Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar: Reader Question on Field Curvature (and field curvature in general)

Nicholas W writes:

I appreciate very much the work you are doing on testing the NEX system, given the increasing lens opportunities and the quality of Sony sensors its future is promising.

Let me just suggest you to include some test on subjects that lay on the same focal plane (could that be also at near infinity, as you did with tile rooftops?). The bike, dolls and cabin have great details to look at, but as your last test on Touit vs Sony showed, provide a very uneven focal plane that makes corners very difficult to judge.

To give you an example, I would like to find out how much quality (if any) increase I would get from a 32mm Touit or Sony compared to my actual setup (SpeedBooster + canon 50 1.8). My guess is little both at 1.8 and 5.6 (if I do not consider very extreme portions of corners) but from your tests is very difficult to tell, mainly due to uneven focal planes of your subjects.

One last question, which software do you use, and which settings, in order to get the sharpening seen on your last tests?

DIGLLOYD: As for sharpening, my approaches involve both Adobe Camera Raw and Topaz InFocus, documented in the Workflow section of DAP.

I hope to make some careful studies at a distance soon.

Of the twenty or so 50mm (equiv) lenses I have tested, all but one has field curvature at distance— even what one would hope to be flat field lenses like the Zeiss 50mm f/2 Makro-Planar (corners)*. The solution: shoot at ƒ/5.6 or ƒ/8 for geometrically planar scenes (such as an infinity scene).

The Leica 50mm f/2 APO-Summicron-M is the best corrected 50mm lens I have yet seen (on all counts), though it might have a trace of field curvature judging by the MTF chart at ƒ/2 and ƒ/2.8. Its sibling Summilux has considerable field curvature.

A flat field lens (no field curvature) is rather the exception, especially at 50mm and wider focal lengths. It is not easy to correct field curvature for apertures faster than ƒ/2, and even at ƒ/2 it requires considerable optical effort. All optical designs trade off some benefit for others.

That said, the correction for field curvature is given far too low a priority in optical design, and is second only to focus shift as a imaging “gotcha”. I prefer lenses that are dead-on predictable in every scenario; field curvature undermines that in spades. Hence I would prefer a highly corrected flat-field ƒ/2.8 lens over an ƒ/1.8 or ƒ/2 lens. This is what Sigma has done with the 30mm (45mm equiv) lens on the Sigma DP2 Merrill, and it is a wonderful thing.

* Field curvature is a curved zone of focus, e.g., the nominal plane of focus is actually curved or wavy. It should not be confused with optical distortion, a warping of the proportions of the subject (straight lines do not remain straight). Nor should optical distortion be confused with perspective, which is purely a camera to subject distance issue not involving optics at all, and obeying the inverse square law. See also the size invariance principle.

Below, an example of a geometrically planar subject with two planes: the foreground railing and the distant background. Few 50mm (equiv) lenses can image this scene with full sharpness across the field on high-res digital until ƒ/5.6 or even ƒ/8. A tiny change in focus can “optimize” the placement of focus for such scenes against the specific field curvature, which also means that comparing lenses fairly on such scene is fraught with risk of erroneous conclusions by very small changes in focus—very hard to do fairly, there are no “quick tests” in spite of the apparent ease of the scene.

For more on this and other topics, see Making Sharp Images.

Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar: Aperture Series At Close Range (Sunflowers, Sony NEX-7)

The Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar is not a macro lens, but at close range it delivers pleasing results with high sharpnss.

Presented in my review of the Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar is an aperture series from ƒ/2 - ƒ/11, with large crops also. This study is mainly about bokeh.

Also added are some other sunflower examples.

Image below in the ProPhotoRGB color space, requires colorspace-aware web browser for correct display.

Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar: Aperture Series (Sunflowers, Sony NEX-7)

The Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar is not a macro lens, but it offers a pleasing combination of color, contrast and bokeh that make for satisfying close range shooting possibilities.

Presented in my review of the Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar is an aperture series from ƒ/2.8 - ƒ/11, with large crops also.

Image below in the ProPhotoRGB color space, requires colorspace-aware web browser for correct display.

Compared: Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar vs Sony 35mm f/1.8 OSS on Sony NEX-7

I take a first look at how the Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar compares to the Sony 35mm f/1.8 OSS on the Sony NEX-7, including my impressions of focusing both lenses, where there is a compelling difference.

Sony NEX-7: Unstable Controls

I previously detailed how the NEX-7 can undermine one’s work.

In NYC, the Sony NEX-7 repeatedly found itself on Auto ISO. Again and again.

Today over the course of a 30-minute sunflower shoot on a tripod, the NEX-7 managed to change itself to Auto ISO three times, degrading several series of images by using ISO 500 to 1000. Well, actually they were quite good for those high ISO values. But I didn’t want ISO 1000, I wanted ISO 100.

Along with all its other design problems (buttons and dials, insane menu system, exposure bugs, etc), this camera confirms my judgment of 16 months ago which I had subsequently second-guessed. Now I am certain that my initial impression was spot-on: it’s a design for a toy mated to a sensor and lens, designed by engineers who have no inkling of the core set of features actually necessary for a reliable tool. That’s fine for a $200 point and shoot, but it is not fine for a ~$1000 offering. Design by checklist is not a design; it is anti-design.

The sensor is superb and one can make very high quality images with it, but being surprised by the controls gets old. As in “if I throw it 50 feet up, will it provide a satisfying burst of little plastic parts when it hits?”. When I compare the errors I see on the NEX-7 to those on the Sigma DP Merrill cameras, it’s night and day: the DP Merrills have their own limitations, but they always do exactly what I expect them to do.

All of which leads me to the general problem with today’s camera designs: kitchen-sink checklist design, ill-considered menu insanity, no ability to really customize the experience (e.g., hide all video JPEG settings), lousy controls and haptics, visual impediments (e.g., no EVF), confounding lens compromises (focus shift and field curvature), focusing systems that often miss, etc. Sadly, it’s a question of fewest issues, not of excellence.

Moving on...

This sunflower image proved extremely challenging to deal with: sunflowers deliver a nearly black recording in the blue channel and are very “hot” in the red channel.

Furthermore, most camera histograms show the bright yellow petals as blown-out when in fact another entire stop of exposure is appropriate (an unfortunate and fairly common reality proven by examining the NEX-7 raw file with RawDigger).

The camera did reasonably well here, but the black centers in these particular sunflowers are quite dark, adding to the contrast difficulties (even to the naked eye!). The way the camera sees these sunflowers is apparently rather different from the non-linear way human eyes see them, particularly the bright yellow. The NEX-7 sensor has done a very good job here, a testament to its quality, with the Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar delivering a very pleasing rendition at ƒ/2.8.

A larger version of this image is found on the Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 examples page.

Presented in the ProPhotoRGB color space, cannot be properly displayed in the sRGB or AdobeRGB color spaces. Use a calibrated wide-gamut display to view properly.

Sony NEX-7: Damaging Contrast Bug

In Guide to Mirrorless, I document a damaging contrast bug with the Sony NEX-7 that came and went while shooting a comparison. The bug is independent of lens and aperture and occurs with the latest firmware. Included are RawDigger histograms to show that the bug is independent of raw converter.

This bug explains several series of severely low contrast images I made in NYC recently. These really surprised me, but I rationalized away the problem as due to shooting through window glass, even though other shots were fine. Now I believe that the window glass explanation was not involved and this was purely a camera bug.

Nasty stuff and one more reason I will wait for a new model (NEX-7N or whatever it will be called). See also my longer term perspective on the Sony NEX-7.

Sony NEX-7: Longer Term Perspective

I summarize my current perspective on the 24-megapixel Sony NEX-7.

The current price of the NEX-7 is favorable, and it has a great sensor, but its physical design (buttons and dials) and other behavior give me pause. I hope for an improved version later this year.

Autofocus with Sony NEX-7

Jeff K writes:

I'm reading your posts about the Touit lenses with a lot of interest. Thanks for doing such an awesome job posting photos. You've for sure got the best NEX 7 plus Touit photos on the web at this time. I've got my 32/1.8 on order.

I'm noticing that you keep complaining about the autofocus accuracy of the NEX 7 and I'm wondering why you are using AF with totally stationary subjects when you've got one of the best manual focus machines ever made in your hand.

The EVF with magnified view and focus peaking is much more accurate than AF with any Nikon or Pentax DSLR I've ever had and one of the things I love about the NEX is being able to nail focus 90% + using the magnified view and focus peaking. Since you use Zeiss lenses on Canon and Nikon DSLRs, you're obviously used to MF, so try using it more with the NEX and I think you'll be very pleased.

PS - when taking photos of people, AF with Face Detection mode on my NEX 7 (I'm using my Sony 35/1.8 and 50/1.8) is fantastic.

DIGLLOYD: Over the years, I’ve written so extensively about how much I like an EVF and how critical focus accuracy is.

I was in NYC for less than 48 hour from stepping off the plane and getting back onto it, and that includes sleep and the Zeiss Touit press event. I had very little time for ad-hoc shooting, no contemplative time to be sure. I needed to work fast and produce some decent images in a short time. Complicating matters, my kids gave me a nice 'bug' yielding a nasty sore throat the first night and I was not operating at 100%.

And so the reasons are simple:

• I had zero experience with NEX-7 autofocus until I arrived in NYC, so I made the assumption that it ought to perform well under these easy-as-pie scenarios. Which was a bad assumption. I normally would not make such an assumption, but time pressure suckered me into it.
• When there are 15 minutes of really good light in the evening, one shoots fast if it’s the last good light of a short trip. Hence I used autofocus; I had not even had time to review the prior images to realize how prone to error the NEX-7 autofocus is: so many shots were degraded by backfocus. The partial saving grace is that a somewhat stopped-down lens on APS-C has more DoF than full-frame.

The NEX-7 sensor quality is fabulous, but at this point, I consider autofocus on the NEX-7 useless for any critical work (frequent backfocus), at least with high performance lenses where even small errors are manifest even at ƒ/5.6. I look forward to seeing a future 24MP or perhaps 32MP NEX with improved autofocus.

In short, I would take Jeff K’s question and extend it this way: for professional work (reliable and consistent results), the Sony NEX-7 is best used as a manual focus camera with magnified view in the EVF.

As far as face detection: I don’t want the face in focus, I want the eyes in focus. The eye of my choosing, as often it is one or the other, even at ƒ/5.6. I put that focusing spot right on one eye (many times), and the NEX-7 screwed that up (many times). So I see little reason to believe (without testing) that it can perform better with face detection: will I get sharp lips, nose, eyes, what?

Below, I wanted the leading eye in focus. The NEX-7 backfocused by an inch or so. It’s just adequately sharp, but not sharp where I wanted it: the leading eye is slightly blurred, and this is at ƒ/5.6! What would face detection have done here? Maybe it has some magic, worth a try I suppose, but when I put a specific AF point on an eye, I should get razor sharp focus, as with the Sigma DP Merrill spot focus sensor. The NEX-7 just cannot do that. And EVF zoom is problematic with non-static subjects and having to reframe after focusing.

Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar:
Evening on the High Line in NYC

In Guide to Mirrorless are additional examples in New York City with the Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar on the Sony NEX-7, this set taken in the evening while walking the High Line in the former meatpacking district.

Retina grade images as usual.

Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon: Examples, Evening Architecture

In Guide to Mirrorless are additional examples in New York City with the Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon on the Sony NEX-7, this set taken in the evening.

Tioga Pass in Yosemite Is Open

Tioga Pass is my route through Yosemite to the high country of Yosemite as well as the White Mountains and Death Valley.

I expect to visit Yosemite in the next 2-3 weeks. Please contact me if you are interested in one-on-one photo tour.

Eastern Sierra weather

Traveling to the Eastern Sierra? Check out reader Dennis Mattinson’s Eastern Sierra Weather Center.

Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar: MTF and Distortion and Vignetting Charts (for Sony NEX + Fuji X)

In Guide to Mirrorless are added MTF charts for the Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar and also distortion graphs for the Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar on Sony NEX and Fuji X. Also vignetting on Sony NEX and Fuji X.

The MTF pages include a comparison on the relative MTF performance versus the Zeiss ZF.2 50mm f/2 Makro-Planar and Leica 50mm Summicron-M.

Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon: MTF and Distortion and Vignetting Charts (for Sony NEX + Fuji X)

In Guide to Mirrorless are added MTF charts for the Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon and also distortion graphs for the Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon on Sony NEX and Fuji X.

Both pages include commentary, and the MTF pages include notes on the relative performance to the Zeiss 18mm f/3.5 Distagon and Leica 18mm f/3.8 Super-Elmar-M ASPH.

Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon: Examples in New York City, Part 2

In Guide to Mirrorless are additional examples in New York City with the Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon on the Sony NEX-7, this set taken on a morning walk from the meat-packing district to Union Square.

Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon: Examples in New York City, Part 1

In Guide to Mirrorless, I’ve published a wide variety of examples in New York City with the Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon on the Sony NEX-7.

Many Retina-grade examples are shown, most with both color and black and white renditions (the Touit 12/2.8 makes an exceptional lens for black and white conversions).

Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar at Night

The Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar has tremendous penetrating power. With its high contrast wide open and superb control of color errors, it makes an exceptional lens for night-time photography.

A larger version of this image has been added to my Outdoors Examples page.

Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon: Portraiture with an Ultra Wide Angle

Can a 12mm lens (18mm equivalent on full frame) be used successfully for portraiture? I made the attempt and achieved some results that I like.

In the review of the Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon are portraits in New York City.

Nine Retina-grade examples are shown, each with both color and black and white renditions. The Touit 12/2.8 makes an exceptional lens for black and white conversions.

To my eye, the Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 might be the best-performing 18mm (equiv) lens that I have yet seen, offering an impressive combination of sharpness, contrast, bokeh, and color correction.

And so I will say this: if you’re a Sony NEX shooter, this is a must have lens for wide angle work. Presumably the same applies to Fuji X, but I have not yet tested on the Fuji X-Pro1 or X-E1.

Get the Touit lenses at B&H Photo.

Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar: Portraiture in NYC

In the review of the Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar are portraits in New York City.

Seven Retina-grade examples are shown, most with both color and black and white renditions.

I came away very impressed with the Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar. This is a wonderfully balanced lens (in the sense of its drawing style, sharpness, bokeh, etc).

Get the Touit lenses at B&H Photo.

Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar: Bokeh (Glassware)

In the review of the Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar is an detailed evaluation of bokeh with the Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar on the Sony NEX-7.

Five examples are shown, each with retina-grade images and crops, along with commentary. Much more is coming on both the Touit 32mm f/1.8 and 12mm f/2.8.

These examples leave little doubt as to the professional grade image rendition now available to those looking to shoot a smaller camera system. In my estimation, the two new Zeiss Touit lenses make the Sony NEX and Fuji X platforms much more attractive. Now having an extensive set of field images, I am comfortable saying that these two lenses would be my first choices on either Sony NEX and Fuji X; if anything they outperform comparable Zeiss lenses on full-frame DSLRs (Zeiss ZF.2/ZE 50/1.4 Planar and 18/3.5 Distagon). Which is what one would hope for in a modern design for a smaller sensor size.

The Touit lenses are high grade and ready for a pro-grade NEX or Fuji X platform. But as it stands, the camera body “gotchas” with NEX-7 are troublesome, as I found out in NYC, and this means more than irritation, it meant unexpected failures. Yet all it would take is some mild effort in firmware to fix at least some of them ( the NEX-6 fixes a few issues, but I wanted 24 megapixles, not 16). It is my uneasy feeling that both Sony nor Fuji have only a dim inkling of the needs of real photographers (ergonomics, elimination of arbitrary behavioral quirks, kitchen sink designs, hideously arranged menus systems). Let us hope that both vendors start taking serious input from photographers looking for reliable tools free of toylike design warts.

Get the Touit lenses at B&H Photo.

To NYC For a Few Days

Heading to NYC for a few days for a Zeiss press event on The Birds.

The High Line walkway is visible at left.

Flying is a necessary evil

I’d much rather drive if I could, but NYC is a long way from California.

I haven’t flown for about five years, and except for the return flight, I’ll be happy if I don’t have to fly again for another five. Airport parking was fine, and the TSA experience was actually just fine too (a bit of a wait but OK). So I got off easy there.

Then I boarded into a stuffy overly warm and humid airplane cabin yielding an almost visceral “unclean” feeling; under ordinary circumstance I would immediately have left such a place. But, this was my flight and we have to accept such things. As the plane lingered on the tarmac with a half hour delay, we were treated to the usual toxic stew of jet engine exhaust or whatever it is (am I the only one who finds it highly unpleasant?), followed finally by an improved brew: a bathroom-freshener odor from the air vents. With what feels like an incipient infection (my whole family has been sick with the latest public school germs), I was definitely not a fan of the experience . The dry air during the flight does not help matters. Well, I just like clean fresh air and I realize that such things probably don’t bother most people.

The seats are tight, but with an aisle seat and my own hand-carried sushi and favorite chocolate bar, I had a little picnic that proved most satisfying. But no power for my laptop and no WiFi in the old Boeing 757 with vintage CRT displays for movies, some magenta and some green in color cast, all showing the same insipid movie.

Oversampling: What Would 56 Megapixels Look Like from a Sony NEX-7 Sensor?

Suppose the 24-megapixel Sony NEX-7 were scaled up to full frame: it would become a 56-megapixel sensor at the same pixel density. So what would image quality look like? Pretty fantastic.

In Making Sharp Images, I show just what we might expect from a Sony NEX-7 sensor scaled to 56-megapixels, keeping in mind that the Sony NEX-7 technology has almost certainly been further improved (it seems so with the Sony RX100, which has a full-frame equivalent pixel density of 148 megapixels).

Oversampling (using ultra high-res sensor) can deliver very high image quality with smaller output files, but at a native resolution of 56 megapixels, the quality is already excellent even natively. You can’t lose with what’s bound to show up sooner or later!

Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar: Examples

In the review of the Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar is an selection of examples with the Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar on the Sony NEX-7. I’ll have quite a few more, including some from an upcoming trip to New York City.

All but one are standard fare, but I had a little fun with this one poppy image; I like the 3D effect it creates.

Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar: Correcting Distortion in Adobe Camera Raw

Previously posted, but now updated to include a 3-way comparison:

• Camera-corrected JPEG.
• Raw with no distortion correction.
• Raw with distortion correction.

In the review of the Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar is an analysis of the distortion correction for JPEG images vs uncorrected RAW (Sony NEX-7).

As yet, there is no Adobe Camera Raw lens profile for the Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar, but this updated analysis shows the ACR setting for correcting distortion in ACR are shown, along with the 3-way comparison for each.

Certain other useful observations are also made here.

Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon: More Examples Added

Added to my review of the Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon are additional examples with the Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon.

Many of the examples have both color and black and white renditions, the Touit 12/2.8 Distagon making a very fine lens for black and white work due to its high contrast and superb color correction.

Hakan K writes regarding the distortion comparison and examples:

I know you haven't finished the full review on this lens but even the samples you took tells me how thoroughly you profess in what you do.

Parameters like contrast, colour correction, rendering, back focus, sharpness, CA, diffraction, sharpness gradient, separation, flare control, colour uniformity, ergonomics you name it, I find all I need to know in just a few minutes by reading your review and I get that before even some other bloggers mention that the lens exists. I've been looking for a compact UWA lens+ camera solution for quite sometime. So I looked around I wasted hours and haven't found anywhere the kind of information I read in diglloyd.com. I shouldn't be asking as a reader to the blogger oh what about this what about that and I shouldn't need to be buying to find out myself. That's the very purpose of their existence.

DIGLLOYD: the question I continually pose to myself is the same one I posed about 8 year ago: what do *I* want to know that I cannot seem to find? That frustration in finding what I wanted to know (without having to buy it first) was the genesis of this site. I hold myself to that idea with each camera or lens I review. Which sometimes means a lot more coverage than anticipated, and sometimes cutting something short.

Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar: Distortion Correction in JPEG, vs RAW

Posted in my review of the Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar is an analysis of the distortion correction for JPEG images vs uncorrected RAW (Sony NEX-7).

As yet, there is no Adobe Camera Raw lens profile for the Touit 32mm f/1.8, though one should arrive with the next release of ACR (June).

An interesting side-effect of the distortion correction is also discovered.

Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon: Distortion Correction in JPEG, vs RAW

Posted in my review of the Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon is an analysis of the distortion correction for JPEG images vs uncorrected RAW (Sony NEX-7).

As yet, there is no Adobe Camera Raw lens profile for the Touit 12mm f/2.8, though one should arrive with the next release of ACR (June).

This evaluation is also interesting as for the JPEG versus RAW quality (two large crops shown).

Olympus Introduces PEN E-P5

All the new Olympus gear is available for pre-order at B&H Photo, including the E-P5, black-finsh 45mm and 75mm lenses and the VF-4 EVF.

The new Olympus PEN E-P5 looks to be a very nice little camera, with most of the good features of its sibling the E-M5 (see my in depth review of the Olympus E-M5).

Electronic viewfinder not built in

For me an EVF is essential. And I daresay this is true for anyone in their mid-40's onward, due to presbyopia.

As shown below, the VF-4 EVF on the E-P5 greatly increases the bulk of the camera, so the built-in 1440K-pixel EVF of the E-M5 makes more sense for me. However, the new 2360K-pixel Olympus VF-4 is a higher resolution device and so for some this might be preferable. One presumes that a future E-M6 would incorporate the higher-resolution EVF.

When the price of the viewfinder (about $279) is added into the $999 cost of the Olympus PEN E-P5, the current Olympus OMD-D E-M5 with its built-in viewfinder at about $949 looks attractive on both a cost and convenience basis.

Still, I’ll have to reserve judgment until I have one in my hands to see the form factor differences and EVF quality side by side.

     

Olympus E-P5

Iridient Developer Updated to Version 2.1 with Support for Fuji XTrans Sensor

Iridient Developer has some very nice facilities for raw conversion including some specialty black and white conversion modes and deconvolution sharpening. It is a handy tool to have around, even if Lightroom is your mainstay. Recommended. And there is a demo version available.

Note the support for the Fuji X-Pro1, X-E1, X100S (XTrans sensor).

