On Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 7:32 AM, Darren Addy <[email protected]> wrote: > Not terribly often one gets to bash a Leica (or is it)? > Still, if one is gonna spend $7K for a body, one would probably hope > for better results than this... > http://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2012/07/lens-cast-calibration/
There was never any statement that the Leica digital rangefinder would work well with all lenses. Creating an interchangeable camera than can work with MOST existing lenses and that can obtain excellent quality is amazing, something that people who understand digital imaging systems marvel at. The issue is the one that most of the SLR community pooh-poohs as being a non-issue: the PRIMARY difference between film and digital sensor as recording medium is the sensitivity to the direction of light falling on the sensor. Due to SLR mount registers and the fact that most DSLRs use a smaller format sensor, the issue is largely under control. The CV Heliar 15 and Heliar 12 lenses are two of the MOST difficult lenses to make work well with a digital sensor, due to both their extremely short focal length and the specific optical design they use. The primary nodal point is very close to the imaging plane, the worst case for a digital sensor, which causes the color shifting and vignetting you see. People willing to spend the money for a Leica M9 understand this if they have any sense, and they either choose lenses more appropriate for the camera or make use of other tools (CornerFix is one of them) that do the appropriate post-capture massaging of the raw data as required. Leica only supports their own lenses with the in-camera correction processing ... some of those corrections work well enough with the CV and Zeiss lenses, but in some cases they do not. (The Ricoh GXR M-mount camera unit, having been designed for an arbitrary range of lenses mostly not their own, AND with a smaller sensor, has in it a vignetting and color shift processor that works on the raw data and allows you to apply the appropriate corrections in camera. They are saved to both raw and JPEG files.) Put the Leica lenses on the M9 that Leica has created optimizations for, or use CornerFix, and the quality is breathtaking ... "medium format" in many respects. You can't get that by using just any old lens, designed for a different recording medium, on the camera. I have tested my lenses extensively with the M9 and the Ricoh GXR-M. I find that some of my favorites, like the Skopar 28 and 21, need almost no correction on the GXR-M but require that I use CornerFix on the M9. Yet once I pass them through a CornerFix optimization, the M9 exposures are just plain amazing in quality. Trade-offs ... it's inconvenient at least. But having seen what it can do, and appreciating it, much of what I once thought was excellent performance on the SLRs is only "satisfactory". Godfrey - godfreydigiorgi.posterous.com - [email protected] Announcing "Ways Together" .. my new photo book! See it on Blurb at http://www.blurb.com/user/GDGPhoto Come to the reception and book-signing: ModernBook Gallery 49 Geary Ave, San Francisco, CA August 2nd, 5:30-7:30 pm -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
