 to improve it too with a firmware upgrade but think it will be unlikely.
Kinda depends. With my M6 it was normally 1/8 sec with a 35mm lens. Sharpness and camera shake was not so noticeable using film. With the M8 it was 1/20 to 1/30 sec with a 28mm lens cos the shutter seems to introduce alot of vibration. With the M8.2/M9 it is back to 1/8 sec cos the shutter does not have much vibration. With the M9 there's also a soft release function where you just press the shutter down a bit and it will fire (i.e. don't need to push all the way down) which allows you to hand hold at slower speeds. I tried out the function but did not get used to it.
Whatever it is, it will also depend on the subject u are taking lah. ;p A person can have the ability to hand hold at 1/4 sec but no use if the subject is hyperactive kids.
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