Developer Brian Griffith responds to my question about Fuji X file processing:

The X-trans images should be pretty good right from the defaults in my tests, especially at low ISO. My tests so far have shown much, much better results than Lightroom 4.4, especially on color smearing and overall detail reproduction. Tough studio test cases really highlight the differences.

Depending on sharpening preferences you can probably pull out even more fine, micro detail compared to the defaults with my Richardson-Lucy based sharpening and if your preferences are more for nice crisp traditional edge sharpening unsharp mask is a popular favorite and my implementation of USM is fantastic too (float precision, CIE LAB derived perceptual color space, etc)!

Press release

Pacific Grove, CA, May 9, 2013 -- Iridient Digital, Inc. has released Iridient Developer 2.1 a major update to my critically acclaimed image processing software for Mac OS X.

The Iridient Developer 2.1 update can now be downloaded here:
http://www.iridientdigital.com/products/rawdeveloper_download.html

This update features a total overhaul of the noise reduction functionality including three all new, state of the art, noise reduction methods along with optional auto noise adjustment levels based on ISO and other image parameters. These new methods greatly improve high ISO noise processing while retaining excellent image detail and reducing color smearing across object borders!

Iridient Developer now provides support for use of Apple's RAW conversion libraries as an alternate RAW conversion method and as a way to provide support for some unique camera models (such as Fuji's X-trans cameras) that I have not yet found the time to support with my own custom demosaic routines.

A new monochrome (B&W) conversion option, "RAW Color Channel Mixer" has been introduced which provides direct color mixing of the sensor color planes direct from the demosaic process without any prior color conversion.

This update also features a major refresh of internal color processing routines and adds support for the LittleCMS v2.4 ICC color management engine in addition to Apple's ColorSync. LittleCMS features full ICC v4.3 compatibility and support for the latest ICC floating point profile extensions. The color management changes also now support optional black point compensation.

This release also includes a number of other improvements and bug fixes.

The complete Iridient Developer version history including full release notes for version 2.1 can be viewed at the web site here:
<http://www.iridientdigital.com/products/rawdeveloper_history.html>

Support has been added for 22 new RAW camera models including:

• Canon: Rebel SL1 (100D, Kiss X7) and Rebel T5i(700D, Kiss X7i)
• Nikon: D7100, Coolpix A and Coolpix P330
• Sony: SLT-A58
• Olympus: XZ-10
• Panasonic: DMC-G6 and DMC-GF6
• Fuji: X-Pro1, X-E1, X20, X100S, F900EXR, HS50EXR, HS35EXR and SL1000.
• Ricoh: GR
• Hasselblad: H5D-50, H5D-40, H4D-40 and H4D-31

This release is a paid upgrade for users who originally purchased a license prior to September 16, 2011. You now get at least 18 months of FREE upgrades, regardless of version designation, when purchasing Iridient Developer. When unregistered Iridient Developer is fully functional, however all exported images will be watermarked.

Upgrades are available to previously licensed users for the discounted price of $45 US by requesting a 40% discount code from sales@iridientdigital.com. New licenses can be purchased for $75.00 US securely through Iridient Developer by selecting "Purchase..." from the File menu or securely online through our web store at:
http://store.eSellerate.net/s.aspx?s=STR9488905116

Iridient Developer 2.1 is a 64-bit Intel application and requires a 64-bit capable Intel processor (Core 2 Duo or later) and Mac OS X version 10.6 or later.

Feel free to contact me at:
Brian Griffith
Iridient Digital, Inc.
http://www.iridientdigital.com/
info@iridientdigital.com (general questions)
sales@iridientdigital.com (order issues, lost serial numbers)
support@iridientdigital.com (bugs, problems, technical questions)

     

Sony NEX-7

Sony NEX-7 Autofocus Insanity

See my review of Sony NEX in Guide to Mirrorless.

Using the NEX-7 yesterday, I noticed in autofocus mode a disconcerting behavior that makes the camera feel nervous and unstable: the NEX-7 cycles the lens repeatedly while the user is doing nothing: it defocuses and refocuses. This is apparently a “feature”.

The interval varies: it can be every second continually for a minute, or hardly ever, or every 10 seconds and so on.

By itself this constant noise and focusing activity is annoying, but it also chews up battery power and made me think the camera (or lenses) were defective. I’ve since learned that this is a “feature”.

But when composing an image it is downright insane (or might make me go insane): I’m engaged in the scene trying to compose, and every 2 seconds the view goes blurry and then refocuses (or every second or every 10 seconds, it’s seemingly random). It’s incredibly damaging to my ability to use the camera and focus on image-making.

How could anyone at Sony think this is anything but a serious bug? It demonstrates how the market cries out for good design in all the details. A camera is not just the latest fancy sensor or screen; it has to be a usable whole.

Add to this the constant changes to camera settings, the NEX-7 is driving me crazy: dials that all but change themselves at a breath of air—I’m suddenly back at auto-ISO or with -2 stops exposure compensation or making a movie (and my images are seemingly all missing because the camera changed folders to the video folder), or in P mode instead of M. Locking the controls is not an answer; I need to use them.

I thought I was being too harsh on the NEX-7 in calling it a “game console” in previous posts, but I reiterate and re-emphasize that statement: this is a toy, not a serious tool.

Readers suggest workarounds for the autofocus issues below, basically decoupling the autofocus from the shutter.

Jeff K writes:

Default behavior with the NEX 7 is for it to continuously focus when in AF mode. Here's the best way I've found to control this behavior.

First, set AF mode to MF.

Next, in Setup menu under custom key settings set AF/MF button to AF/MF control.

Next, in Setup menu set AF/MF control to "Hold" (not "Toggle").

With the camera set up this way, you initiate AF by pushing (and holding) the AF/MF button and when you release pressure from the button the camera stops autofocusing. This is very handy for me since it's the way I always set up my Nikon and Pentax DSLRs. I find it very useable because since I have MF assist on, I can first AF by pushing the AF/MF button, then if my subject is not moving and I want to double check focus I can release pressure on the AF/MF button which puts me back in MF mode, turn the focus ring on my lens which automatically puts me in magnified view to double check focus. Then, a half press on the shutter button gets you out of magnified view to double check composition/framing before taking the shot.

DIGLLOYD: A workable solution for this particular issue.

JD writes:

Yep, it's a common complaint about the NEX-7 AF that I'd imagine will be fixed in a firmware update. The good news is that the NEX-7 has the rear AF/MF button. What I personally do is leave the camera in manual focus, and press the AF/MF button to autofocus. Make sure you set AF/MF control to "hold," and map the AF/MF button to "AF/MF control" in the setup menu.

Doing the above will stop the constant pre-focus and save you battery life. A lot of DSLR shooters shoot this way, because it decouples metering from AF, which is nice, IMO.

DIGLLOYD: Ditto.

Haim Zwrites:

I have a NEX-7 (and NEX-5N, and NEX-5) it doesn’t do this. I wouldn’t be able to use it if it did. I don’t have it in front of me right now, but perhaps you could just check if you could set the AF mode to AF-S instead of AF-C?

DIGLLOYD: including my camera, three readers have confirmed this behavior, a total of four. So I have no explanation to offer, unless perhaps HZ has disabled autofocus when the shutter is pressed, as is the tip given above.

Andrew B writes:

A HUGE thank you to the other readers who respnded and to you for publishing their responses. I had made numerous attempts at decoupling the AF from the shutter button in the past, but had never found a working combination with the NEX-7. I have set up current and past DSLR's AF using the AEL or AFL buttons, and I much prefer this method. Anyways, this little trick has brought new life to my NEX. It is instantly more reliable!

That said, I wanted to point something out that I am just now noticing with the new settings applied. Beyond getting rid of the periodic AF hunt glitch, I have noticed that the camera will also keep the focus setting in tact when the cameras power is cycled. Considering the amount of careful tripod work you do, I'm sure this is welcome news!

DIGLLOYD: I’m glad to hear this! However, I do not see that the focus remains unaffected by power cycling the camera.

How Large is the Medium Format Market?

I found this quote in the Forbes interview with Leica quite interesting:

FORBES: An established market, plus established competitors, plus a new target audience for Leica… it all adds up to a tall order. How is is the S-System selling?

LEICA: There are no industry-wide figures, but we think the core medium format market is roughly 6000 units per year – worldwide, for all brands. We are not yet the market leader (I estimate Phase One to have 40-45% market share), but we already have 20% share – and this is only after 3 years after introduction.

A few years back I had heard “2000” for the total market size. Well, 2000 or 6000 is of the same quite small magnitude—dwarfed by any DSLR or high-end compact presumably by a factor of 10X - 100X.

Considering the R&D costs and this small market, it explains why these cameras cost so much. But I still think that with the right design choices and the right form factor (and lower price), this market could be much. The key is to keep R&D costs low, thinking in terms of building a large sensor compact camera as something enjoyable to be targeted at anyone who would be a pro DSLR and some expensive lenses, but who want a real camera with the ultimate quality..

D W writes:

This is perhaps a misleading way to look at the "MF market". Why? The life cycle of a professional MF system is very much longer than almost any DSLR and certainly all of the compact, 4/3 etc offerings. The correct way to look at this market is to look at the number of professional (and perhaps high-end amateurs) using these systems. Most Hasselblad 500 series cameras and I suspect virtually all of their H series cameras are still in use. They are, to put it bluntly built like tanks, and are eminently serviceable for a very long time. Mr Forbes or Leica may be correct in that the volume of new unit sales each year is low but these units are adding incrementally to a substantial installed user base.

A more useful measure would be to look at the market share of each company in respect of the total installed user base. This, I suspect would show that Hasselblad dwarfs the rest. Turning to the definition of the MF market. This is not a market for a piece of rapidly redundant technical equipment a la Nikon and Canon but for a set of tools, support and services which meet professional photographers needs worldwide.

Any comparison with consumer products is therefore facile and misleading.

DIGLOYD: facile: “appearing neat and comprehensive only by ignoring the true complexities of an issue; superficial.”. All righty then. I don’t know everything, that’s for sure.

Every market including the consumer and prosumer ones has “add on” sales and services: lenses, accessories, service and so on. The total size of the market is proportional to yearly sales and also to the installed base. But this is true for Nikon and Canon DSLRs also, and arguably more so, since the array of accessories and lenses is far wider, and over a massive user base by comparison. And such users tend to keep buying new cameras every few years.

Moreover, more and more the pros are finding that high-end DSLRs can take on most of the tasks formerly reserved for medium format. Not all tasks, but most. And more and more, the difficult economy means that the market is pushing pros who might have formerly bought a medium format system down to “way beyond good enough” DSLRs. And most pros have both as well.

Finally, I expect the advent of world-class lenses of true medium format pro-grade quality such as the Zeiss 55mm f/1.4 Distagon to shake up the medium format market.

Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon: First Batch of Examples (Sony NEX-7)

Posted in my review of the Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon is a first batch of examples with the Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon.

Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar: First Look with Full Aperture Series at 1:20 (Sony NEX-7)

First look at the new Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar on the Sony NEX-7 (Blue Doll / Pellegrino) is now up, with a full aperture series using Retina-grade images and generous crops, all across the full aperture range.

This test is at moderate range, a reproduction ratio of 1:20, similar to a head and shoulders portrait range.

 

The Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon and Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar autofocus lenses for Sony NEX and Fuji X are now available for pre-order at B&H Photo.

Zeiss Touit Lenses: the Birds Roost

The birds are here, coverage to follow later today.

The Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon and Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar autofocus lenses for Sony NEX and Fuji X are now available for pre-order at B&H Photo.

I’ve run into one odd thing driving me bananas with both Touit lenses on the Sony NEX-7: with autofocus enabled, the lenses hunt periodically (without me doing anything).

I’ve learned that this might actually be a (very annoying) *feature* of the Sony NEX.

Any readers who have NEX and AF lenses please let me know if such behavior is actually a NEX feature (bug).

Andrew B writes:

I am afraid to report that the AF behavior you're noticing is normal. I can't, for the life of me, understand why Sony chose to do this.

DIGLLOYD: Wow. That’s a big strike against NEX in my view— makes the camera feel unstable and unpredictable.

Another Oak Eating Year

Periodically, the local oaks are heavily infested with these leaf-munching caterpillars, which can almost completely denude a tree.

Some of the hapless critters fall off the tree and crawl around aimlessly, presumably to starve. Or perhaps they are done eating and ready to find a nice spot to cocoon. The oak tree above looked quite weak at a time when it should be showing vigorous new (tasty) leaves.

Zeiss Touit Lenses to Arrive Friday

I’m told I should have test samples of the two new Zeiss Touit lenses this Friday, which means I should be able to post some weekend coverage just before I head to New York City for a few days.

I’ll be testing them on the Sony NEX-7; it’s 24 megapixel APS-C sensor is very demanding of a lens (equivalent to a 56 megapixel full frame sensor in pixel density).

The Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon and Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar autofocus lenses for Sony NEX and Fuji X are now available for pre-order at B&H Photo.

Adobe Cloud

Photographers and videographers and creative professionals might want to think through their level of committment to Adobe products.

Adobe’s new Cloud-only approach raises a host of issues carefully avoided by Adobe, and I share my thoughts in several essays over at MacPerformanceGuide.com:

• Adobe Clouds Software Choice (Adobe Creative Cloud Only Going Forward)
• Adobe Creative Cloud: Date of Birth Mandatory, Lopsided Legal Agreement
• Adobe Creative Cloud: No Fair Warning Given for Upgrades
• Adobe Creative Cloud: Why no 'Buyout' or Read-Only Option?
• Adobe Creative Cloud: A Time-Wasting Chat
• Adobe Creative Cloud: Reader Comments

As far as I can tell, the forced transition to Adobe Cloud and the removal of any prior upgrade options is not very popular.

Nikon D800E vs Canon 5D Mark III: the Nikon D800E Optical Low Pass Blur+Unblur Filter Pack

Regarding my D800E vs Canon 5D Mark III image sharpness comparison, a reader comments:

Very interesting to see how unreliable pure pixel count may be to conclude about perceived image quality. The explanation hypothesis is of course quite speculative. We don't know exactly the filter design in both cameras, we also don't know what both parties mean with RAW; it might also be pre-cooked a bit.

I think I remember that Canon had announced with the MkIII something like deconvolution image restoration, but I also don't know exactly.

Would be nice to have time to dig deeper in these things - yet the needs of practical picture taking with lenses are a bit distant from that.

DIGLLOYD: Agreed, it is hard to say what is the cause, and at some point one might just choose a camera brand one enjoys shooting, since the race for quality and megapixels remains highly competitive and thus that brand will eventually deliver the high-end ultra camera. Of course, one might reasonably ask whether Sony might get there before Nikon or Canon, say with a full-frame FNEX.

My hypothesis of the “glass sandwich” being involved is of course speculation, but with some basis for making the hypothesis: the Nikon D7100 with its much higher pixel density (56 vs 36 megapixels, equivalent density) does not seem to exhibit the D800E behavior.

The D7100 has no optical low pass filter, though Nikon does not go into details on exactly what glass is used on the sensor. See Zeiss 50mm f/2 Makro-Planar: Future Potential on ~56 Megapixel DSLR and How Does the Zeiss 135mm ƒ/2 APO-Sonnar Perform on a 56-Megapixel DSLR?.

Cooking the raw file

It seems likely that Nikon does something to “cook” the raw file, because the the dark tones are so clean in the near-black tones (as compared with Canon). Ditto for Sony NEX-7 and various Nikon DX cameras. But perhaps also with newer Canon EF-S cropped frame cameras.

Canon DSLRs in general have long been favored by astrophotographers because faint stars which might look like noise can be extracted by stacking 100 frames or more, something not possible with a camera raw that smooths away near-black pixels.

As for “cooking” the raw file with deconvolution, from what I see with many small sensor cameras I would be quite surprised if this is not already being done, and it’s possible that the Canon 5D Mark III employs such an approach also. Such an approach would explain what seems (to me) to be artificially high acutance on the Canon 5D Mark III images. But this too is speculation.

The D800E filter pack design

As an aside, my information is that Low Pass Filter 2 is actually bonded to the sensor, so that an infrared or full spectrum conversion effectively leaves a partial optical low pass filter in place, one that blurs in only the vertical direction.

As for the D800E “blur + unblur” filter pack, a filter that blurs followed by one that unblurs would seemingly have to be in absolutely perfect alignment for the claim to bear out—and any misalignment on the micron level would presumably make the camera perform somewhere between the D800 and the D800E, a sort of weakened optical low pass filter

Trond S writes:

I have read somewhere, Clarkvision maybe, can't find the source right now, that Canon adds a "DC bias" equivalent to digital 1024, before the ADC.

The thermal noise in the pixel readout amplifiers, and the AFE of the ADC will act in the same way as in dithered audio ADCs: increasing the effective resolution of the ADC.

The added white noise will "lift" the faint image details out of the noise, normally below one LSB, to above one LSB, as long as the noise is a little more than one LSB on the ADC.

Autocorrelation will recover these faint detail, while random white noise is filtered aug in the autocorrelation. This is why astro photographers favours Canon.

Nikon does not do the same, meaning that the noise is "clipped" at zero, so that negative part of the expectance value of the noise does not get into the raw file.

Clipping the RAW pixel value at zero effectively gives half a stop of noise cancellation since half of the noise is "filtered" in the clipping process away.

DIGLLOYD: all cameras have a black level setting, and RawDigger makes this explicit, but I’m unsure if this is the same idea.

As far as detail, the dark areas and ADC to digital conversion do not explain the results in very bright areas.

Nikon D800 Infrared: 715nm vs 830nm Filtration

Published in Guide to Digital Infrared is a comparison with large crops showing the difference between 715nm and 830nm infrared cut filters, including the spectral transmission graphs for each.

The Coastal Optics 60mm f/4 UV-VIS-IR APO Macro was used so as to avoid any spectral limitations from the lens.

Also included are RawDigger histograms showing the actual raw data obtained for the 715nm and 830nm images.

The Nikon D800-IR used here was by MaxMax.com and is for sale from them. See the details on the first look page.

Nikon D800 Infrared Examples with Zeiss 15mm f/2.8 Distagon

Published in Guide to Digital Infrared is a page of retina-grade examples with the Nikon D800-IR+ Zeiss 15mm f/2.8 Distagon in both false color and monochrome.

The Nikon D800-IR used here was by MaxMax.com and is for sale from them. See the details on the first look page.

 

Some people find images in IR of people disturbing (morbid or ghostly?). I am not holding this one out as something I like, but purely as an example of the look that IR can produce as it sees into skin more than visible light.

Nikon D800 Infrared Examples

Published in Guide to Digital Infrared is a page of retina-grade examples with the Nikon D800-IR in both false color and monochrome.

Tthe Zeiss 25mm f/2.8 IR-Distagon and Coastal Optics 60mm f/4 UV-VIS-IR APO macro lenses were used, the Coastal 60/4 being particular impressive on the D800-IR.

The Nikon D800-IR used here was by MaxMax.com and is for sale from them. See the details on the first look page.

 

Nikon D800 Infrared First Look with Zeiss 25mm f/2.8 IR-Distagon

Courtesy of MaxMax.com, in my hands is Nikon D800-IR:

• The sensor cover glass is removed and replaced with new glass of appropriate thickness that passes infrared and blocks visible light.
• The modified camera now “sees” only infrared light starting at around 715nm.
• Any and all lenses can be used.

This D800 infrared camera is FOR SALE (by MaxMax.com). It is brand-new, and I’ve been asked to keep the frame counter under 100 frames. If interested, contact me and I’ll forward your request along (I’m not buying because I already have a D800 I might convert soon).

See the diglloyd Guide to Digital Infrared for the various issues that arise with infrared in general, including lens performance, spectral transmission and IR hot spots and flare.

Tthe special Zeiss 25mm f/2.8 IR-Distagon has lens coatings that avoid the hot spot and falloff common with most wide angle lenses, though it is not the sharpest line in infrared (few are).

With a 715nm, false-color images are possible as shown below. One can utilize the RGB color channel differential for a preferred tonality. Of course, it is also possible to attach a more restrictive cutoff filter to the lens such as a B+W 093 infrared filter or similar for deeper infrared. See The Visible Spectrum vs Infrared in Guide to Digital Infrared.

Toggle to see false-color infrared 715nm versus a grayscale rendition.

As described in diglloyd Guide to Digital Infrared, the color channels can be swapped if you prefer a blue sky:

Nikon D800 Infrared Camera from MaxMax.com, 715nm Cutoff

Courtesy of MaxMax.com, I have a Nikon D800-IR on the way:

• The sensor cover glass is removed and replaced with new glass of appropriate thickness that passes infrared and blocks visible light.
• The modified camera now “sees” only infrared light starting at around 715nm.
• Any and all lenses can be used.

See the diglloyd Guide to Digital Infrared for the various issues that arise with infrared in general, including lens performance, spectral transmission and IR hot spots and flare.

One lens that is superb in infrared is the Coastal Optics 60mm f/4 UV-VIS-IR APO-Macro, and I also have the special Zeiss 25mm f/2.8 IR-Distagon.

The internal IR-cut filter over the sensor has the characteristics shown below.

The human eye can actually see dimly out to ~900nm (possibly even farther, albeit very dimly), a fact which can be determined by looking directly into an infrared LED in a dark room.

Infrared photography properly begins around 715nm, with the range of 715-760nm affording “false color”: the R/G/B photosites respond differently to infrared light (differential transmission). Starting around 760nm, all of the R/G/B photosites go transparent to infrared, thus the image becomes pure monochrome (the photosites all see the same luminance).

Lincoln C writes:

I view your site every day and learn a lot from your experience and insight.

When I got my first camera converted to IR, a Canon D20, I got a good start in IR photography using your Guide to Digital Infrared Photography. Since then I have had a Canon 5D, a Canon 5D MKII, and now a Sigma DP2M. I've always used the 830nm IR filter.

The MKII was excellent, especially using Live View for manual focus and L f4 lenses which seemed to be hot spot free at all apertures. Here are some IR/Monochrome Studies taken in NYC last summer: <omitted>

Recently, I asked MaxMax to do the same conversion on a Sigma DP2M. This was their first attempt on this camera. Turned out a 830nm filter was not available in the right thickness so they replaced the IR/UV filter with a clear optical window of the correct thickness so that the auto focus would work correctly. The idea was to use on-the-lens filters for both IR and color images. A 830nm IR filter produced hotspots at all apertures. However, a 720nm IR filter works beautifully, producing no hot spots and good B&W conversions. See: <omitted>

Finding a 49mm standard IR/UV filter for color work has proven more difficult. At this point I'm using a CC1 filter from MaxMax that is 52mm with a step down ring to 49mm.This does not allow the lens hood to be used. Moreover, the IR/UV correction is a bit different than the original filter which requires a custom white balance and white balance tweaking in post processing. Still I've got an IR camera and a color camera in the same package.

I must say that Dan Llewellyn at MaxMax is willing to work with his customers and produces excellent camera conversions.

Thanks again for your site!

DIGLLOYD: the infrared images from the Sigma DP2 Merrill almost make me want to convert mine!

Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar: ƒ/2 - ƒ16 Aperture Series for Nikon D800E and Canon 5D Mark III

In Guide to Zeiss, separate ƒ/2 - ƒ/16 aperture series for both the Nikon D800E and Canon 5D Mark III have been added, using the blue doll / Pellegrino scene.

• Canon 5D Mark III + Zeiss ZE 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar
• Nikon D800E + Zeiss ZF.2 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar

The series give the full picture of lens performance from maximum to minimum aperture.

The usual Retina grade images and crops are presented.

Get the Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar at B&H Photo.

Zeiss 50mm f/2 Makro-Planar: Future Potential on ~56 Megapixel DSLR

The pixel density on the Sony NEX-7 and the Nikon D7100 is equivalent to 56 megapixels if scaled to a full frame sensor.

As with the Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar, one wonders what the future potential image quality is once something in the 56 megapixels range arrives in a full-frame DSLR.

Retina-grade images from ƒ/2 - ƒ/22 are presented, along with the usual generously sized actual pixels crops along with included MTF discussion relative to the results.

In Guide to Zeiss, see Zeiss 50mm f/2 Makro-Planar on Sony NEX-7 and Nikon D7100.

Murray O writes:

The absolute requirement of precision focus is a recurring conclusion in your evaluations of the high-MP sensors, yet neither Nikon or Canon appear the slightest bit inclined to include focus peaking like Leica and Sony whilst in the latest FF Canikon bodies, neither offer optional screens optimized for manual focus nor designs accommodating 3rd party offerings. The Zeiss website even urges use of elusive MF-optimized screens. LV isn't always practicable nor ideal in may of the new bodies. Is there any relief in the offing that you may know of?

DIGLLOYD: The absence of an EVF option for Nikon and Canon DSLRs is simply design insanity in the present context of high resolution digital; optical DSLR viewfinders are good for composing, but hit or miss anachronisms for manual focusing due to the extremely poor suitability of the no-choice autofocus oriented focusing screens in the D800 and Canon 5D Mark III.

See:

• Optical and Electronic Viewfinders: EVF + Optical + LCD = Synergy
• EVF or LCD Zoomed-In Focusing Implementations
• Form Factor and Camera Appeal.

Lens Corrections for Native Lenses on Sony NEX and Fuji X

The following applies to all native-mount lenses on Sony NEX and Fuji X, and is not particular to the Zeiss Touit lenses:

Sony NEX

For Sony NEX, camera JPEGs can correct vignetting, distortion and color fringing independently (user choice).

Sony NEX ARW raw files are unaltered by these choices (no correction in raw format). This is the Right Way to do it, kudos to Sony.

Fuji X

For Fuji X-Pro1, X-E1, camera JPEG is always corrected with dedicated lenses, there is no choice available.

In RAW some correction is applied also: distortion is corrected, fringing is corrected , but the results are different than with JPEG.

This is the not to my liking (should at least be user-selectable). Together with oddball image artifacts and uncorrected user interface problems, Fuji X remains an unappealing system to me.

Martin S writes:

I just confirmed the behavior you describe with Fuji's own lenses - the XE-1 is definitely applying distortion correction to the raw data when the lens is identified. Taking a shot in full manual with the 18mm f/2 and then taking the same shot with the lens contacts covered by a thin piece of acetate results in one "raw" file with significant barrel distortion and one "raw" file without.

I did not see the same behavior with the 14mm f/2.8. The distortion is either not worth correcting, or is not present for subjects between 2 and 15 feet, which was the limit of my test scene. With this lens the two raw files and the two jpegs all matched precisely, almost to the pixel on a vertical doorframe and bookcase at the extremes of the frame. The shot with the contacts covered reads F/1 and reports the preset focal length (which happened to be 85mm), and won't take without "shoot without lens" enabled, so the camera is definitely fooled.

Very bad behavior on Fuji's part on one hand, but impressive performance from the 14mm on the other.

DIGLLOYD: it is certainly possible to design a low-distortion 14mm for APS-C (~21mm equivalent on full frame).

Zeiss Touit Autofocus Lenses for Sony NEX or Fuji X Now Available for Pre-Order at B&H

The Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon and Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar autofocus lenses for Sony NEX and Fuji X are now available for pre-order at B&H Photo. Expected availability June 2nd.

Take a look at the design of these lenses: they are sleek and promise a very nice feel to the hand. I expect to have samples very soon for testing on the 24-megapixel Sony NEX-7, whose sensor is very demanding (its 24MP scaled to full frame would be 56MP).

24 Megapixel APS-C Shootout: Sony NEX-7 vs Nikon D7100 (with Zeiss 50/2 Makro-Planar)

The Nikon D7100 has favorably impressed me, so I wondered: does the Sony NEX-7 sensor hold up to the D7100 sensor? With the D7100 sensor having no anti-aliasing filter and the NEX-7 now nearly 18 months old, might the D7100 show a clear move forward?

In Guide to Mirrorless I present a comparison of the Sony NEX-7 versus the Nikon D7100 using the Zeiss 50mm f/2 Makro-Planar, bracketing in 1mm increments to ensure a rigorous focus match.

The usual retina-grade images and crops are presented, at ƒ/2 and ƒ/8.

The very interesting perspective I see here is that more and more, it is form factor, lens choice, ergonomics and features which might become the deciding factor in the years ahead. Neither camera “nails it” for me, but both have their merits in different ways.

Nikon D800E vs Canon 5D Mark III: Sharpness

My definitive D800E vs Canon 5D Mark III image sharpness comparison, in DAP.

The usual Retina-grade images and crops are presented.

On resolution

A 27% linear resolution difference is modest (D800E vs 5DM3). It is 22 vs 36 megapixels, or 12 vs 19, etc.

A 27% linear resolving power difference is readily evident if the lens and and sensor cooperate optimally, but it doesn’t “jump out” necessarily. And with a sub-par lens, or less than absolutely perfect technique, the differences quickly evaporate.

Genesis

The genesis of this effort was the DxO report I discussed, which claimed two things: (1) that at the same resolution the Canon 5D Mark III showed 15% more resolution than the 5D Mark II*, and (2) that the Nikon D800 was not necessarily delivering its rated resolution by comparison (“In terms of pixel count and stills output, 36 Mpix to 22.3 Mpix sounds a lot but in real life conditions, it’s not as much as the figures suggest”).

So I wanted to investigate this claim with respect to the D800E and 5D Mark III using the best lens and most meticulous effort possible.

Accordingly, I chose the D800E and Canon 5D Mark III along with the Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar for both.

* Which strongly suggests that the sensor or glass over the sensor has to be responsible, hence the Nikon designs would possibly show similar limitations, and the new Nikon D7100 in fact seems to perform better than one would expect compared to its D800E sibling.

Paraphrasing some comments:

• “You should also compare the D800 to D800E and the D800 to the 5DM3”.
• “My old 20mm Nikon lens is not retrofocus and it behaves differently on different Nikon cameras, therefore you should test with other lenses”.
• “You should not sharpen the images” or “there are sharpening artifacts” or “I don’t like your sharpening because at 200% I can see sharpening artifacts”.
• “That staircasing effect on the Canon image must be a fault of your sharpening”.

I work in the real world for photographs, which means I produce a result which I deem suitable for presentation and/or print. Not some unsharpened variant that looks like a blur filter was run on it—which in fact is blurry as a result of discrete sampling and demosaicing, lacking acutance that must be restored as a natural part of working properly with digital. And that staircasing on the Canon image is present with zero sharpening, it’s just harder to see with no acutance.

I don’t claim to have all the answers to every combination of lens and camera, but I did this test with exceptional precision, taking two full days to do this one comparison properly (2nd day was a repeat confirmation). A 4-way test becomes far more demanding and time consuming, and raises the odds for errors of all kinds.

The Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar has an exceptionally digital-friendly chief ray angle, and I would call it out as the best lens available on a DSLR today (see How Does the Zeiss 135mm ƒ/2 APO-Sonnar Perform on a 56-Megapixel DSLR?). The 20mm comment is out in left field in this context, being retrofocus in nature as any 20mm DSLR lens has to be in order to clear the mirrorbox.

Older wide angle designs also had fairly steep ray angles (being designed for film) compared to modern digital designs like the Zeiss ZF.2 15/2.8 Distagon, which remarkably has a ray angle even more friendly to digital than the 100/2 Makro-Planar.

As far as I know, there is no better lens for this test than the 135/2 APO-Sonnar in favoring the D800E (and 5DM3) for peak quality, which was my hypothesis to prove or disprove: to establish a clear image sharpness advantage with everything being its best.

The results are what they are, the only issue is what is the cause, my theory being discussed in the coverage. I’ve made certain inquiries of experts, and perhaps they can shed some light on the results.

Massimo T writes:

I have a theory I wanted to run by you.

I have noticed over the years, companies such as canon have been "baking" Raw data. I thought this was limited to noise reduction but would it be possible for them to also sharpen or apply extra contrast before storing the Raw data?

On another note, looking at DXOmark lens data, the D800 (non E) performs at the same "MP" rating as the D600 and D3x. They only tested three lenses on the D800E but it does seem to have higher performance than the other full frames but not publishing more results for the D800e also makes me think they ran into the same issue as you and as a favor to Nikon (and their reputation) they are hesitant to publish more results.

A can of worms just been opened but the camera is still as good as it was a month ago.

DIGLLOYD: Electronics and sensor being what they are, some processing might be necessary and proper given the nature of the medium. And I expect higher density sensors will do this silently to help with diffraction at the hardware level, if they are not already doing so.

At present, it is my assumption that Nikon does some black-level processing and this is why it is so cleaner at near-black compared to Canon. But it might also be sensor performance (probably both), and I don't have any inside knowledge here.

As far as I know, Canon has long been favored by the astronomy photographers because it allows image stacking to eliminate noise; this cannot be done if the camera is processing the low order bits to suppress noise (and faint stars).

T. B writes:

One plausible hypothesis could be that the larger sharpness plane in the Z-axis (DOF) on Canon, could be a result of a combination of 1) blurring of the signal in the Low pass/AA filter, and 2) more aggressive in-camera sharpening algorithm after the AA blurring, resulting in a more widespread sharpness-plane in the 5D III compared to the D8000E.

It’s just speculations, but one never knows. Maybe you can try comparing with all sharpening routines, in the cameras (both) and in software, switched off?

DIGLLOYD: There has to be some reasonable cause to speculate and form a hypothesis. I do not deem this hypothesis reasonable. I shoot best quality raw only (max bits, lossless compressed), and it would be a terrific story to show that JPEG sharpening settings are actually sharpening the raw file with the Canon 5D Mark III, and that everyone on the planet has not noticed this. But this does not rule out silent electronic acutance enhancement in converting analog to digital.

Sensor designs including the cover glass can have significant effects and as per DxO, changes were made with the 5D Mark III yielding 15% better resolving power over the 5D Mark II (but this is not a claim I have verified).

HZ writes:

Very interesting to see how unreliable pure pixel count may be to conclude about perceived image quality. The explanation hypothesis is of course quite speculative. We don't know exactly the filter design in both cameras, we also don't know what both parties mean with RAW -it might also be pre-cooked a bit.

I think I remember that Canon had annouced with the MkIII something like deconvolution image restoration, but I also don't know exactly.

Would be nice to have time to dig deeper in these things - yet the needs of practical picture taking with lenses are a bit distant from that.

DIGLLOYD: It is very hard to say what is the cause. But one thing stands out to me: the Nikon D7100 with its much higher pixel density does not seem to exhibit the D800E behavior. The D7100 has no optical low pass filter, though Nikon does not go into details on exactly what glass is used on the sensor. See Zeiss 50mm f/2 Makro-Planar: Future Potential on ~56 Megapixel DSLR and How Does the Zeiss 135mm ƒ/2 APO-Sonnar Perform on a 56-Megapixel DSLR?.

On the subject of “cooking” the raw file: it seems likely that Nikon does this becuase the the dark tones are so clear in the near-black. Canon DSLRs have long been favored by astrophotographers because faint stars which might look like noise can be extracted by stacking 100 frames or more, something not possible witih a camera raw that smooths away near-black pixels.

As for “cooking” the raw file with deconvolution, from what I see with many small sensor cameras I would be surprised if this is not already being done, and it’s quite possible that the Canon 5D Mark III employs such an approach also.

How the Nikon D800E Compares to the Canon 5D Mark III in Noise and Usable Dynamic Range

As a prelude to showing a definitive D800E vs Canon 5D Mark III image sharpness comparison, this D800E vs Canon 5D Mark III study of relative image quality (noise, dynamic range) sets the stage for a balanced view of total image quality.

The comparison is an extensive one, assessing noise in RGB as well as noise in the red/green/blue/gray channels with multiple crops including showing a standard exposure and one in which the shadow values are brightened (as is often useful for landscape photography). Hence quite practical for real-world considerations.

Per Pixel: How the Nikon D800E Compares to the Canon 5D Mark III (update)

Following up on yesterday’s commentary on D800E sharpness, the results were interesting enough that I wanted to rule out any possible error, so I reshot the whole thing today checking everything including using RawDigger to rule out any loss of highlight detail. All of which was a high precision and thus time-consuming effort, not exactly my favorite thing, but nothing is so persuasive as seeing exactly the same behavior.

I expect to publish my results by the end of day tomorrow.

Readers (two hysterical ones so far, making ridiculous and unwarranted assumptions) should take a deep breath. My reporting will be the same steady and thoughtful analysis as always.

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Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon — Autofocus Ultra Wide Angle for Sony NEX or Fuji X

The Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon will be available in Sony NEX or Fuji X mount starting in June.

As far as the eye can see—

With an angle of view of 99 degrees, the Touit 2.8/12 wide-angle lens will soon become a firm favourite, particularly for landscapes and architectural photography.

Its unique T* multicoating guarantees maximum transmission and outstanding absorption of extraneous light. The result: breathtaking image quality from edge to edge and corner to corner of the entire image field.

What’s more, all moving parts of the Touit 2.8/12, conceived specifically for Sony NEX and Fujifilm X Series cameras, are engineered for extreme precision and a long working life. And finally, its strong and rigid metal bayonet mount makes it an absolutely dependable companion for many years to come.

Key features:

• Almost circular aperture with 9 blades, for especially harmonious rendition of highlights outside of the focal plane.
• Lens hood seamlessly integrated into the overall design.
• Metal bayonet mount guarantees extreme rigidity and rubberized setting rings enable precise manual control when needed.
• Aspherical lens design ensures consistent imaging performance throughout the entire focusing range as well as sharpness to the periphery of the image.
• Latest floating element design principles. Optical aberration effects in ZEISS lenses are reduced to a minimum throughout their entire focusing range, achieved by variation of the axial distance between individual lens elements or groups. This adjustment of the lens-to-lens distance is coupled to the distance setting to ensure correct compensation at all times. The mechanical construction of these lenses is extremely complex and they must be assembled with utmost precision.
• Various, elaborate techniques to reduce unwanted stray light.

See the notes on lens corrections for Zeiss Touit lenses on Sony NEX / Fuji X.

Lens specifications

In a break with tradition, MTF charts are not provided with the Zeiss Touit line, unfortunate in my view.

Specifications for Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon

Focal length:	12mm
Aperture scale:	f/2.8 - f/22
Focusing range:	0.18m / 0.59 ft - ∞
Free working distance:	0,10 m (0.33 ft) – ∞
Angular field, diag./horiz.	99° / 89° / 66°
Coverage at close range:	1:9 220 x 144 mm 8.66 x 5.67 in
Number of elements/groups:	11 elements in 8 groups
Entrance pupil position ( in front of image plane):	61.6 mm
Flange focal distance:	E-mount: 18,0 mm (0.71′′) X-mount: 17,7 mm (0.70′′)
Rotation angle of focusing ring	270°
Filter thread:	M67 x 0,75
Weight (nominal):	E: 260 g (0.57 lbs) X: 270 g (0.60 lbs)
Dimensions (with caps):	E: 81 mm (3.19″) X: 86 mm (3.39″)
Camera mount:	Sony E-Mount Fujifilm X-Mount
List price:	TBD

Optical design

Note the emphasis on digital friendly ray angle. Chief ray angle is serious issue with rangefinder lenses adapted to Sony NEX or Fuji X.

With two aspheric elements and three elements made of special glass types along with floating element, this ought to be a very high performer.

Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar — Autofocus Normal Lens for Sony NEX or Fuji X

The Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar will be available in Sony NEX or Fuji X mount starting in June.

Magician of the moment—

The best of two worlds. Just like a 50 mm lens in 35 mm photography, the Touit 1.8/32 offers the same angle of view as the human eye.

However, optimised for use with APS-C format sensors, it is simultaneously a lens that is so light and compact that it can be taken along simply anywhere and everywhere you go.

Whether you are shooting portraits, landscapes or spontaneous snapshots, you will never cease to be amazed by what a Touit 1.8/32 can tease out of your camera.

It is quite simply the ideal companion for capturing perspectives and color and lighting moods in perfect pictures.

Key features:

• Almost circular diaphragm with 9 blades, for especially harmonious rendition of highlights outside of the focal plane (bokeh).
• Lens hood seamlessly integrated into the overall design.
• Metal bayonet mount guarantees extreme rigidity and rubberized setting rings enable precise manual control when needed.
• Aspherical lens design ensures consistent imaging performance throughout the entire focusing range as well as sharpness to the periphery of the image.
• Latest floating element design principles. Optical aberration effects in ZEISS lenses are reduced to a minimum throughout their entire focusing range, achieved by variation of the axial distance between individual lens elements or groups. This adjustment of the lens-to-lens distance is coupled to the distance setting to ensure correct compensation at all times. The mechanical construction of these lenses is extremely complex and they must be assembled with utmost precision.
• Various, elaborate techniques to reduce unwanted stray light.

See the notes on lens corrections for Zeiss Touit lenses on Sony NEX / Fuji X.

Lens specifications

In a break with tradition, MTF charts are not provided with the Zeiss Touit line, unfortunate in my view.

Specifications for Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar

Focal length:	32mm
Aperture scale:	f/1.8 - f/22
Focusing range:	0,37 m (1.21 ft) – ∞
Free working distance:	0,29 m (0.95 ft) – ∞
Angular field, diag./horiz.	48° / 40° / 29°
Coverage at close range:	1:9 214 x 142 mm 8.43 x 5.59 in
Number of elements/groups:	8 elements in 5 groups
Diameter of image field:	28,2 mm (1.11 in′)
Entrance pupil position ( in front of image plane):	46,7mm (1.84′ in)
Flange focal distance:	E-mount: 18,0 mm (0.71′ in) X-mount: 17,7 mm (0.70′ in)
Rotation angle of focusing ring	270°
Filter thread:	M52mm x 0,75
Weight (nominal):	E: 200 g (0.44 lbs) X: 210 g (0.46 lbs)
Dimensions (with caps):	E: 72 mm (2.83″) X: 76 mm (2.99″)
Camera mount:	Sony E-Mount Fujifilm X-Mount
List price:	TBD

 

Per Pixel: How the Nikon D800E Compares to the Canon 5D Mark III

The DxOMark folks are reporting that the Canon 5D Mark III per pixel sharpness is 15% higher than the 5D Mark II and moreover that it is in practice about as sharp as the D800.

Of course my reaction was one of skepticism: there is a ~28% linear resolving power advantage with the D800, so how could this possibly be? But I’ve learned to guard against assumptions over the years, because a result out of a camera system can be quite different from what one would expect from specifications.

I favor the Nikon D800E (vs D800) with its funky glass sandwich over the sensor, which is claimed by Nikon to be equivalent to not having any anti-aliasing (optical low pass) filter— no artificial blur. (From what I can tell, the smaller 24MP DX Nikon D7100 does not use this approach, but eliminates the extra glass layers).

But might Nikon’s thick glass sandwich interact with a lens in other ways that degrade its sharpness nonetheless? A lens design does have to compute in a sensor glass thickness for optimal results, particularly off-center. And I’ve suspected some per-pixel sharpness under-performance from the D800E sensor for a while now, but could never quite nail it down, never having quite found the right way to do so.

I have now done that exercise—several times in 1mm increments, using the Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar, my new reference lens.

Each time the same curiosities manifested themselves: I can say unequivocally that the D800E is delivering far less per-pixel sharpness than its 28% linear resolution advantage over the Canon 5D Mark III ought to allow. And there are other peculiarities too, particularly at wider apertures. It is an exciting and disappointing finding, and I can only hope that Nikon gets its act together and delivers a pro body that extracts full resolution properly at all apertures.

None of this sharpness discussion should be confused with total image quality, where one must complement the Nikon D800E, and there I found no surprises.

Report to follow. The report will go into DAP, as this is a camera capability issue, not a lens comparison, and I don’t believe it has anything to do with any particular lens. However, it is relevant to what to expect with the 135/2 APO-Sonnar, so it will also be cross-posted in Guide to Zeiss.

Holistic Reporting on Imaging

Thomas H writes:

After reading your blog entries day by day I want to make you a honest compliment: there is nobody out there in the web that reaches your level of sophistication, concerning the mix of so many aspects of photography: the combination of visual appeal, technical performance and usability aspects is singular in the whole "blog world of photography". (the only simliar site for is LL, many other colleagues remain too superficial.. and another collegue only focusses on the image quality..)

Your blog should be an open resource for the whole industry!

DIGLLOYD: My blog is open to anyone, my publications are how I make my living, and vital to affording me the luxury of writing my blog.

I often sometimes single-focus, but that is critical to the whole, as it provides a strong base for integrating other aspects.

My general goal is the whole imaging chain: the right tool for the job, how to get the best results from whatever camera you have, trends at play, and even my cycling web site dovetails into some aspects of photography.

Comparing Noise Between Cameras

Richard R writes:

I use my NEX 6 nearly all the time. Preferring its low light capacity to the more megapixels in the NEX 7.

“Low light capability” often means “did not compare fairly between cameras”. In this case, the NEX-6 might have a newer-generation sensor, so it could be a mixed situation.

In truth, all things being equal, a higher resolution sensor will have noise behavior every bit as good as the lower-res camera, and the oversampling will reduce other digital artifacts.

The mistake often made is to compare noise pixel for pixel, but this is inappropriate: when printing is done, images from two cameras having different resolutions by definition must be scaled proportionally more for the lower resolution camera. Consider a 4 megapixel camera and a 36 megapixel camera having the same per-pixel noise: the 4-megapixel camera is thus hugely more noisy for a print: its noise will be scaled by 3 times linearly (9X in area) as compared with the 36MP camera.

See How to Downsample and Sharpen an Image in DAP, along with Downsampling to Competing Sizes for examples of that nature.

There are also many noise studies in DAP. Most recently in Guide to Leica, see how noise was compared for the 24MP Leica M Typ 240 versus the 18MP Leica M9.

Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon and 32mm f/1.8 Planar

The official new name for the Zeiss lenses for Sony NEX and Fuji X: Zeiss Touit. To wit, Zeiss is actively targeting the Scrabble player market.

But where does “Touit” come from? This illustrious name was found through an intensive international selection procedure. We followed a concept that is already well established in the automotive industry: selecting certain themes for product names. As an example, one well-known German carmaker names its automobiles after types of winds and currents. We decided to derive the future names of the lenses from the Latin names of birds. That fits well, as birds usually have excellent eyesight and can take unusual perspectives. Birds are also diverse and lively animals. Furthermore, the Latin names all have an attractive sound and are common in many languages and cultures.

Touit is pronounced like the English “do it.” Touit stands for good visibility, agility, mobility and diversity, qualities which also aptly describe the new ZEISS lenses for mirrorless camera systems. The name Touit comes from the band-tailed parrots. This bird is very small and agile, and its plumage is deep green. The Touit parrots live in Latin America and the Caribbean in a wide range of different habitats, from damp-tropical island regions to lowland rainforests to thorn-bush savannas and even high in the Andes Mountains at altitudes of up to over 20,000 feet.

The first two focal lengths in the Touit family will be the Touit 2.8/12 and Touit 1.8/32. The names of the optics concept that have been used in product names until now (for example Distagon or Planar), as well as the T* symbol denoting the anti-reflective coating, will continue to appear on the front ring of the lenses. “With the Touit series, we are starting a completely new naming convention,” explains Martin Dominicus, Head of Marketing of the Carl Zeiss Camera Lens Division. “Our lenses will not only be unmistakable for their imaging performance, manageability and product design. Their name will also give this family of lenses a very unique identity.”

Zeiss Toiut 12mm f/2.8 Distagon

Equivalent to an ~18mm lens on a full frame camera, this is an ultra-wide angle design. My expectation is for it to outperform most full-frame designs by dint of being newly designed and optimized for the APS-C format and no need to design around an DSLR mirror box.

Zeiss Toiut 32mm f/1.8 Planar

Equivalent to an ~49mm lens on a full frame camera, this is a moderately fast normal lens. The ƒ/1.8 aperture and new design give some hope for a very high performance design, with my wish being for a flat field and no focus shift.

Sony DSC-RX100: a Terrific Combination of Features

Putting my recent post of Form Factor and Camera Appeal to a real-world trial, I stuffed the diminutive Sony RX100 into my jersey pocket and headed out for a multi-hour mountain bike ride on my Moots Mooto X YBB 29er. I also have the handy Richard Franiec stick-on grip on mine.

The Sony RX100 had impressed me last fall, but it did so all over again: small and light so that I scarcely notice it in a jersey pocket, the most natural fill flash I have found in any camera at any price (set to -1.7 slow sync), excellent exposure accuracy, very pleasing color, bitingly sharp centrally at close range at the 28mm setting.

The RX100 just gets the job done fast and without any of the size/weight hassles of larger cameras: no excuse for not taking it, no excuses for not getting highly satisfactory images. Its a real winner in my book for its combination of features for this type of use. Which is what any successful camera is about. Well, I do wish there were an EVF option, but its rear LCD is excellent even in bright sun.

This image is cropped down to ~12 megapixels. Note the perfect exposure in aperture priority mode, along with flash that is so natural one wouldn’t even know it had been used except for the catch-lights in the eyes.

No complaints on sharpness here. This is actual pixels below.

Sony NEX-7 with Zeiss Touit 12/2.8 and 32/1.8

See the existing review of the Sony NEX-7.

Results with the new Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 and Zeiss Touit 32m f/1.8 E-mount lenses will be shot using the Sony NEX-7 and become part of Guide to Mirrorless. I expect the camera and lenses by late this week.

One has to wonder if a Sony NEX-7N (Sony NEX-9?) might incorporate an even better sensor having the same per-pixel quality and pixel density as the Sony RX100; just to speculate: that would be 60 megapixels, but 48 would be just fine with me. Offering raw output at native resolution, or at 3/4 or half the pixel count for elimination of digital artifacts—any form of native oversampling would be hot, and though I deem it unlikely, it is what *I* would do to shake up the market.

The Sony NEX-7 has dropped to about $948.

Sony did some things really well: built-in EVF, centered tripod socket so a camera plate does not block the battery/card door. In the context of its 2011 release date, it stands out as better done than most current compacts, and 24-megapixels to boot.

 

Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon

Equivalent to an ~18mm lens on a full frame camera, this is an ultra-wide angle design. My expectation is for it to outperform most full-frame designs by dint of being newly designed and optimized for the APS-C format and no need to design around an DSLR mirror box.

Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 Planar

Equivalent to a ~49mm lens on a full frame camera, this is a moderately fast normal lens. The ƒ/1.8 aperture and new design give some hope for a very high performance design, with my wish being for a flat field and no focus shift.

Mounting the Sony NEX-7 to a ballhead (tripod)

A camera plate offers a fast and efficient way to mount the camera to a tripod (one with a proper Arca-Swiss style clamp at least).

That’s where the Really Right Stuff BNEX7-L comes in: use the base plate only, or include the “L” portion which allows a quick swap to the vertical (portrait) position.

Sony NEX-7: Price Cut to $948

Check this out: yesterday the offer ended April 27: $998 after a $200 instant rebate. Kinda makes you want to snap one up before it expires, right?

Thing is, today the offer is through June 1, and the price is now $948 after $250 rebate ($50 less), along with 2% reward and free shipping. Or $1098 with the kit zoom. Such pricing deadlines have the tendency to train buyers to hold out for a better deal.

There will likely be a new Sony NEX-7N within 2-3 months, but this pricing starts to look attractive in context of other APS-C cameras, and it’s unclear if a NEX-7N would be materially improved.

EVF or LCD Zoomed-In Focusing Implementations

See Optical and Electronic Viewfinders: EVF + Optical + LCD = Synergy for an important discussion on viewfinders.

This discussion applies to an EVF or rear LCD when used in zoomed-in mode, something extremely useful in nailing focus precisely, especially with manual focus or adapted lenses.

Let’s survey a few implementations out there.

Nikon D800E

Grade: A (but 'B' when image quality fully zoomed in is considered)

Rear LCD, no EVF. One button press for zoomed in to level of magnification of choice. Zoom in to various levels, scroll around right out to almost the very edge of the frame. Mangled image display (subsampled) when fully zoomed in, but usable in practice with high accuracy.

Canon 5D Mark III

Grade: A

Rear LCD, no EVF. Similar to the Nikon D800, a bit more restricted on how close to the edge one can get. Lower resolution, but arguably the Nikon is equivalent just by not zooming in fully.

Leica M Typ 240

Grade: C-

EVF and LCD. Center focus only, no zooming: this is as primitive and frustrating an implementation as one could imagine. It forced me to do all my comparisons only on subjects with something in the center—might this not affect composition in general?

Awkwardly-placed zoom button (could it have been worse?). No option to stay zoomed when pressing shutter, so context is lost. The auto-detect feature for focus movement often activates by accident with any camera motion.

Fuji X100S

Grade: B+

EVF or LCD (good!). One press to zoom in, but modal: to focus on a particular area, one must pre-select that area, then zoom in. A change requires choosing the AF area, confirming with button press, then zooming in again (3 button presses just to scroll a fraction of the frame in another direction).

It’s a frustrating experience: the 4-way controller could allow scrolling left/right/up/down. But it’s *way* better than center-only Leica M240.

Sigma DP Merrill

Grade: B-

LCD only, and a marginal quality one at that. Similar limitations to the Fuji X100S except that zooming in is limited to the central 1/2 or so of the sensor. No support for contrast detect autofocus when zoomed in.

Nikon Coolpix A

Grade: A-

LCD only (a real problem on a small camera). The plus/minus buttons are awkward in use, but one can scroll around freely at a variety of magnifications, and one button press zooms back out.

Optical and Electronic Viewfinders:
EVF + Optical + LCD = Synergy

“Optical viewfinder”  is defined here as one which allows focusing*.

My recent experience with the Leica M Typ 240 clarified one thing for me:

The ideal camera should have a focusing-capable optical viewfinder and EVF and rear LCD.

These are not redundant— each serves a useful purpose that the others do not.

The new Leica M Typ 240 is the only camera on the market that has all three: optical viewfinder with rangefinder focusing, EVF, rear LCD. But it falls short of being ideal: zooming to focus is restricted to the center of the image only. The Fuji also qualifies because its optical viewfinder allows autofocus operation (but no facility for manual rangefinder style focus).

• Most compact cameras have a rear LCD, but no EVF and no optical viewfinder.
• Some compact cameras have a rear LCD + EVF, but still lack an optical viewfinder.
• DSLRs have a rear LCD and optical viewfinder, but no EVF.

I hope to see DSLRs designed to support an EVF appear on the market in 2013. For smaller cameras one will have to compromise with EVF + LCD, which is fine for those smaller form factors. What is weak is the LCD-only camera design.

To be clear, the connector supporting an EVF ought to support an EVF or larger LCD or any such device; an EVF is only one of many possible options.

* Hot-shoe mounted optical viewfinders are very expensive for good optics, crude for composing, make it guesswork to place the AF sensor precisely, TOTALLY useless for manual focus, and are without parallax correction or diopter correction or any display of settings of framing guides or similar.

Composing and focusing

See How to Hold a Camera Steady in Making Sharp Images.

Ideally, a camera should have three distinct ways of composing and focusing:

1. An optical viewfinder that supports focusing.
2. An electronic viewfinder (EVF) for composition and zoomed-in focusing.
3. A high-resolution rear LCD. Useful for composing and focusing, but generally requires the use of a high quality loupe for reasons of glare and presbyopia.

Let’s take each of these in turn.

Rear LCD

A rear LCD is a poor choice in several cases:

• Glare makes it hard to see in many conditions.
• Presbyopia makes it difficult to see any details, hence it requires use of a focusing loupe for any kind of manual focus, but even for seeing the autofocus position or even the settings.
• Camera shake from holding the camera at arm’s length means that anything under 1/125 sec is a hit-or-miss risk.

In practice, a rear LCD (only) severely degrades the viability of a camera for all around shooting, and lowers the success rate, particularly in dim light.

Optical viewfinder

Allows mass-coupling the camera to the head/body, making lower shutter speeds a far more viable option than holding the camera at arm’s length.

• Often no power required, or very little power.
• With DSLRs, maintains the 3D perspective of the eye.
• Maintains the native contrast of the scene (eye can see into highlights or dark areas just as it can normally).

There are drawbacks to an optical viewfinder:

• Generally makes the camera larger and more costly.
• Mirror slap from flipping up the mirror, along with brief blackout.
• Modern focusing screens are for autofocus and brightness, and generally quite poor for manual focus, so that use of manual focus lenses can be hit or miss on accuracy. Well, mainly 'miss' for high performance fast lenses. For example, the Nikon D800E demands high focus precision, yet has a focusing screen which is terrible for manual focus.
• The optical viewfinder is a separate optical path and it is almost a certainty that the length of this optical path differs from the length of the optical path to the sensor. So that even with perfect 20/20 vision and a good focusing screen, focus might still be off.
• Precise composition suffers with cameras having less than 100% view, and many cropped-sensor DSLRs have a seriously unpleasant “porthole” effect which I find degrades my ability to compose; I see the scene differently with such cameras, one reason I avoid them like the plague.

EVF

Like an optical viewfinder, allows mass-coupling the camera to the head/body, making lower shutter speeds a far more viable option than holding the camera at arm’s length.

An EVF has many positive qualities.

• Eliminates glare.
• Addresses the presbyopia issue.
• Generally shows 100% of the composition.
• Can show shooting information, virtual horizon, gridlines, etc.
• Allows zooming to 10X or similar for precise focus on the sensor itself.
• The focusing screen on high-res DSLRs is incompatible with accurate focus by eye for fast high performance lenses. This is a screen issue, not an eye issue. An EVF with push-button zoom is a critical Live View feature.
• Generally capable of showing an exposure preview.
• Flattens the image to 2D, just as with a ground glass does.

Still, while EVFs are getting better and better, none as yet lifelike; all suffer in varying degrees from contrast limitations, blowout of bright details or pure-black shadows or simply too-low resolution. Hence having an EVF an an optical viewfinder is very helpful in some lighting conditions.

Also some camera implementations are half-baked affairs: done right, one can zoom in and scroll around freely. Leica won’t allow any zooming at all, Sigma DP Merrill and Fuji are modal (choose a focus point, zoom in, but zoom back out if one wants a different focus point!). Who thinks this stuff up?

A bit more

Camera shake

A camera with only a rear LCD forces the camera to be held away from the body.

Held with arms extended, the success rate for sharp images plummets at 1/125 second and lower (varies depending on focal length). But mass-coupled to the body with a viewfinder, the odds rise by at least 2 to 4 shutter speeds.

See How to Hold a Camera Steady in Making Sharp Images.

With my Nikon D800 or similar DSLR, I can generally make a sharp image as low as 1/8 second with proper technique and several attempts. And I have a fairly high success rate at 1/30. By success, I mean for truly sharp images, not sort-of-sharp almost usable images.

With a camera like the Sony RX1 (without its optional EVF), I found that anything 1/100 or slower comes with poor odds— holding the camera out at arm’s length is a recipe for blur.

Presbyopia

A camera with a rear LCD (only) is literally a blur for some users.

An EVF with a diopter adjustment also mitigates having less than 20/20 vision.

As we age, our eyes lose their flexibility, pushing the close-focus distance out farther an farther:

• A child can focus on its own nose or thereabouts and in very dim light too.
• In my late 40's, I can focus no closer than about 30cm under dim lighting, somewhat better under bright lighting (depth of field from pupils). I have contact lenses for vision correction to 20/20, but this moves out my focus distance.
• Someone in their 60's or 70's might be effectively at infinity for eye focusing, making it impossible to ever see the rear LCD clearly without reading glasses.

Correcting for near-sightedness move the focus distance out as is my situation. Glasses might be used for some, but this does not address glare or camera shake.

Glare

A rear LCD suffers from glare.

Even when immaculate there is glare. With a little finger grease, sunblock, sweat or similar on the rear LCD, the glare can become a real impediment.

Form Factor and Camera Appeal

In working with a large number of cameras over the years, I’ve developed a very strong sense of what works and doesn’t work for me.

Traditionally the game was about megapixels and image quality, and everything else went along for the ride.

What if the new game is really about how much we like using the camera, how attractive it is, how few hassles it presents, the success rate for images, how portable it is, which lens is preferred, and so on? And NOT about the image quality? Just about simple stuff, like does it fit in a pocket or can I use it successfully at dusk?

This year is already bringing impressive image quality in point and shoots, and that leaves the ergonomic and fun factors as the primary decision point for most users. Image quality is way beyond good enough for most people; it is so good to be irrelevant any more (not to me and perhaps not to many of my readers, but for most of the population).

The overarching trend is about the enjoyment of using a camera, which means different things to different people (the act itself, or the results, or both). Hence the iPhone might be the most-used camera out there. But the iPhone has proven itself useless for my purposes (very high failure rate under my favored conditions), so it’s out. And I just plain hate using it to make pictures; it feels terribly awkward to me.

But this makes me wonder: if I could have an Apple iPhone Retina display on the back of my point and shoot, would I go ape-crazy over it just because the images look so darn good? There is that appeal too—immediate visual gratification.

What follows are intentionally immediate reactions I have to each of these small cameras:

• Nikon Coolpix A: love the image quality, love the form factor, no image stabilization makes it a loser in low light, no EVF guarantees blur at arm’s length in lower light, grip might as well not exist, hard to hold.
• Fuji X-E1, X-Pro1, X100s: funky image artifacts bug me, hate the controls and weird behavioral glitches, just too bulky for what it offers. Never felt intuitive to operate.
• Sigma DP Merrill: terrific sharpness, superb to godawful color, superb focus accuracy, fast-working ergonomics but slow as mud to save and review images, mediocre LCD, no EVF. But sharpness and price are right.
• Nikon D7100: terrrific sensor, porthole viewfinder, DSLR should be full-frame or why bother with a DSLR at all. Idiotic Live View behavior. No point if one has a D800E.
• Leica M Typ 240: nice sensor, frustrating EVF, poor menu design, confounding button placement/size/shape, manual focus only, relatively large and heavy.
• Sony NEX-7: geat sensor, but I wish it felt like a camera and lens selection never satisfied.
• Olympus E-M5: good image quality, great stabilized video, lenses very good but could be better, awkward button placement, absolutely insane menu system, generally fun once configured but I want more sensor. Oh, and it’s on the large side.
• Sony RX100: super fun to shoot, but I want a smaller and much sharper fixed lens, add-on grip is fine, still almost a must have for its combination of size/weight/image quality/easy carry/perfect fill flash.
• Sony RX1: did not gel for me: no EVF built in, needs a grip, generally excellent image quality but just a problem to shoot for me without an EVF (holding at arm’s length), and EVF makes the camera a bulky thing.

All these cameras are dancing around the target, but none of them hit the bullseye.

I suppose what I’d like is the image stabilization of the Olympus E-M5, the sensor of the Sony RX1 but 36MP, a built-in high-res EVF, precision spot autofocus, good grip, simple menus without JPEG or video, and fast camera operation.

Cecilia C writes:

I have been enjoying your articles in the past few days. I am still not able to see how some of these newer, more compact cameras beat a D800E with one small lens like the 50G f1.8. The overall usability and workflow with the D800E are great. I like the RX100 with the grip, BUT using it is like using an iPhone...no viewfinder.

What do you think about the Sony A99 and A77 cameras? Are they a better compromise?

DIGLLOYD: The small cameras certainly do not beat a D800E in image quality. But they pass the “really good” mark for many applications. And my pockets don’t hold a D800E very well.

The RX100 gets a pass on the lack of EVF because it is so pocketable, though I wish it had one. As for the Sony A99 and A77, I’ll pass, what I want is both an optical viewfinder AND an EVF on my Nikon and Canon DSLRs; they serve different purposes, see Why an Electronic Viewfinder (EVF) is Not Really Optional.

Philip A writes:

It is difficult to find a camera which could satisfy any need, and therefore, i think that it is not irrelevant for an enthusistic photographer to own three cameras:

- a small pocket camera to have always one with you. I currently use a Canon S100 for that purpose,

- a top DSLR for art or beautiful (photograph skills depending...) photographs. I have a D800E, and it is really a fantastic camera. When I bought it, I abandonned zoom objectives and bought three fixed lenses (24/1.4, 50/1.8 ( a no brainer at the price!), and a 85/1.8). À réal pleasure which reminds me of my Rolleiflex 6008.

- a top quality camera but lighter than DSLR when one want to take nice picture without carrying to much stuff, or when one want something less visible. This third category seem quicly improving with the cameras that you mention (Nikon A, Fuji, Sigma DP, ...). In this category, I had a Leica m6, and later on went to digital and bought a Sony Nex5 when it was launched three years ago, but I sold it as objectives do not do justice to the camera ( or are too bulky for some recent ones). I am looking for a replacement, and the offer is increasing very quickly at the moment. Did you had a chance to test the new Ricoh GR V?

DIGLLOYD: Yes, I agree. One camera is ill-suited to all tasks. At present, for me this means Sony RX100 + Sigma DP Merrills + Nikon D800E + Olympus E-M5 (for cycling videos).

Is There Room In Today’s Market for an No-Nonsense Workhorse Camera?

Expounding on APS-C is the new full frame, is there room in the market for a true honest to goodness photographer’s no-nonsense workhorse camera? Possibly APS-C, ideally full-frame, the same ideas apply regardless of size.

Every camera design on the market today exhibits design shortcomings, and usually outright glitches. No grip or poor grip, menus obfuscated with dozens of irrelevant settings, focus-reset and self-timer glitches, mangled or restricted Live View, extra parts just to apply a filter—you name it, each camera out there has what I consider things that should not have shipped.

The cause? Larding up camera design with kitchen sink checklist features, rather than thinking through the core usability issues and focusing on what should be ultra reliable (focus) and/or solve a real issue.

With APS-C now offering sensational image quality (D7100 sensor), consider the following camera (full-frame would be fine too):

• True photographer’s camera; no concessions to anything but pure photography.
• No hassle operation: every physical and operational detail scrutinized.
• Raw only (DNG). No JPEG, no video, no app-store, manual and aperture priority only. Hence 2/3 of the menu clutter disappears. [Could be a concession to generate JPEG after the fact, but no options choosable].
• Extreme accuracy spot autofocus (or manual focus).
• iPhone-size 3.5-inch Retina display so that images can be critically evaluated (and enjoyed at the same time). Along with ultra high-res EVF which is built-in, zoom anywhere you like on the sensor for focusing, with guaranteed-best contrast detect AF at the precise location desired.
• The minimum of buttons and dials needed for shooting: aperture, shutter speed, ISO, dedicated play and delete button, buttons that differ in size and offer great tactile feedback so that in pure darkness one never gropes. All operable with gloves on and/or with a single hand. Weather sealed.
• Ultra high performance 28mm + 50mm bi-focal ƒ/1.0 (APS-C, ƒ/1.2 for full frame) flat-field no focus shift lens. It won’t be small and it won’t be cheap, but nothing else will touch it, peak quality by ƒ/2. Possibly manual focus with bearings (cine lens style) for obscenely smooth focus control.
• Double-resolution 48 megapixel sensor with in-camera downsampling modes so that 36 and 24 megapixel sizes are essentially true-color, completely free of digital artifacts.
• Ergonomic built-in grip in which incorporates a battery. Small, but big enough to be stable with a great grip. Base plate already compatible with dovetail on common tripod heads, so no need to buy a camera plate.
• True RGB raw histogram showing full sensor gamut and range for easy evaluation of having “nailed” the exposure .
• Auto-ETTR aperture priority exposure mode that guarantees that the full potential of the sensor is used.
• 15-bit dynamic range including dual-shot electronic low/hi sensor readout HDR that guarantees ultra-clean dark tones so that noise does not exist.
• Built-in full-res or 4K time lapse feature that does not require shutter actuation.
• Built-in GPS and built-in WiFi (I have my doubts on both of these, but they avoid the need for dongles).

And most important: when in doubt, leave it out.

Geoffrey writes:

A very thoughtful spec for a true photographer’s camera. So in your view, why is there no such thing on the market? Either the camera companies are woeful at market research, or that your spec list is a dream for only a tiny percentage of the camera buying market.

The shame is that for the digital cinema market there are all sorts of entrepreneurs releasing new cameras over the last few years, such as Red, Black Magic, etc. Where is the equivalent movement for still photography? We obviously can’t rely on the big Japanese camera companies to innovate in this space. We need some ‘Black Magic’ for still photography so to speak.

DIGLLOYD: My spec list is demanding and many compromises could be made, but at its core what I want to see solved is a focus on making the camera deliver on making images, and elimimate anything else not central to that mission. Yes, the core market is small, but it is also huge with the right combination of features: beginners benefit from simple and thoughtful design too.

A lack of real creativity runs through the C/N majors, along with a deep-seated cultural aversion to innovations which might not succeed, along with an established business to protect. Which over time means fiscal doom. These companies just don’t have any concept of a halo product, or that a “failure” of a truly innovative product might be the best marketing a company could buy. They are the anti-Apple, so seeing them introduce a really disruptive product into the market that would kill off their own existing product line... well if the queen had balls she’d be king.

In design, the hardest challenge is to cut back a design to its core, to its essence, and to throw away the first ten such designs by virtue of perfectionism. And to design such a product so well that it kills off its predecessors instantly. When that is combined with a fear of “failure” and a fast-evolving market, the result is to make incremental changes at these big companies: a focus on short term risk versus (no thought at all) on long-term existential risk (witness Kodak).

I give Canon and Nikon a “D” in terms of real innovation (more megapixels with essentially no change to form factor is not innovation). But I give Sony a B+ for its RX1, which breaks the price and sensor size mold for a compact, along with the RX100 which puts a lot of good stuff in one package together with an oddball size sensor. The point is that these two cameras came to market from Sony, and not Nikon or Canon. It shows a cultural willingness to break outside the mold, even if it’s only a big bulge and not a rupture. As I wrote some months ago, Sony vs Nikon and Canon — Lunch is Served, but WHO WILL EAT IT?.

It would probably take $5M dollars for a prototype camera to be developed along the lines I am thinking. But the cost barrier to entry are difficult: pricing for key camera parts makes it impossible to compete on price with the big guys (buying in lots of 1000 vs lots of 100,000).

Reader Comment: 40MP Pentax 645D vs 36MP Nikon D800

There was a Pentax 645D Rebate ending March 31. B&H now has the Pentax 645D body only for about $8800.

See the review of the Pentax 645D in DAP.

David P writes:

I concur with your wish to see a fixed lens 56x56mm MF digital camera though it seems unlikely to happen, if only because demand would probably be low. However it set me thinking about the 18 months during which I owned a Pentax 645D system.

I sold the Pentax and its lenses - for reasons too tedious to go into - in favour of a Nikon D800 (I was already a very long time Nikon user). What struck me immediately and forcibly on using the 36mp D800 was how greatly inferior it was in IQ terms to the 40mp 645D. I had expected a slight difference in IQ but the Nikon was simply not on the same planet as the Pentax. Not only that, but the Pentax flattered the user - it was EASY to shoot images with superb IQ, whereas the Nikon was extremely difficult to get the best out of. That is, it wasn't hard to get pleasing images out of the D800, but very difficult to get image-files which were significantly better than those from the 12mp D700, my other FF camera-body.

It seemed as if the old divide in quality between 35mm (FX) and MF cameras still existed in exactly the same manner and degree (as in the days of film), in spite of pixel-count etc. Except at high ISOs, the Pentax trumped the Nikon in every way, in spite of the Nikon's sensor being a couple of generations later and presumably more sophisticated.

I wonder if this difference is something you have noted, and what you think the most likely reasons are for its existence.

Congratulations on the continuing high quality of your site; one of only two "must-view" sites on the entire internet, imho.

DIGLLOYD: The Pentax 645D does not have an anti-aliasing filter on its 40-megapixel 4:3 CCD, so the appropriate comparison is with the D800E, though the D800 model is the same except for necessary sharpening differences.

The 40-megapixel CCD sensor in the 645D is terrific, no doubt there. And admittedly a CCD image has a certain appeal over CMOS from what I can see, the Leica M9 vs M240 being the most notable case. It’s a real difference in style and I can see that some shooters would really respond to it (I did).

There is also a style difference that results from the format: the longer focal length. And also the aspect ratio. But with a 44 X 33mm sensor, this difference is not pronounced.

And I have to offer a caveat: I never did have a chance to shoot the D800E and the Pentax 645D at the same time; I had the Nikon D3x at the time.

“very difficult to get image-files which were significantly better than those from the 12mp D700, my other FF camera-body” means to me that something in the equation was an issue (lenses, technique, focus errors, post processing, etc).

But I have a hard time agreeing with the “not on the same planet” statement. The D800 has a wider dynamic range and better color accuracy and with top glass and sharpening produces 1st class images. Most of the Pentax lenses were disappointing, not even in the same league as Leica S glass, and lacking the sparkle I enjoy from my Zeiss glass.

David P responds:

"Not on the same planet" was an exaggeration and therefore unfair to the D800

I'll stick to my guns, however, in saying it can be a difficult camera to get the best out of; but having recently purchased the Zeiss 21 and the Sigma 35/1.4 I do see what a difference top-quality glass can make.

My Nikon lenses were probably not all of the first rank. And when still unsure of the D800's capabilities, I did eventually do some careful side-by-side tests with the D700 which showed that the D800 had better colour, contrast and detail. In the real world I still sometimes find those improvements to be elusive.

DIGLLOYD: Top glass is essential with the D800. To see what it can really do, the Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar is instructive. The Sigma 35/1.4 is a good choice as is the Zeiss 21/2.8 Distagon, though in truth most all wide angles of any brand really need improvement to fully exploit the D800/D800E. But the Pentax 645D has similar limitations.

Dream Camera: Big Sensor Fixed Lens

Let’s go the opposite direction from APS-C is the new full frame.

Measuring my old 6 X 6 film at 56 X 56mm, here’s my fantasy camera: a fixed-lens camera with 56mm X 56mm sensor, somewhere in the 80-100 megapixel range. Look, I’m compromising here: the Mamiya 6 X 7 was even larger (56mm X 70mm image area)!

This sensor size is not so far away from what exists today: PhaseOne offers a 53.9 X 40.4 sensor. So one could compromise that down to, say, 48 X 48 which is probably a better size all around for camera bulk and lens size, and yet still 2.6 times the area of full frame. Still, if the sensor can be made 56 X 56 or 52 X 52 would be a unique proposition.

Why a fixed lens? So that it can be optimized to deliver razor sharp corner to corner image quality optimized for the sensor. And so that it can be factory aligned perfectly to the sensor and so that that camera can build in a variety of lens corrections baked into the raw (but not distortion please).

Why a square sensor? Because the lens doesn’t have to be extra large to cover a rectangular shape. An oversize square sensor cropped still leaves a ton of pixels. I remember fondly my brief experience with the Hasselblad 503CWD (see also the Hasselblad 503CWD PDF description). And it only had a 36X36mm sensor.

For this imaginary camera (will it ever happen?), a 50mm f/2.8 lens would be peachy, and would be roughly equivalent to a 28mm f/1.5 on full frame. It would be OK if the lens were ƒ/4 too. The camera would not be small, but it would not be huge either. It would be stunning though, done right and produce images with a unique look.

Tom H writes:

As a former owner of Mamiya 6x6 and 6x7 Rangefinder Cams. I can confirm that they were not that big.. perhaps the AF electronics could need a bit more place in the lens tube, but all other aspects are crying for a cam like this..

The only major reason why I gave up the great Mamiya Cams (I also had the famous 43 mm superwide) was that the development and the films themselves became too expensive..

Especially a Merrill 6x6 would be a revolution;-), i believe..

The only problem could be, that a fast 2,8/50 mm WA lens could be would be too big/heavy, the former 60 mm lens for the 6x6 only had the "speed" of 4,0.., and the 50 mm for 6x7 only had 4,5...;-((

DIGLLOYD: I owned a Mamiya 7 II with three lenses for some years, what a great form factor for a huge piece of film. I also gave it up for development/scanning reasons.

A digital version might need to be larger to accommodate the battery, card slot and electronics, but it would not need the rangefinder if it had Live View and EVF.

Lens design has come a long way, so ƒ/2.8 in a 50mm might be viable (especially with in-camera correction of certain aberrations), but ƒ/3.5 or ƒ/4 might be a better choice.

Sigma will probably struggle to get to full-frame, so larger than that is not in the realm of consideration.

Tom L:

So if you are dreaming, why settle for a square sensor, why not round? Unless lens glass is carefully inspected and flaws placed deliberately, it is symmetrical and round, the image sensor ought to be too. With EVF the size of the mirror should not be a hindrance, so the only hangup is the cost of producing a round sensor.

DIGLLOYD: The camera I describe could be made today with today’s technology (possibly a slightly smaller sensor would be necessary).

I would not want a round sensor, so I’m not going to wish for one, but it also makes no sense: a round sensor area inscribed inside a square would take the same silicon wafer area: this would be silly to throw away that area, higher cost and fewer pixels. The lens would not vary in size either way very much, nor would I want a low quality “continuous corner” as per a circular image area (which I’d crop off 99% of the time).

Now a spherical sensor is another matter that is very lens friendly, but that is not going to happen anytime soon.

Gregor S writes:

This would be the replacement for my beloved Makina 67 with the Nikkor 2,8/80mm fixed lens !

And don't we miss all the aesthetic tradition of the square format....actually I use the Nikon P310 for leisure photography because it has a programmable 1:1 ratio and would love to have that on my D800.

DIGLLOYD: we “all” are probably not the main market for digital cameras these days (think the iPhone generation), but perhaps we are the buyers for this imaginary camera, just as there are plenty of Leica M buyers. The D800 does have a 4X5 crop mode, but I just prefer to crop after the shot because I sometimes like another variant that what I had intended.

Peter F writes:

I have been following your recent writings on the subject of larger sensors in a smaller form size, not least as a professional photographer who earns his whole living through print sales and has used Rollieflex and Mamiya 7 cameras over many years in the past, but more recently Nikon D700, and now Leica M9P cameras.

The notion of a relatively compact camera not distant in weight and feel to say a Mamiya 7 with a standard lens and a big sensor as you outline, if executed well would be a camera I would be prepared to spend $15,000 on, and surely I wouldn't be the only customer.

What I find tantalising is the thought of camera manufacturers actually paying attention to propositions like yours? You seem to be asking the logical questions that might be on many peoples minds, and of I understand of course the business case implications, but at what place is the interface between what camera designers are thinking might sell and what would actually hugely excite buyers.

I also am very grateful for your tremendously high standards which have certainly influenced my buying decisions and I think more than balance your marvellously irreverent outburst some months back. In each case your desire for honesty triumphs. Thank you!

DIGLLOYD: I think the market is there (if one believes that medium format is a market!), but conversations here and there with various vendors indicate that not much interest exists for this type of product. Still, the landscape is changing fast.

The right company to do it? Zeiss comes to mind. Tons of experience in lenses for all size formats, experience with manual focusing lens design, and one of the few companies building lenses but not cameras (now that IKON is discontinued). Skip all the extra cruft, make it manual everything with a good histogram and high res screen for image review. Make a classic. Something pros and everyone else lusts after for sheet purity of purpose.

For that matter, why does Hasselblad waste its reputation on the Sony NEX-7 “Lunar”—a lipstick-on-a-pig* distraction—when they could be build something exceptional?

* Not really fair to the NEX-7 which is a very good camera in its own market segment, but in context of medium format cameras it is so.

Why no ƒ/1.0 Lenses for APS-C? And why no ƒ/0.7 lenses for M4/3?

As discussed in APS-C Emerges as “the new full frame quality”, there ought to be format-equivalent apertures with lenses: ƒ/1.0 for APS-C (equivalent to ƒ/1.4 on full frame), and ƒ/0.7 for Micro Four Thirds (M4/3).

Why do the smaller formats not have such lenses (with a few not so enticing exceptions)? Perhaps because the smaller formats are not yet deemed a serious market in which buyers would pay big bucks for a fast and well corrected lens. This might change in time.

In the meantime, one can shoot the Leica 50mm f/0.95 Noctilux on Sony NEX, but it doesn’t really deliver the same effect: for the same field of view, one has to be considerably further from the subject. No, what is needed is ƒ/0.71 for an APS-C camera.

Below are two images from the Wide Aperture Landscapes page in Guide to Leica, on full frame. Full-frame is hard to beat for the rendering style, just as large format has its own classic look compared to 35mm or medium format.

APS-C Emerges as “the new full frame quality” + the Sagging Momentum of Micro Four Thirds (m4/3)

Well, 2013 might be the year of the compact camera with APS-C sensor (generally with fixed lens, but I’d like to see a 28/50 “bi elmarit” myself). That trend might veer and split off into a full-frame variant too as per the existence proof, the Sony RX1.

Witness the Nikon Coolpix A (in the wild already), Ricoh GR V (about to arrive) on top of the Sigma DP Merrill and Sony NEX and Fuji X cameras and probably others that I’m forgetting: all compacts with very high image quality, most of them with a fixed lens but NEX and Fuji X offering interchangeable lenses.

This game is moving fast.

Micro Four Thirds

Micro Four Thirds cannot touch these APS-C cameras in terms of image quality, certainly not the sensational noise and color rendition of the Nikon Coolpix A and the oddball but bitingly sharp sensor of the Sigma DP Merrill series. And you can bet that a next-gen Sony sensor will knock your socks off.

Which makes me wonder about the viability of the Micro Four Thirds format: what is the point of insisting on such a small sensor when APS-C is now proven to afford very compact form factor possibilities? And with the industry’s heavy hitters behind APS-C and full frame (Nikon, Canon, Sony).

The M4/3 sensor is only 60% of the size of APS-C, yet cameras like the Olympus OM-D E-M5 suffer from noise at embarrassingly low ISO values and the Olympus E-M5 is actually a lot larger than entrants like the Coolpix A. There are smaller M4/3 camera bodies, but they are not materially smaller in a practical way, nor all that appealing.

The Sony RX100 is as small as I’d want to go, and there’s only a little wiggle room between the Coolpix A form factor and the Sony RX100 form factor. Where does that leave M4/3?

As for image quality, the Sony RX100 does amazingly well and arguably as good as the E-M5 sensor (maybe even better in some ways)—even though it’s smaller in area: as sensors improve APS-C is going to really rock, and the RX100 sensor size will get even better. So the M4/3 gang had better burn the midnight oil and this business about “new camera next fall” is a dangerous game plan for Olympus. But of course Olympus now has Sony as an ally, so a state of the art Sony sensor in M4/3 is a pleasing thing to contemplate.

But assuming that M4/3 achieves the same sensor quality gains as elsewhere, where is the broad-based industry support? Nikon and Canon don’t support it, and Zeiss has not committed to building M4/3 lenses, but has committed to Sony NEX and Fuji X. Ponder that—think 'traction'.

Lens speed

No fast lenses exist for M4/3. Lens speed is a relative measure: relative to format.

An ƒ/1.0 lens on M4/3 is about equivalent in DoF terms to ƒ/2.0 on full frame (depending on how one accounts for the aspect ratio difference). Hence most lenses for M4/3 are actually SLOW compared to APS-C or full frame. The flip side is that deep depth of field is more easily obtained.

ƒ/1.0 ~= ƒ/2.0
ƒ/1.4 ~= ƒ/2.8
25mm ƒ/1.0 ~= 50mm ƒ/2.0
12mm ƒ/2.0 ~= 24mm ƒ/4
24mm ƒ/1.4 ~= 50mm ƒ/2.8
50mm ƒ/2.0 ~= 100mm ƒ/4
75mm ƒ/1.8 ~= 150mm ƒ/3.5
“~=” means “approximately equals vs full frame”

Background blur possibilities with M4/3 are thus non-existent when compared to full-frame and there are very few options even with respect to APS-C. And the “look” of shorter focal lengths is less pleasing for some purposes, just a medium format has long been favored for full frame, or large format over smaller formats.

Take for example the full frame Sony RX1 with its 35mm f/2 lens. M4/3 could offer an equivalent which be smaller by perhaps 1/3, but it would need to offer a 17mm ƒ/1.0 lens. And if you’ve seen that Zeiss 35/2 lens on the RX1, I state bluntly that equivalent performance in a 17mm ƒ/1.0 on M4/3 is extremely unlikely.

Vendor support

Zeiss is offering Zeiss lenses for Sony NEX and Fuji X and presumably any other APS-C format that gains popularity. But as yet, not M4/3: to really exploit the M4/3 sensor size (keeping quality up and size/weight down), separate designs are required for the format. And yet the savings in lens size and weight will not scale down as much as the sensor size difference.

But the bottom line is the M4/3 has much more limited vendor support and hence its long term viability is in question: Nikon, Canon, Sony, Leica do not support M4/3. This is a very serious risk to the format.

Peter C writes:

I have always said - Olympus painted itself into a corner with 4/3. By designing their entire lens line for this size, it forever limited itself to this format. It cannot go bigger. Very foolish in my opinion. As a former OM system owner with quite a big investment, I was angered by their rejection of digital and abandonment of users like me.

DIGLLOYD: My statements above are not so much about megapixels as about total image quality and system value and options and the entire ecosystem. I do expect M4/3 to get to 32 megapixels or so, and it will probably cross a quality threshold in so doing as sensor technology evolves. But I don’t expect it to offer a superior form factor than APS-C except some (not that much really) advantage on lens size. And vendor support is also lagging.

Roy P writes:

Agree 100%. In fact, that was true two years ago – that’s why I went with a Sony NEX-5 instead of a M4/3 as an alternative back for my Leica M lenses. Since then, the progression to the 5N, 6 and 7 (or 7 and 6, to be more precise) have all been very impressive.

The rumored second version of the NEX-7 will likely surpass all but the highest end of the DSLR line ups!

DIGLLOYD: There are many things I really like about the E-M5 (super image stabilization, EVF + rear LCD, just fun to shoot in general), and several I really dislike (menus and buttons and high noise even at ISO 200 under some types of lighting).

Rumored cameras can have attributed to them magical properties. Will it have camera-like ergonomics or still feel toy-like as with current NEX?

But Sony is relentless and so NEX holds a lot of potential, as do spin-offs like the Sony RX1 and Sony RX100. And maybe Olympus will fill in the mid-range (imagine a Sony RX100 style camera with a M4/3 sensor now that Sony has invested in Olympus).

Steward Logie writes:

Micro four thirds is about lens size, not body size. Your examples quote single lens cameras and body only.

For low light I choose my full frame canon kit, but the Olympus OMD and its suite of nice fixed focal length lenses comes with me on travels.

DIGLLOYD: that’s why the APS-C Coolpix A body lens is no larger and probably smaller than even the Panasonic M4/3 pancake lenses. Ditto for Sigma DP Merrill, whose lenses are little different in size from comparable M4/3 lenses.

There really is not much difference in the size requirements for a high performing M4/3 lens versus a high performing APS-C lens. And M4/3 has not proven its potential at all: compared to full frame, lenses need to be 2 stops faster for equivalent DoF blur. Where are the ƒ/0.7 and ƒ/1.0 lenses in a variety of focal lengths?

Andreas Y

APS-C ALLVIEW cameras will become relevant to me (and I suspect others) when the manufacturers start shipping weather-sealed bodies and lenses with in-body image stabilization. My EM-5 + 12–50 kit lens shrugged off sleet and volcanic ash driven by 50+ knot gusts during our last trip to Iceland. Try that with a Sigma DP Merrill!

The samples you provide online leave no doubt that the EM-5 trails the pack in terms of ultimate image quality. But I know that it's the camera that will bring home the most compelling images for my purposes. And I'd argue that the EM-5's sensor is good enough where previous m43 sensors were comically bad with obvious noise present even at the base ISO.

I'm looking forward to your continued coverage of this product space!

DIGLLOYD: weather sealing has never mattered to me in the outdoors, but I do avoid volcanic ash. As for “lenses with in-body” IS I presume that Andres means simply “in-body image stabilization” which is awesomely good with the E-M5 and a huge plus beccause any lens benefits.

I agree the E-M5 sensor is the first M4/3 sensor I would deem acceptable. But it shows its weakness nonetheless. Under some lighting conditions, even ISO 200 disappoints.

Markus H writes:

How can a RX100-sized Sony sensor be viable but a larger m43 Sony sensor not be viable?

Well, the answer is that there is no fixed-lens m43 camera (yet). Such a camera would slot in between the RX100 and the Ricoh GR and Coolpix A, both in IQ as in regard to size (of course a prime will normally be better and smaller than a zoom).

Or maybe the real answer is that m43's role as the most compact camera with an acceptable IQ is getting challenged. And while that is an important role for m43, it is not the only one. There are also the wide-focal-length-range, the high-IQ-lens-range, and the fast-ish-prime-lens all in comparatively small sizes roles.

DIGLLOYD: I never used the word “viable”. All of these cameras are way beyond viable.

The topic is where the future leads and whether M4/3 has a significant advantage over APS-C in reality. My hypothesis is that the theoretical advantages of M4/3 over APS-C are small, and even smaller in marketplace reality. And that this might spell the doom of M4/3 which already lags in multiple ways: slow lenses (for the format), no world-class lenses that are not also huge and heavy, no lens support from key vendors like Zeiss (not yet at least), aspect ratio of 4:3 instead of the commonplace 3:2, getting eaten from below by cameras like the Sony RX100, which deliver the pocketability and image quality for that type of use.

There are no fast lenses for M4/3, here M4/3 has failed in promise, see the discussion above.

The latest sensor technology (RX100) paired with a fixed lens that is designed optimally for the sensor can do wonders (though the RX100 lens is pretty weak by the poor choice of being a zoom). But the main thing is that the sensor in the RX100 is really good.

Were the Olympus E-M5 to use the same sensor technologyas the RX100 scaled up to M4/3, it would be ~26 megapixels and make M4/3 much more attractive. But most of the lenses are not up to this demands, which would require new lenses of nearly the size of APS-C lenses.

Richard J writes:

In this argument that arises between sensor sizes, the prevailing comparison always seems to be the image quality of the sensor and that you can get more detail and less noise out of a larger sensor. Although this is not an inaccurate statement I believe people are missing an equal benefit if not, in my mind, a greater benefit to having a larger sensor over a smaller one.

This benefit is not about how well the sensor sees a scene but how much of that scene it can see. A M4/3 size chip is just not able to see as much of a scene as is a 4x5 camera, at least not without taking a wide angle lens and bending the light as much as possible to fit that whole scene on to the smaller chip. Also a 4x5 size is able to show a greater level of 3 dimensionality then a smaller chip, due in part to a narrower depth of field. I have wanted to do a visual demonstration of this to show the same scene on a M4/3 camera thru 35mm, medium format and 4x5 with both the same focal length and then with the equivalent focal length, however I don't have great access to the larger formats.

I think this would be a great comparison for you to do and add it to the DAP (which I am now a very pleased member) as I think it's as valuable a comparison between the formats as image quality is. I would love to see the results myself as I have always put how an image feels and the look of the image before outright image quality and I think doing this test would demonstrate that greatly. And I hope that it might go towards slowing the increases of smaller sensors and promoted a renewed desire for even larger sensors then we have now, even if I doubt I could afford a 4x5 digital back.

DIGLLOYD: As stated these claims appear to be erroneous, unless I misunderstand them.

It is M4/3 that has a much wider range of focal lengths, and 4X5 lenses also have to “bend” the light in order to cover a very large format— this is very hard to do at high quality and with a fast aperture using a very large chunk of glass (area, grinding precision, etc), hence we see ƒ/5.6 or ƒ/8 or ƒ/9 or even ƒ/11 view camera lenses. And of course, 4X5 must be stopped down for more for equivalent depth of field.

Depth of Field (DoF) is certainly something that delivers a very different look across formats. A 4X5 camera lens needs 4-5 stops more stopping down for equivalent depth of field (e.g. M4/3 at ƒ/1.4 ~= ƒ/8 on 4X5), but the subject perspective is wildly different (same idea with full frame versus medium format), and this “look” is the quality attractive to some shooters. M4/3 completely loses this look, APS-C mutes it.

DAP already includes a number of depth of field evaluations, which I started some years ago. See D2X vs EOS: Depth of field and Focus and Practical Depth of Field for starters.

Bill B writes:

This sensor / film size / flavor of the day has been going on in the photographic industry for decades. In the 60's 35mm became the standard camera for general use. Kodak started the 126 cartridge in order to expand the ease of photography to the masses. Loading 35mm was a challenge but 126 was easy. Then the 110 format in order to make the cameras smaller and lighter. Keeping in mind that Kodak was the mover of all these formats in order sell more film. New cameras, back when Kodak actually made the camera, meant more Kodak product in the hands of the consumer. Photofinishing labs had to buy new machines and new paper sizes. Inevitably the paper was designed to help optimize what the film was able, or not able, to resolve. When things really started to stagnate in the '80's a consortium of companies (Kodak working with smaller point and shoot camera companies who had suffered the reduced popularity of 110) developed the Disc camera. Notice the trend to smaller and smaller formats. And lets not forget that some of the leaps in optical technology were developed on those lowly plastic cameras. The aspherical plastic "poured" (composite) lens on the Disc camera was ground breaking.

With 4/3 it was easy to see what was going on with Sony, Olympus, Samsung, Panasonic, Ricoh and others. Develop another format which will allow the sales of cameras and accessories. By making the 4/3 mount "universal" the exposure to having to produce a huge series of lenses is reduced and manufacturers can focus on what they can do best, market and build boxes for sensors. This new sensor approach permits greater margins, which is of course the end goal, as smaller sensors do not cost as much just as smaller pieces of film cost less. The price to the consumer allows for more profit and if the "pro" 35mm format increases in price then just keeping the perception of price value on the smaller format is easy. (Manufacturers can keep the price margin on full frame sensors high and that perceived value on the smaller system seems like a bargain).
Change body styles to keep the marketing alive and push the body (and/or new sensor) upgrade path.

Once again the industry looks for ways to reinvent sales but it all comes back around. Back in "the day", Pentax, not satisfied with the smaller formats, created the Sport 35 full 35 mm point and shoot and Ricoh & Minolta followed immediately while Canon and Nikon 35 p&s took a while. Now you could have the fantastic image quality of 35mm with the vast assortment of films (slide, negative, B&W, pro, consumer) in an autofocus point and shoot. In the digital age we have micro 4/3rds, evolving to APS-C evolving back to 35. Guaranteed someone is going to come out with an interim APS-C / 35 middle size to market more new product. Sony as a sensor company might just be the Kodak of the 21st century driving camera changes to sell sensor formats. Judging by past history that might just happen again.

DIGLLOYD: Agreed, this is a natural evolution of the marketplace, with consumers picking the winners and loser. It is not image quality by itself, but image quality and the entire camera experience and industry support (e.g. lens options and variations on form factor). But as the other factors converge, the pressures mount on M4/3 and the differences shrink. That is the problem for M4/3.

Smaller film was a failure for good reasons: it was awful for anything but a snapsnot. M4/3 is not a failure for that reason; it is not a failure in any technical sense; it is merely a question of medium and long term market viability. M4/3 offers quality well beyond that necessary for most consumer use and is arguably superior for over what most consumers could ever get out of 35mm film.

The basic problem with going smaller with a digital sensor is that the fixed costs remain relatively inflexible: the body, the EVF, the LCD, the card slot, the tripod screw hole, the buttons and dials, the CPU and so on all are relative fixed costs regardless of sensor size.

Which leaves the sensor and optics as cost issues. Sensors are semiconductors and keep getting better and cheaper for any particular size sensor. What happens when a full-frame sensor approaches the cost of APS-C or even M4/3 does not? That cost has shrunk, but the other costs have not, so what is the point of the smaller sensor option?

Lenses also have fixed costs; an M4/3 lens doesn’t really cost much less than an APS-C lens: witness the quite high prices of Olympus M4/3 lenses. These costs become quite high for high quality M4/3 systems.

When all this is added up, the costs are largely fixed with only modest variation: witness the price of the Olympus OM-D E-M5 and assorted lenses; compare that to the APS-C alternatives. The truth is that M4/3 is not winning on price. Not on the camera body and not on the lenses.

With the sensor price on an inexorable dowward trajectory, an APS-C or full-frame sensor used in a mirrorless camera does not incur the expensive optical viewfinder and hence the total build cost asymptotically approaches that of smaller format cameras.

Hendrik M writes:

As a backup system for my M9, I use Olympus EPL5.

For people portrait (1 person), i used M9 for ultimate separation between subject and background.

As for the m4/3 system, i use it for:
1. group shots where i don't have to stop down too much so i can use lower power flash indoor.
2. outdoor environmental/landscape shots
3. travel, because of the low weight of lenses (14-42mm + 25mm summilux)

DIGLLOYD: the right or preferred tool for the right job.

Nikon Coolpix A Camera Plate (that does not block battery/card door)

See my review of the Nikon Coolpix A.

Readers know how grumpy I get when a camera is designed so that attaching a camera plate blocks access to the battery and storage card door.

It turns out that there is one plate that because of its offset screw slot design clears both the lens and the battery/card door: the Really Right Stuff B9 plate (attached so that the flange is at the rear of the camera).

The B9 plate is shown here; observe the offset screw slot which makes it work.

I’m told that Really Right Stuff will have a custom plate for the Coolpix A by mid-May.

If the Coolpix A weren’t so darn expensive at abut $1100 (before extras like the UR-E24/HN-CP18 filter/hood nuisance), or at least it had a built-in EVF, then I’d be sorely tempted: the lens and sensor are sensational together.

I expect that Nikon has overpriced it given the evolution of the market right now, and new entrants like the about $796 Ricoh GR V will provide competition to bring the price down. Neither camera offers an EVF (electronic viewfinder) and both offer very expensive optical viewfinders, which is an affront to anyone with advancing presbyopia.

It does make me wonder about the viability of Micro Four Thirds when APS-C compacts are sprouting like mushrooms.

Cliff L writes:

In addition to the RRS B9 plate, the Kirk "Universal Point & Shoot" plate also works well on a lot of these smaller cameras, and has multiple slots so the user can choose the best fit for the particular application. I'm not normally a fan of Kirk products, but I do have one of these.

DIGLLYD: I have not tried this my plate myself. I’m told that Really Right Stuff will have a custom plate for the Coolpix A by mid-May; a custom plate is always the best fit.

Zeiss 15mm f/2.8 Distagon: Field Curvature, MTF, Focus (Mosaic)

Added to Making Sharp Images is a detailed case study from ƒ/2.8- ƒ/16 using the Zeiss 15mm f/2.8 Distagon on the Nikon D800E showing how field curvature, MTF and choice of focus interact.

It’s not easy to show field curvature well, but this study turned out well, and it should be of some help to anyone shooting the 15/2.8 Distagon.

This study was previously published in Guide to Zeiss.

Leica M Monochrom with 50mm f/2 APO-Summicron-M ASPH: Study of Focus

How accurate does focus need to be to extract the very best from the 50mm f/2 APO-Summicron-M ASPH on the 18-megapixel Leica M Monochrome? And is there a focus shift to account for?

A from ƒ/2 through ƒ/8 is shown for each of six bracketed positions.

Focus Study (Leica M Monochrom, Dolls)

Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon and 32mm f/1.8 Planar for Sony NEX and Fuji X (and Sony NEX-7 L Plate)

I should have these two new Zeiss lenses by May 3rd for testing on the 24-megapixel Sony NEX-7. See my previous notes on the Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 and 32mm f/1.8.

See also my review of the Sony NEX system which includes pages on the existing Sony/Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 Sonnar.

As these are lenses for Sony NEX and Fuji X, review coverage for these two lenses will go into Guide to Mirrorless (DSLR lenses for Nikon and Canon go into Guide to Zeiss).

Mounting the Sony NEX-7 to a ballhead (tripod)

As with all tests, it’s a lot easier to shoot reliably when a camera plate offers a fast and efficient way to mount the camera to a tripod.

That’s where the Really Right Stuff BNEX7-L comes in: use the base plate only, or include the “L” portion which allows a quick swap to the vertical (portrait) position.

Zeiss ZE 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar for Canon and Nikon

As I write this, the Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar is IN STOCK at B&H* for Canon.

Canon users in particular should study the comparison of the Zeiss 135/2 APO-Sonnar to the Canon 135mm f/2L.

See my in-depth review of the Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar, including coverage and comparison with Nikon and Cano lens, and even performance on the Leica M Typ 240.

Readers often inquire what the “best” lens is. This is usually a complex question. Not so with the 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar: the Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar is the highest performing lens in the entire Zeiss ZF.2 / ZE lens line, indeed one of the highest performing DSLR lenses available today (maybe the best), and is thus a must-have for any serious shooter.

* Bookmark the Zeiss Gear page for in stock status in general; the buttons are updated twice per hour with in stock status, so you can see at a glance what’s in stock or not.

Reader Comment: Zeiss 15mm f/2.8 Distagon

See my in-depth review of the superlative Zeiss 15m f/2.8 Distagon in Guide to Zeiss.

Get the Zeiss 15mm f/2.8 Distagon at B&H Photo for about $2950.

Kirk T writes:

I will start this email by trying to describe my initial thoughts about shooting with my newly purchased Zeiss 15/ 2.8 ZE. I think they were something along the lines of, "Ummmmm - holy $hit is this lens unbelievable." I ordered the 15mm through your links to BH and I shot my first shots with it today, to test the performance in horrible lighting conditions, with all sorts of high-contrast edges, strong backlighting, etc. Unbelievable what this lens is able to control.

I often shoot vehicle interiors for investigation of motor vehicle collisions and this was one of my primary motivations for finally breaking down and spending the money on this lens. The tight spaces, small working distances and horrendous lighting (bright sunny day in a salvage yard, with the vehicle interior like a cave) all conspire to make shooting a detailed set of data in such conditions a nightmare. I have tried remote flashes in the interior (bounced off of the headliner to spread the light) as well as a Lupine Betty to get continuous and predictable light into the interior, but the lighting is too uneven for overall shots, and deep shadows hide potentially useful information - HDR imaging is a natural solution, but I would shoot with a Canon 15mm full frame fisheye and the images were distorted and peppered with fringing and color issues.

The Zeiss 15mm is a revelation. Attached is a quick HDR vehicle interior study - the first images I shot with the new lens, mounted to a 5DII.

All of the things that make images bad get even worse when you merge them to an HDR dataset. The 15mm ameliorates all of those problems, with a working distance that is perfect. This HDR data was shot handheld using LiveView to focus - 7 images 1EV spacing. The flare control makes shooting the severely overexposed shadow detail images a joy now, no purple shifting in the shadows from the flare that can result during such massive overexposure under contrasty lighting conditions. The tonemapped shadows are pure color now, so that the backpack and water bottle lid in the attached image are their actual colors, not tinted with a flare color.

No lens corrections were necessary. Just fantastic. The attached image was shot at f/5.6 - I could have stopped down to about f/11 and gotten focus extended into the immediate foreground but I wasn;t really too concerned about it, and 1/30s was starting to challenge my handholding limit (I suppose I could up the ISO, but then the noise creeps in).

Thanks again Lloyd for making your insight and detailed review and sample images available to me - they really helped me to justify spending the money on this lens. It is expensive for me but worth every penny.

DIGLLOYD: This sums it up pretty well: forget the resolution charts (where it’s a winner) and pay attention to total image quality under difficult conditions. The 15/2.8 Distagon is highly corrected in so many ways that it is a joy to use.

Canon 5D Mark II Discontinued

It had a long and very successful run, making its mark on the digital landscape for still photography, but even more so for video where it received great enthusiasm.

Apparently Canon has finally sold the last of its stock, leaving the Canon EOS 5D Mark III as the highest megapixel Canon option.

Canon Cinema Lens Rebates

Canon is running a rebate program on Canon CN-E Cine lenses.

$500 off a prime, $1000 off compact zoom, $2000 off cinema zoom.

 

Use promo code 150624141264682 at B&H Photo.

Sonora Pass through the Sierra Nevada is Now Open

The Sierra Nevada are still nevada, but channels in deep snow cut through by plows open the roads a bit earlier than the snow would otherwise melt off.

As noted a few days ago, Tioga Pass in Yosemite Might Open around May 11, but Sonora Pass just to the north is now open according to Dennis Mattinson of the Eastern Sierra Weather Center.

Without the passes open, it’s hours of extra driving to get to the Eastern Sierra, as well as making some areas inaccessible (Yosemite in particular).

See also the CalTrans road conditions site.

Shootout: Fujifilm X100S vs X100 vs Nikon Coolpix A

In Guide to Mirrorless, I’ve matched field of view for the dissimilar focal lengths to give a revealing look at the Nikon Coolpix A vs Fujifilm X100S vs Fujifilm X100 for good measure.

The Fujifilm X100S and Nikon Coolpix A have a nearly identical resolution, and both have 14% more sensor resolving power than the Fujifilm X100 (about 30% more pixels).

Fujifilm X100:   4288 X 2488 (10.66 megapixels)
Fujifilm X100S:  4896 X 3264 (15.98 megapixels) +14%
Nikon Coolpix A: 4928 X 3264 (16.08 megapixels) +14%

Reader Comment: Autofocus Accuracy

Matt G writes:

You touched on this a bit in your post today, I think by far the biggest problem these days is that whilst lens sharpness and sensor resolution just keep getting better better, but focus accuracy and usability hovers around the same level. This means the percentage of shots that are as sharp as they can be decreases with each successive generation of cameras.

Phase detection hardware may be operating near the limit of what can be achieved however there are however some really simple software fixes that would go a long way to alleviating focus problems. Quality software engineering comes at a price, but once the price is paid these improvements can be rolled out across umpteen-thousand units at no additional cost. A few ideas of the top of my head, which have no doubt occurred to others previously:

* Focus bracketing - works just like exposure bracketing but for the focus distance. Would be nice if you could chose the number of shots, but I'd accept three. Memory is cheap and this would do the job in many situations where you need to shoot quickly.

* Post-shot focus confirmation. Use a similar method to focus peaking to give a quick auditory notification if the AF system missed so you can quickly reshoot, instead of having to take the camera away from your eye, turn on the rear LCD, slowly zoom in to 100% then scroll to find the part of the image where the focus point was supposed to be. Could detect camera shake also.

* Auto calibration of phase detect systems using live view. Shooting an appropriate target with PDAF and then compare that result with the camera's own closed loop contrast detect AF system to detect systematic errors. Ideally this could be performed at different distances with different lenses and under different lighting conditions.

* Picture in picture live-view. Chose two points of the image and display them magnified side by side. Great for checking depth of field, working with tilt-shift lenses, checking field curvature or simply shooting portraits of two people.

The last one might depend on the hardware reading the image sensor, but everything else could be accomplished with existing units if manufacturers were willing to take the risk, or even open up the platform for third party development (think of how much more Magic Lantern would have achieved given access to the right documentation)!

DIGLLOYD: I agree that certain things could be done, particularly in the DSLR world where room for improvement is ample, but the suggestions above are limited in scope of applicability, and all of them have drawbacks or limitations.

The entire imaging and usability chain has to be involved: this is a hardware issue first and foremost:

• If there is no spot autofocus point, one cannot even designate the desired point of focus properly. Consider a burred iris and sharp eyebrows because the camera sees the eye, eyebrows, eyelashes, and chooses to focus on the eyebrows. The Nikon D800E drives me crazy this way; its focus points are sloppy. With some Nikon DSLR bodies, the AF point is at a slightly different point than indicated (focus at or near the edge of a wall to test this on your own camera).
• EVF/LCD resolution, image zoom: as an extreme case, the Leica MM and Leica M9 have such poor quality screens and zoomed-in low-res JPEG (in DNG) that it is impossible to determine if an image is sharp even after taking it.
• LCD/EVF resolution: resolution should be retina grade: twice the linear resolution needed for actual pixels, so that the display does not impair the evaluation of the image quality.
• Live View quality: the mangled (subsampled and jagged) Live View of the D800E makes judging sharpness much harder than it ought to be.
• Manual focus “throw”: most AF lenses are difficult to operate in manual focus mode; small movements make large changes.
• Most ƒ/1.4 lenses have low micro contrast: asking the autofocus system (or your own eye) to judge peak focus is inherently difficult (sometimes a slightly defocus actually looks better due to color errors!). Lens quality goes a long way towards enabling precision. This is one reason (my assumption at least) why ƒ/2.8 lenses generally prove satisfactory with camera AF calibration. Or highly corrected ƒ/1.4 lenses with high contrast wide open, such as the Sigma 35/1.4 DG HSM.
• Focus shift: DSLRs focus wide open, so unless and until the camera builds in compensation for focus shift (Hasselblad does this), focus can be perfect as focused wide open, then degrade over the next few stops until DoF catches up.
• Precision: Every Nikon body I’ve used lacks lacks precision with fast ƒ/1.4 lenses: a fixed target (e.g. LensAlign) produces different results over a sequence of shots. Poor precision. Calibration can only center the results about the correct area (accuracy), but one still obtains a scattershot grouping.

Software can do its best with the hardware problems all addressed. Anything else tends to be a Band-Aid, a work around.

As a case in point, the Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar is a joy to focus. Why? Because its wide open performance is so high that there is no ambiguity in ideal focus. That is the fundamental impediment to focusing most lenses: low micro contrast wide open. And the APO-Sonnar has excellent focus throw to make it physically possible to focus precisely.

Autofocus algorithm: we don’t get a choice of focusing algorithms: focus fast or focus absolutely accurately? Phase detect is assumed to have to happen ASAP. For contrast-detect (focusing off the sensor), what I see in Canon is an incremental stepping algorithm that tends to be highly accurate. What I see with Nikon CDAF is a rapid-fire back and forth herky-jerky adjustment that often is off just a little and probably suffers from hysteresis too. So it is my belief that the choice of focusing algorithm exerts an influence, and that can be addressed in software. But to be fair to Nikon, let’s see Canon AF perform as well for a 36+ megapixel camera as on a 22MP.

Focus bracketing might have limited uses and therefore be of some value, but it is problematic for many reasons. I already have too many images to sort, the image is missed if a facial expression changes, low shutter speeds mean some images are no good even if focus is spot-on, framing varies a little. And if one cannot designate the desired focusing spot precisely in the first place, how is the camera to make an evaluation for “best shot”. Does the camera account for focus shift? (no).

Lens calibration

Lens calibration can help for an accuracy problem (move the average result right onto the center of the bullseye), but does not solve precision issues (tight repeatable grouping).

For Nikon AF in particular, my conclusion is that precision has been the issue, at least with the low contrast of fast ƒ/1.4 lenses; even the eye has trouble with such lenses. But precision is not addressed by lens calibration.

As per Wikipedia, accuracy and precision:

The accuracy of a measurement system is the degree of closeness of measurements of a quantity to that quantity's actual (true) value.

The precision of a measurement system, also called reproducibility or repeatability, is the degree to which repeated measurements under unchanged conditions show the same results.

A measurement system can be accurate but not precise, precise but not accurate, neither, or both.

John W writes:

Great thoughts in today's post on autofocus accuracy, to which I'll add this:

Especially when compared to ad-hoc focus solutions such as focus bracketing, cameras based on computational photography show another way forward. Consider the Lytro camera (www.lytro.com) as currently released. Stated generously, it's best viewed as a technology preview. The sensor size and final rendered pixel counts are low by digital still camera standards, and I think the form-factor and handling leave much to be desired.

But this reconfiguration of sensor, optics, and processing can be viewed as way to trade the complexity of autofocus for final image quality in a way that leapfrogs conventional downsampling. From comments in public interviews, I guesstimate that Lytro's camera has a 10-to-1 ratio of full-color image sites to final pixels. If we're approaching 140 MP full-frame sensors, then imagine having a 14 effective megapixel camera which can't miss the desired focus and depth-of-field, because those attributes are no longer fixed at shot time. A camera where the shot-as DOF and focus point are, like RAW white balance, merely convenient annotations to the photographer.

DIGLLOYD: agreed in general, but with the very important stylistic differences in lens rendering, I am not so sure that a light field camera will be nearly so appealing, even if it had 500 => 50 megapixels sensing: another tool is always welcome however.

Image Quality Advances, Usability Declines

As I wade through so many different new cameras, what has become clear is that they are all getting really, really good at image quality. The Sony RX100, the Nikon Coolpix A, the Sigma DP Merrill and so on.

But every one of them misses the mark on usability in some way. Some are better, some are worse, but they all manifest the same disease: a failure to think through the feature set, which can be termed fairly, the “kitchen sink” design approach. Meaning not so much bad design (the result), but a failure to think about design in a meaningful way (the cause). Inertial design crossed with kitchen sink.

Even the new Leica M Typ 240 is showing symptoms of this malaise, though less than most. Still why can’t I reprogram that video button and hide all video settings?!

All suffer from a failure to think about the usability and ergonomic aspects: the non-existent grip, the unhelpful size and position and arbitrary grouping of buttons, the absence of tactile feedback, the fiddly controls that are too small for stiff or arthritic or gloved hands, the lack of an EVF for older shooters (presbyopia). And so on.

Next, add in the growth of menus and apps and modes and endless multi-level lists of settings. A simple decluttering exercise is in order. For example, consider just three global settings that could hugely simplify the design for many shooters:

• √ Hide all video settings.
• √ Hide all JPEG settings (for RAW shooters).
• √ Hide all beginner-mode options (or show only beginner mode options).

Decluttering is low hanging fruit. Really good design is much harder, but for starters cleaning up the mess would help.

Really Right Stuff BX100 Base Plate for Fujifilm X100S / X100

The X100S still has an off-center tripod socket, so attaching a conventional camera plate blocks access to the battery and card, so in this case, carry an allen wrench to swap the battery or get the card out.

But that is not so great, so the must-have solution for tripod shooting is the elegant Really Right Stuff BX100 base plate, which sidesteps the issue completely and also protects the entire bottom of the camera.

The BX100 base plate can also take an optional BX100-G grip and BX100-L “L” attachment, both of which are useful and offer additional “knock and scrape” protection to the camera.

I tried to BX100 with grip on the Fujifilm X100s (swapping it off my X100), and it bolted on just fine as expected.

Fujifilm X100S: What Happened to My Focus?

Two years of time to think through all the oddball glitches and things that interfere with usability, but the Fujifilm X100S seems to mainly be a warmed-over X100 with all the bad stuff left intact. Sure it has a faster AF and higher resolution sensor, but most of the design warts seem to have been cemented in, with no real improvements in usability.

For example, in manual focus mode, deleting an image completely defocuses the lens, so it has to be focused all over again to take another shot. Other operations also do this though I haven’t tracked down all the cases; the camera feels unstable as a result, forcing me to recheck every time. It’s just a chore to use a camera that has exploding “easter eggs” like this.

Disconcerting too: pressing the shutter lightly even in manual focus mode causes a noise and movement glitch, making me wonder if focus really is where I set it.

Then there is the stop-down behavior; I observed the camera stopping down the lens arbitrarily under brighter conditions: can one trust autofocus or manual focus when the lens diaphragm is stopped down to some random aperture?

On the flip side, if all one wants to do is to use it as an autofocus point and shoot, the focus stuff is irrelevant: point the thing, half press the shutter to focus, press the button. Problem “solved”.

There is more on the cafeteria menu:

• The X100S still has an off-center tripod socket . Attaching a camera plate blocks access to the battery and card, so carry an allen wrench if using a conventional camera plate. But the must-have solution for tripod shooting is the elegant Really Right Stuff BX100 base plate + grip, which sidesteps the issue completely and also protects the entire bottom of the camera.
  
Really Right Stuff BX100 base plate for Fujifilm X100/ X100S
• The menu system of the X100s remains as complex and poorly organized as on the X100. Primitive and unwieldy.
• When shooting RAW, the Q button presents a huge tabular list of settings, many of which are inapplicable to RAW. This is not just a bad design, it’s a failure to design at all. It’s insane to have this facility, and then garbage-dump stuff into it.
• Self timer mode erases itself if the camera is powered off (turns off the self timer).
• The push-on lens cap remains a nuisance, ready to be lost. Demands the same solution as the X100: the extra-cost lens hood, possibly with a filter for dirty conditions. Note to Fuji: why not skip the lens cap and instead include the shade and a filter? Probably would save on tech support calls too (“why is the picture blank”).
• The controller dial remains as ergonomically difficult to operate as with the X100. Trying to use it with gloves on would be futile.
• A camera be this big (it’s not big but it’s not small) can afford to have a decent grip. The Really Right Stuff BX100 with grip solves this, but it ought to have some kind of grip built in.

I know the Fuji X100s has all the right checkbox-list of features in the marketing materials, but these days I’m looking for intelligent design; sensors are getting so good that what really makes the camera is the ease of use and well thought out features: less is more and more is less. Good design is about the right overall feature set with every little detail nit-picked and forced through a rigorous usability filter. The X100s fails miserably in this regard.

Fujifilm X100S: Digital Artifacts

The about $1299 Fujifilm X100S has the same 16-megapixel X-Trans CMOS II sensor with the same sensor artifacts issues as in the Fujifilm X-Pro1 and Fujilm X-E1.

I can’t say that I am a fan of the Fujifilm X-Trans sensor, which remains problematic with Adobe Camera Raw; it’s what I call a “fractal-like” rendering.

Other raw converters take different algorithmic approaches: users of Fujifilm X-Trans sensor cameras might find that familiarity with Adobe Camera Raw and Phase One Capture One Pro and Apple Aperture is advised on the basis of tricks in the bag for problem images.

For example, observe the cross-hatching effect on the canvas cloth below. Any regular texture can suffer from this effect.

Fuji ostensibly designed this sensor to avoid moiré. But the cure is worse than the disease: more digital artifacts, not fewer. Observe the vertical streaks in the label below; these are camera specific digital artifacts that do not occur with conventional sensors.

A quick test with Apple Aperture shows an avoidance of these artifacts, but the Aperture output has no micro contrast, and hence requires a massive dose of sharpening to extract fine detail.

Edges have this curious outlined effect, as if a special effects filter were applied. It might print fine, but the effect is not to my liking.

The lens looks to be poorly corrected at closer range, exhibiting a glowing halo effect.

Still, very pretty results are possible and overall the sensor is a very high quality.

Fujifilm X100S

Thanks to B&H Photo, the about $1299 Fujifilm X100S is due in today. In field of view, the 23mm f/2 lens is equivalent to a 35mm f/2 on full frame.

I still have my original X100, so I suppose the first and best test is to compare image quality with its predecessor.

The main difference of interest (besides improvements to usability) is the use of the new 16-megapixel X-Trans CMOS II sensor, as compared with the 12-megapixel conventional Bayer matrix sensor of the original X100. Will the X100S net out better in spite of the sensor artifacts issues? I expect so, except perhaps with certain troublesome types of subject matter.

With Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), Aperture and Capture One Pro all supporting the X-Trans sensor in the X-E1 and X-Pro1, there is also some choice on raw converters. However, I am loathe to change workflow as this introduces yet another set of variables into camera to camera comparisons so I intend to use ACR for starters.

Larry J writes:

Lloyd, your topic this morning was timely in that I have been researching the X-Pro1 and comparing it to the X100s, looking for the "edge."

Last night I found some reports that Fuji was discontinuing the "prosumer" X-Pro1. Have you heard about this? What do you make of the news? Is there a successor waiting in the wings that might consolidate the key attributes of some of the models, including the X-Pro1?

DIGLLOYD: I would think that Fuji ought to be moving to a 24-megapixe X-Pro2 soon given that Sony NEX has been at 24MP for almost a year and at a lower price.

The already first rate sensor noise behavior ought to allow 32MP from what I see.

Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 Distagon and 32mm f/1.8 Planar for Sony NEX and Fuji X

I am hoping to see these two beauties soon by May 3rd for testing.

My plan is to test both on the 24-megapixel Sony NEX-7 for its higher resolution.

The lenses will also be available in Fuji X mount. But at 16 megapixels and with sensor artifacts that confuse evaluation with some subjects, the Fuji X platform is less attractive for testing lens performance, though ergonomically I prefer the Fuji X body style over NEX.

Both the 12mm f/2.8 and 32mm f/1.8 will be offered from Zeiss, but the existing 24mm f/1.8 remains a Sony product:

The 1.8/24 is sold directly by Sony and they will continue to manage the product.

The 12/2.8 and 32/1.8 are both autofocus and have won the IF Product Design Award.

Zeiss Toiut 12mm f/2.8 Distagon

Equivalent to an ~18mm lens on a full frame camera, this is an ultra-wide angle design. My expectation is for it to outperform most full-frame designs by dint of being newly designed and optimized for the APS-C format and no need to design around an DSLR mirror box.

Zeiss Toiut 32mm f/1.8 Planar

Equivalent to an ~49mm lens on a full frame camera, this is a moderately fast normal lens. The ƒ/1.8 aperture and new design give some hope for a very high performance design, with my wish being for a flat field and no focus shift.

Reader Comments: Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar

See the review of the Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar in Guide to Zeiss.

Reader Roderick W writes:

I have now had a Zeiss 135 mm Apo Sonnar T* ZF2 for a week. Everything you say is true! Truly amazing!

Pictures taken have so much more surface texture detail of petals than expected from past use of the 100 mm Macro or various Nikkor Micro lenses. However the biggest shock was looking through the VF of my 800E. Focus was on, or not on, in a way I have not seen since film days. I use a magnifying eyepiece which probably helps but clarity at f2 is the key. Hand-held this is a joy as the lens sits so well in the hand for focussing.

I have only one concern, which I see you share – the weight on the camera flange in tripod use. Extra care is going to be needed in field use of which this lens is going to see a lot.

I am glad I ordered one before your reviews as I anticipate a waiting list following them. Your reviews kept me on the edge of my seat waiting to try the lens while shipping dates slipped by and there was no news. I read all of them so I could have saved my deposit if you had not liked the lens, but of course I did not have to!

DIGLLOYD: Yes, it is a rare and wonderful lens which might even be rightly called the best available for Nikon and Canon. I can’t name a better one, put it that way.

While the focusing screen in the Nikon D800E is far from ideal for manual focus, the exceptional contrast wide open of the 135/2 APO-Sonnar helps a great deal.

It is always a good idea to take care when mounting a heavy lens to any camera: the lever arm effect, so avoid swinging things around or pressing hard on the lens or similar things. One could mount the camera on the Really Right Stuff MPR CL II slider and then support the lens in front somehow, but I think it’s probably OK without, so long as the rig is treated with some care.

Adapted to the Leica M Typ 240, the lever arm effect is much more significant due to the greater offset from the lens mount, shown below is the MPR CL II in use to support the lens. It’s a bit awkward since the front of the lens rotates with focusing, but it gets the job done.

Florent C writes:

Roderick W. took the words right out of my mouth as it's my exact feeling after a few days of shooting with this lens.

Although I was expecting this based on your thorough report, I was astonished nonetheless by the clarity in the viewfinder, and how, consequently, it was easy to achieve precise focus even without any aid (no magnification eyepiece), and even on a distant subject.

I must say this is a totally new experience for me. I don't recall having felt the same when using the 100mm Makro Planar or any other lens.

To anyone unsure about acquiring the Zeiss 135mm f/2 Apo Sonnar due to manual focus, you may want to rent it and see for yourself. See is the keyword here. However, you will regret to have to send it back, so buying it is simply the best solution.

Regarding the support of the lens when mounted on a tripod, it's a concern for me too, so I inquired at RRS a few weeks ago, and they came back to me with a much more intricate setup than the single MPR-CL II, comprised with four separate elements :
- FAS clamp
- CB-10 camera support bar
- CB-YS long lens support
- Suited plate for the camera you use

Looks like a bit of an overkill. I don't see any reason why the single MPR-CL II wouldn't work for that purpose, as your setup with the Leica M attests to that.

DIGLLOYD: I am comfortable with an unsupported lens on the Nikon bodies, but not so on an adapted setup as shown above.

As for focusing clarity, it is indeed exceptional.

Leica M Typ 240: Done For Now

The loaner gear is going back now.

After about 100 hours of work on the Leica M Typ 240 and the Leica 50mm f/2 APO-Summicron-M ASPH, I’m toast.

I must soon turn my attention to other goodies, but when I obtain an M Typ 240, I’ll support the new camera in a continuing way for Guide to Leica.

Zeiss ZF.2 15mm f/2 Distagon Adapted for use on Leica M Typ 240

In Guide to Zeiss the Zeiss ZF.2 15mm f/2.8 Distagon proves its optical prowess once again, this time on the 24-megapixel Leica M Typ 240.

It’s a DSLR lens for Nikon, and big on the Leica M Typ 240, but it focuses a darn sight closer than any rangefinder lens can.

One of the advantages of the Zeiss ZF.2 Nikon-mount lenses is that they can be adapted for use on many different cameras: Canon, various mirrorless options, video cameras of various types, and now the Leica M Typ 240 (focusing viable with Live View).

The ZF.2 lenses have a manual aperture ring in addition to electronic control (that manual ring to control the aperture does not exist on Zeiss ZE lenses for Canon).

Part of showing lens performance for Zeiss DSLR lenses is showing it on different cameras, Nikon and Canon mainly, but now also the Leica M Typ 240, using the Novoflex NOLEMNIKNT Lens Adapter for Nikon Lens to Leica M.

See also the Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar results on the Leica M Typ 240.

Reader Asks: Buy the Leica M Typ 240?

Reader Bob H writes:

I thank you for your very interesting and well considered series of articles on the Leica M240 and would be grateful for your advice if you are able to give it.

In the middle of last year, I sold my Leica M9 in anticipation of the new M being introduced, retaining my collection of 9 M lenses which have been lovingly (and expensively) collected over the years (16mm through to 135mm). I attended Photokina in Cologne in order to see and handle the new M and I have to say I was very disappointed with it and decided to wait several months before ordering one in order to obtain a balanced impression of the camera from the internet reviewers.

My M system is reserved for travel work as, at my age, I find travelling with a medium format digital system less than enjoyable. Since selling my M9, to cater for my travel photography, I have invested in an Olympus OM-D E-M5 system which I find excellent if a little limited in resolution, dynamic range and RAW file flexibility.

My question, if you feel able to answer, is:

“Do I invest in the new M or abandon the M system completely and stick with m43rds, waiting for the inevitable new, improved m43rds offering from Olympus with more resolution and, hopefully, at least 14 bit depth RAW files?”

DIGLLOYD: In this case there are special considerations: an existing M lens collection, but also reasonable satisfaction with a lesser camera (Olympus E-M5). Micro Four Thirds will certainly improve later this year, but the sensor size remains on the small side. That said the E-M5 is a fun camera to shoot.

Given the existing lens collection, the Live View and EVF of the Leica M Typ 240 would breathe new life the system (accurate composition and focusing).

To rent the Leica M Typ 240 before making a decision is an ideal way to go.

Rent a Sigma DP3 Merrill at the same time. It will yield a valuable perspective in between the Olympus E-M5 and the Leica M Typ 240.

Other ideas: small cameras like the Nikon Coolpix A are really outstanding in image quality (and very small). The Sony RX100 is another interesting choice for being really but also with very pleasing image quality (with some limitations).

Roy P writes:

Three changes to the story of your reader Bob H for myself:

“In the middle of last year, I sold on my Leica M9”
I sold mine in April, 2011, a year earlier, with the same expectation of an M10.

“Olympus OM-D E-M5”
Change that to Sony NEX-5N, 7

“… collection of 9 M lenses … (16mm through to 135mm)”
Ditto, although different focal lengths.

Make those changes, and it’s my story as well. And I’ve been grappling with exactly the same question: “Do I invest in the new M or abandon the M system completely…”

Only, Bob H. is thinking of improved Micro 4/3rds, and I’m thinking of an NEX-9 I can use with my Leica-R and Zeiss ZF.2 lenses.

A 36MP Sony NEX-9 + a Leica R lens or a Zeiss ZF.2 lens would look funny – a small camera with a big fat lens. But it would still be a smaller overall package than an M240 + a small M lens, after you put on the EVF on the M240. Currently, I use my NEX-5N with the add-on EVF, but the NEX-6 and 7 have the EVF built in, as will a future NEX-9. And for no extra money. And a hand grip, WiFi (no need to remove an idiot base plate), likely GPS, and autofocus (yes, there are times when this antiquated concept has some uses!), all for no extra money.

Tough question, and frankly, the Sony has more than a fighting chance to win this debate, IMHO. Especially when you consider that future generations of the E-mount system can evolve quickly and freely, without the albatross of having to support the legacy RF paradigm.

And all that, without even considering the relative costs of the two systems!

DIGLLOYD: the mirrorless option changes the game, though in general it is not safe to assume that rangefinder lenses (Leica M and Zeiss ZM) all perform well on mirrorless, due to ray angle to the sensor as well as the thickness of the sensor cover glass. See for example the Table of Ray Angles for Zeiss ZM Lenses in Guide to Mirrorless and the related coverage.

What seems odd to me is that Leica could offer a mirrorless option with just 2 or 3 lenses expressly designed for a mirrorless camera, which itself could be designed to support the highest possible imaging quality, rather than try to shoehorn lens quality into a camera format designed for film. Such lenses could be made a lot cheaper and achieve higher imaging quality simply by designing the system to eliminate impediments to optical performance. And I do not mean trying to compete at the low and mid range— I mean something high end which would deliver unrivalled image quality, possible even with a sensor larger than 36 X 24mm.

Tioga Pass in Yosemite Might Open around May 11

Tioga Pass is my route through Yosemite to the high country of Yosemite as well as the White Mountains and Death Valley. See also my photo tours.

Update April 25: Sonora Pass (to the north is now open).

Eastern Sierra weather

Traveling to the Eastern Sierra? Check out reader Dennis Mattinson’s Eastern Sierra Weather Center.

WTB: Leica M Typ 240

I am looking to buy a new, USA warranty Leica M Typ 240, a necessity for taking Guide to Leica forward. If you know of an authorized USA dealer with one in stock (not ebay or its ilk), please let me know.

While I have documented some disappointing design aspects of the Leica M Typ 240, one thing has emerged as pretty darn awesome: I can compose images perfectly, I can focus images perfectly (even the Noctilux), and it’s not restricted to Leica M-mount lenses any more. All because of the Live View feature (and EVF).

The Leica M Typ 240 has its flaws, but for me at least, the Live View with EVF make it a far more useful camera. It is more useful step forward over the M9 than the M9 was over the M8.

Leica M Typ 240: Auto Exposure in 'Advanced' Metering Mode

In Guide to Leica are three examples of issues with Advanced metering with the Leica M Type 240.

Leica 50/2 APO Summicron-M ASPH: Flare Control

In Guide to Leica are three examples of veiling and ghosting flare with the Leica 50mm f/2 APO-Summicron-M ASPH.

The results are jaw-dropping, in a bad way. So disappointing that I must reevaluate my plans to obtain this lens until and unless Leica addresses it.

UPDATE: reader Peter W has confirmed the issue and I’ve added his comments to the flare page.

Note the flat-line shadow across the top area, apparently caused by the camera internally.

 

Subscribing To This Site’s Publications

In the past few days I’ve received three inquiries as to “how do I subscribe?”. Which leads me to think that the publications catalog page needs to be made more obvious (existing subscribers should instead log in to check account status).

To subscribe to any of the publications, open the publications catalog page by clicking on the Catalog tab.

Mitigating Contrast Loss From Diffraction aka How to Make ƒ/16 Look Crisp

This is an important read for anyone looking for both depth of field and crisp per pixel sharpness.

While diffraction remains a challenge for high-res DSLRs and the peak aperture for a top-notch lens remains ƒ/5.6 (on the full-frame Nikon D800E), it is possible with appropriate sharpening to greatly mitigate the micro contrast losses. Though there are limits: a low-noise well exposed image can accept more aggressive sharpening without developing uglies far better than a noisy underexposed image.

In Making Sharp Images, as a followup to Diffraction Limits for High Resolution DSLR, I show-and-tell what sharpening can do to mitigate the contrast losses from diffraction.

 

Leica 50/2 APO Summicron-M ASPH: Onions and Ginger Still Life

I rescued these onions on the way to the compost pile.

Leica 50mm f/2 APO-Summicron-M ASPH on Leica M Typ 240: Onions and Ginger.

One wishes that Leica had designed in greater close-focusing capability than the limiting 1:11.3 reproduction ratio offered by the 50/2 AA.

Leica M Typ 240 50mm Shootout: 50mm f/2 APO-Summicron-M ASPH vs Others

Which 50mm lens on the Leica M Typ 240?

Four 50mm lenses on the Leica M Typ 240 (Fruit Platter).

Fruit Platter, Yummy Yummy

The Leica M Typ 240 sensor can record very high quality images, especially with the right lighting. I used a complex fusion-powered light source for this scene aided by a few scraps of gatorfoam along with one very sleepy cat. Well, she didn’t help much actually.

Coming soon, this scene with four different 50mm lenses on the Leica M Typ 240.

Anyway those overly-ripe bananas make great banana bread.

This fruit looks unpalatable? Colors dull and flat? Then you’re viewing it with a web browser that is not colorspace aware. For example iPhone and iPad ignore color space and thus display inaccurate and dull color with any thing but an sRGB image. And sRGB cannot contain the colors of this image, so it cannot be used here.

Click for larger version.

Leica M Typ 240: 35/1.4 Summilux or Zeiss 35/2 Biogon?

In Guide to Leica:

Leica 35mm f/1.4 Summilux-M ASPH vs Zeiss ZM 35mm f/2 Biogon on Leica M Typ 240.

The usual Retina grade images and crops are included at native and matched resolution for both from ƒ/2.8 - ƒ/16.

Leica M Typ 240 Moiré

The Leica M Typ 240 does not have an optical low pass (anti aliasing) filter, ditto for the M9 and M-E. But at 24 megapixels and 18 respectively, the relatively moderate photosite density means that lenses can deliver micro contrast sufficient to generate moiré patterns that can be very difficult to remove.

Here is a moiré example with the Leica M Typ 240 I came across today.

Why Don’t DSLRs Have Both Optical and Electronic Viewfinders?

After using the Leica M Typ 240 for a while now, I feel grumpy about my DSLRs (all kinds: why don’t DSLRs offer both an optical viewfinder (as they already do), and an EVF option?

My DSLRs force me to use the rear LCD with a focusing loupe. This is a lot less handy than doing the same thing in an EVF without a loupe.

The EVF is immensely helpful for focusing at 10X (no loupe required, extraneous light blocked, no presbyopia problems). Though I wish it were a higher resolution 2.4 or 4 megapixels, not just 1.4MP.

Note well I want both: not just an optical viewfinder nor only an EVF (e.g. Sony A99). Having both is really handy as the Leica M Typ 240 shows.

The Color Gamut of Fruit

Everyone talks about noise and sharpening, but one hardly reads any talk of color gamut, or even any attempt to evaluate noise by gamut, which is a procedural error.

To DAP, I’ve added a new example of how critical color gamut especially for red and orange tones.

This example follows the previous Why a Wide Gamut Color Space Matters and Wide Gamut Colorspace Reduces Noise, Avoids Posterization pages.

These discussions apply to any modern camera, all of which now have extended gamuts far exceeding the capabilities of the sRGB or AdobeRGB color spaces. Modern printers have “vivid magenta” inks and other colors now capable of printing colors that AdobeRGB cannot represent. This trend will advance further.

The crop below greatly exceeds the gamut of the AdobeRGB color space (reds get flattened to a dull orange-red!). Accordingly, it is shown in the ProPhotoRGB color space. Use a colorspace aware web browser and a calibrated wide-gamut display to enjoy the sheer beauty of the colors. iPhone and iPad will destroy this image.

Leica 100mm f/2.8 APO-Macro-Elmarit-R on Leica M Typ 240

The Leica 100mm f/2.8 APO-Macro-Elmarit-R can be used on the Leica M Type 240 with the Leica R to Leica M adapter R-Adapter M.

Which brings uncompromised macro photography to the M user for the first time: no parallax, no compositional guesswork with crude frame lines, no focusing errors: the Live View feature using the EVF solves all.

For this test, I set up a scene with a range of highly saturated color. The lens and the sensor acquit themselves in a sensational way, and I show the usual Retina grade images and crops from ƒ/2.8 through ƒ/16.

Leica 100mm f/2.8 APO-Macro-Elmarit-R on Leica M Typ 240 (Fruit Bowl)

 

(!) The below greatly exceeds the gamut of the AdobeRGB color space (reds get flattened to a dull orange-red!). Accordingly, it is shown in the ProPhotoRGB color space. Use a colorspace aware web browser and a calibrated wide-gamut display to enjoy the sheer beauty of the colors.

A Camera Plate for the Leica M Typ 240

On the Leica M Typ 240, I’ve been using the Really Right Stuff B6 Small Bi-directional Plate for tripod mounting the camera (with a Really Right Stuff B2-Pro II clamp with Metric 6 screw on my Arca Swiss Cube). It’s small and light and inexpensive.

The best part? The flange fits solidly against the side of the camera’s bottom plate, so it goes on squarely and stays that way, every time. A very nice solid mounting solution.

Small camera plates

Camera plates allow instant mounting of the camera in any compatible quick-release clamp on a tripod head, such as any of the Really Right Stuff tripod heads, or my workhorse Arca Swiss Cube with Really Right Stuff B2 Pro II clamp.

Here are camera plates that I have found useful on a variety of small cameras:

• The Really Right Stuff B9 plate is useful on many cameras (not just Olympus PEN), and it has no cork to 'squirm' when tightened down. Its anti-squirm flange can be engaged or ignored.
• The Really Right Stuff BPnS: Small Bi-directional plate is small and square and has a durable cork backing (I’ve used it on a variety of cameras of all sizes).
• The Really Right Stuff 'BPnS-S: Narrow Plate for Slim Cameras (below) is the smallest plate offered by RRS, and is suitable for very narrow cameras like the Sony RX100.
• See also full L-bracket with grip for the the Sigma DP Merrill and also the L-bracket with grip for the Olympus OM-D E-M5.

BPnS-S: Narrow Plate for Slim Cameras like the Sony RX100

The Sony RX100 cannot accept any camera plate without blocking the card/battery access door; the hinge is only 1-2mm from the socket screw threads, an incredibly bad design but there it is.

The Really Right Stuff 'BPnS-S: Narrow Plate for Slim Cameras fits well on the Sony RX100, but to avoid the anti-twist flange being blocked by the lens bulge, put the screw on one side, which shifts the plate over the battery/card door—doesn’t matter because there is no way to mount the plate without blocking it anyway.

Cork-backed plates

Cork-backed plates havve occassional uses for awkward camera sizes and bottoms, but in general cork is a poor choice: it compresses as the screw is tightened and also rotates and squirms, leading to cockeyed mounting.

Some brands also disintegrate with use: I recently tried one brand and it failed the very first shoot, the camera started slide-rotating an the cork began distintegrate.

However, the Really Right Stuff cork-backed BPnS has performed well for me for several years, showing no sign of cork loss.

Zeiss ZF.2 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar Adapted for use on Leica M Typ 240

In Guide to Zeiss the Zeiss ZF.2 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar proves its oustanding optical prowess once again, this time on the 24-megapixel Leica M Typ 240.

One of the advantages of the Zeiss ZF.2 Nikon-mount lenses is that they can be adapted for use on many different cameras: Canon, various mirrorless options, video cameras of various types, and now the Leica M Typ 240 (focusing viable with Live View).

The ZF.2 lenses have a manual aperture ring in addition to electronic control (that manual ring to control the aperture does not exist on Zeiss ZE lenses for Canon).

Part of showing lens performance for Zeiss DSLR lenses is showing it on different cameras, Nikon and Canon mainly, but now also the Leica M Typ 240, using the Novoflex NOLEMNIKNT Lens Adapter for Nikon Lens to Leica M. However:

The existence of a lens adapter does not migrate a Zeiss lens out of Guide to Zeiss*. It is about the lens performance, not any specific camera.

* The “home” for “cross platform” evaluations of lenses belonging to a clearly defined lens guide is that guide: the home for a Zeiss DSLR lens is Guide to Zeiss. The home for a Leica lens is Guide to Leica, and for the various mirrorless lenses, Guide to Mirrorless. For Nikon and Canon mount lenses, DAP.

This policy benefits readers by keeping each guide focused and coherent, but equally important is the long-term business viability of each publication, which must stand on its own; Zeiss and Leica in particular require large capital outlays due to the very high gear costs, gear which must be purchased in order to provide the in-depth and ongoing quality coverage in each publication.

Leica M Typ 240: Which 21mm Lens?

In Guide to Leica:

Leica 21mm f/2.8 Super-Elmar-M ASPH vs Zeiss ZM 21mm f/2.8 Biogon on Leica M Typ 240.

The usual Retina grade images and crops are included at native and matched resolution for both from ƒ/2.8 - ƒ/16.

Leica M Typ 240 / M240 vs Sigma DP2 Merrill (Pellegrino Bottles)

I found this scene a compelling illustration of relative resolution not only between the two cameras, but between APS-C and full frame in terms of depth of field.

In Guide to Leica:

Leica M Typ 240 vs Sigma DP2 Merrill (Pellegrino Bottles with Rulers).

The usual Retina grade images and crops are included at native and matched resolution for both from ƒ/2 + ƒ/2.8 - ƒ/11.

Bruce Z writes:

Wow Lloyd, just so damn interesting ... of course you aren't making these cameras, they are interesting in and of themselves. What I am referring to is your very in depth and seemingly logical way of testing. (Yet, you do not see much of this level else where on the web.) No where else is there anyone revealing what the Merrill is capable of.

Your Leica series is so very definitive, too. Thank you!

DIGLOYD: I went through the exercise as an objective challenge to myself: to learn and to show where imaging performance stands in mid 2013 for two cameras having radically different technology, and with both being well out of the photography mainstream.

Leica M Typ 240 / M240 with Coastal Optics 60mm f/4 UV-VIS-IR APO Macro

The Leica M rangefinder has long been problematic for macro work (the Leica 90mm Macro-Elmar-M masochist option notwithstanding).

But the Leica M Typ 240 changes all that with Live View and EVF offering up to 10X magnification.

So what better lens to consider for the Leica M240 than a highly corrected true apochromatic macro lens at close range.

Leica M Typ 240 + Coastal Optics 60mm f/4 UV-VIS-IR APO Macro at a reproduction ratio of 1:3. Gorgeous.

Using the the Novovlex NOLEMNIKNT Lens Adapter for Nikon Lens to Leica M.

Leica M Typ 240 / M240: Dynamic Range and Metering and Push/Pull.

I take a first gander at Leica M Typ 240 dynamic range at ISO 200 with push/pull, along with some metering observations.

How does the M240 handle metering this high contrast scene and how well does push/pull and ETTR work at ISO 200? Bracketed -3, -1, -1, +0, +1/3, +2/3, +1.

Retina grade images as usual, including RGB and R/G/B grayscale channels for noise assessment.

Sigma DP2 Merrill Sharpness: Impressive Sharpness and Realized Depth of Field

If this aperture series with generous retina grade crops doesn’t knock your socks off then I don’t know what will.

In Guide to Mirrorless in my review of the Sigma DP1/DP2/DP3 Merrill cameras is a Sigma DP2 Merrill aperture series from ƒ/2.8 - ƒ/16 (Pellegrino bottles with rulers).

Actual pixels, wide open at ƒ/2.8.

Leica M Typ 240 / M240 vs Leica M9P: Noise in Dark Areas

Following up on my noise analysis of the Leica M Typ 240 vs Leica M9P, now added to that same page are large crops showing noise behavior in the dark background, including a pixel column defect with the Leica M Typ 240. Problems often lurk in the top two or three ISO values, and sometimes as here, even as low as ISO 800.

Included are large retina grade crops in RGB as well as grayscale as well as the individual R/G/B channels for all ISO values.

Leica M Typ 240 / M240 vs Leica M9P: Noise and ISO

Presented in Guide to Leica is an analysis from base ISO to max ISO for the Leica M Typ 240 versus the Leica M9P.

Included are large retina grade crops in RGB as well as grayscale as well as the individual R/G/B channels for all ISO values.

Leica M Typ 240 / M240: Up Next

Now that I’ve locked down relative sharpness for four different cameras relative to the Leica M Typ 240, I’m going to turn my attention to other areas.

Several areas I want to explore here, I’ll probably take a reconnoitering approach: an initial look through several areas, then return and explore. It all depends: when something interesting pops up, I like to explore it.

• Does the M240 really have the same “bite” as the M9? I remain unpersuaded that to visual impact is at the same persuasive level as the CCD sensor in the M9. Too little experience as yet to say for sure.
• How good is focus peaking for critical focus?
• ISO 100/200 and ETTR; optimal exposure for noise;
• Presence or absence of pattern noise and similar in dark areas.
• Color rendition on outdoor scenes M240 vs M9: Adobe’s profile seems to be off for the M240— too magenta. Also, the two cameras clearly have very different color rendition in the corners: green vs magenta.
• Performance of the 21/3.4 Super-Elmar-M ASPH and 35/1.4 Summilux-M ASPH (possibly vs the Zeiss 35/2 Biogon).
• Performance of three Zeiss ZM wide angle lenses: the ZM 15/2.8 Distagon, ZM 18/4 Distagon and the ZM 21/2.8 Biogon. These wides (and Leica’s wide too) have off-center color shading issues (ray angle) on the M9, so if the M240 has better off-center behavior this would be good to know. I’m told that the 21/4.5 C-Biogon still has too steep a ray angle to work well on digital M bodies. Bummer because I love the near zero distortion of that lens.
• Shooting a 15mm was always problematic on the M9 (composition difficulty and no rangefinder coupling), but on the M240 these issues disappear with Live View and the EVF. So how does the Zeiss ZM 15/2.8 Distagon perform on the M240 now that one can compose and focus it perfectly?

Leica M Typ 240 / M240 and CMOSIS

Too bad the CHR70M 70-megapixel CMOSIS sensor wasn’t chosen for the Leica M Typ 240 (M700?). Leica is apparently using a CMOSIS sensor similar to the one used in the Blackmagic video camera, but tuned for stills—and not so much—the 15-stop dynamic range feature has gone missing.

The CHR70M is a high resolution CMOS image sensor with 10000 by 7096 pixels. The image array consists of 3.1μm x 3.1μm pinned diode pixels which share a number of transistors (2 pixels sharing). The image sensor has 8 analog outputs, each running at 30MHz. This results in a frame rate of 3fps at full resolution. Higher frame rates can be achieved in windowing mode or subsampling mode.

I’m sure there are valid reasons (perhaps ray angle and micro lens issues), but I’d rather have 70 megapixels with some compromises and oddities than another me too 24 megapixel sensor.

Well, what about the monochrome version of the CHR70M, which is what the Leica M Monochrom ought to have. Now that would actually make a monochrome M worth paying for. For that matter, what about a Leica MM with the nice new LCD found in the M240? Just some improvements of that nature would be helpful, even if something as basic as a quality high-res LCD that can zoom and scroll quickly with high quality in order to check focus, instead of some relic low-res screen circa 2007.

CMOSIS CHR70M SENSOR FEATURES

• Electronic rolling shutter
• 10000 (H) * 7096 (V) active pixels on a 3.1μm pitch • 3 frames/sec at full resolution
• ROI capability - moving window functionality
• Master clock 30MHz
• 8 analog outputs @ 30MHz
• On-chip timing generation
• SPI-control
• 3.3V signaling
• Monochrome and Bayer (RGB) configuration
• Ceramic PGA package (65 pins)
• 2 sided AR-coated cover glass lid

Erik K writes:

If we look at the 70MP chip the spec sheet says 63 dB (13000 e- FWC and 7 e- RMS)

http://www.cmosis.com/products/standard_products/chr70m

I make this 10.85 EV. Binning 4 pixels into one would give 12.85 eV at 17.5 MP.

If we assume 7e- readout noise, it would take an FWC of 230000 e-. If we assume that 3.1 microns yield 13000 e-, the pixel size would need to increase to 13 microns. on a 24x36 chip 13 microns would yield 5.1 MP so 5-6MP would be possible with a DR of 15EV and existing CMOSIS technology.

DIGLLOYD: This is not my forte, but I expect we’ll see 15-bit imagery at full resolution before long; the Nikon D800E is only ~1.2 stops way from that goal.

Zeiss ZE 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar
IN STOCK for Canon

As I write this, the hot new Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar is IN STOCK at B&H.

Bookmark the Zeiss Gear page for in stock status in general; the buttons are updated twice per hour with in stock status, so you can see at a glance what’s in stock or not.

The Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar is the highest performing lens in the entire Zeiss ZF.2 / ZE lens line, indeed one of the highest performing DSLRs lenses available, and is thus a must-have for any serious shooter.

See my in-depth review of the Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar, including coverage and comparison with Nikon and Cano lens, and even performance on the Leica M Typ 240.

Canon users in particular should study the comparison of the Zeiss 135/2 APO-Sonnar to the Canon 135mm f/2L.

Coastal Optics 60mm f/4 UV-VIS-IR APO-Macro on Leica M Typ 240 / M240 [using Novoflex Nikon to M Adapter]

I’ve ordered the Novoflex NOLEMNIKNT Lens Adapter for Nikon Lens to Leica M so that I can experiment with a few lenses, in particular the Coastal Optics 60mm f/4 UV-VIS-IR APO-Macro, and perhaps the Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar.

The Coastal 60/4 is a multi-spectral lens with total correction of primary and secondary longitudinal chromatic aberration: no production lens can approach its level of correction; it is free of secondary chromatic errors, yielding an amazing neutrality for out of focus areas along with a very special “transparent” spectral transmission. It should prove interesting on the Leica M Typ 240, which makes accurate focusing of any lens possible with its Live View and EVF.

Also on the way are three Zeiss ZM wide angle lenses: the ZM 15/2.8 Distagon, ZM 18/4 Distagon and the ZM 21/2.8 Biogon. Reportedly the M240 has better off-center behavior so my goal here is to see what performance looks like with these three lenses. Regrettably, the 21/4.5 Biogon still has too steep a ray angle to work well on digital M bodies.

Shootout: Leica M Typ 240 / M240 at 28mm vs Sigma DP1 Merrill

In Guide to Leica are three new variants Leica M Typ 240 with 28mm lens against the Sigma DP1 Merrill (19mm, 28mm equiv).

The comparison is presented in three different ways so as to dispel any doubt on the relative performance, as well as to provide useful insights into visual perception. The first variant can also be thought of as a comparison between the 28/2 ASPH and 28/2.8 ASPH.

• Leica M Typ 240 + 28/2 APO-Summicron-M ASPH + 28/2.8 Elmarit-M ASPH vs Sigma DP1 Merrill, Native Resolution.
• Leica M Typ 240 + 28/2.8 Elmarit-M ASPH vs Sigma DP1 Merrill, Matched Resolution
• Leica M Typ 240 + 28/2.8 Elmarit-M ASPH vs Sigma DP1 Merrill, Downsampled Resolution

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A Robust Backup Process

Digital photographers generate a lot of data.

A robust professional backup process included at least these attributes:

• Physical redundancy: at least three separate backups stored safely away from the computer.
• Process: not wiping out all backups while backing up!
• Verification of file system integrity on the backup drives.
• Verification of data integrity for all files on the backup drives after the backup or at any later time (IntegrityChecker).

How?

Don’t be put off by what you see below: read the simple version that works for most systems (one drive to one clone at a time).

Read how I make a rigorous backup.

 

Leica M Typ 240 / M240: What’s Next

With my reports on the Leica M Typ 240 vs Sigma DP2 Merrill and Leica M Typ 240 vs Nikon D800E and Leica M Typ 240 vs Nikon D7100, I’ve nailed down the parameters of the performance envelope in terms of sharpness.

So next I’ll be looking into ISO/noise and dynamic range, with a priority on shadow noise and any issues in deep shadows and similar (e.g. banding and streaking. And I’ll explore the performance of other lenses, including (I hope for arrival) of the Zeiss ZM 15mm f/2.8 Distagon and ZM 18/4 Distagon.

Anthony W writes:

I’ve read with great interest your excellent ongoing evaluation of the Leica M Typ 240 + 50MM AA. Prior to moving to digital I owned an M6 and R6 and complement of nice lenses (for the time) and have recently contemplated jumping back into the Leica system, in part for fondness of the design and workmanship but with concern about quality given the outrageous prices. After having read your review I will be skipping the M240 and 50AA. It goes without saying how valuable your coverage is in helping me make the right decision here.

Your analysis has made it clear that advances in technology have eviscerated Leica’s lead in image quality: it’s about sensor technology + hyper-advanced optical design now, not hand-assembled and polished lenses. And yet, the M240+50AA presumably has the qualities I once enjoyed: the beautiful optical viewfinder, the feeling of holding a precision mechanical-optical instrument, and the sheer design beauty. And it might still be an innocuous and capable tool for street photography – stealing a snapshot on the street with a camera that’s smaller, less obvious, and perhaps a bit quicker to shoot than a DSLR.

So this brings me to my two-part question. First, at what point will a Leica M be of indistinguishable quality from a practical perspective relative to the highest-end cameras? A study was done once doing blind tests of CD versus SACD quality in audio equipment (see http://drewdaniels.com/audible.pdf) and the authors came to the conclusion that despite the technical merits of SACD no one could tell the difference in real-world playback except at very high listening volumes. Does an M240, or will a future M360, M480, or M560, for example, be able to produce a 20x30” color photograph (or you pick the size – 30x45”?) that when printed and viewed near and far be indistinguishable from the highest quality Nikon + Zeiss (or medium format) gear? It will be at that point that someone can look at the Leica M and, without worrying about sacrificing practical image quality, purchase it based on the more subjective merits of handling, look, brand/mystique, etc.

Second, is the Leica M still a unique tool for “street photography” or is the DP1 Merrill better when you want to get off a quick shot without fuss and being noticed? I will comment that the DP1 at $899 is relatively disposable versus a $14,200 Leica M, and that in real-world street photography, say on the streets of Rio or Bangalore, having a DP1 in your pocket with several backups in the hotel room would be smarter than walking around with the equivalent of a diamond ring around your neck.

DIGLLOYD: I can’t speak to the personal priorities and preferred aesthetics of others, but I like finely made things and therefore Leica M appeals greatly on that basis, and I think that’s a large part of it, since image quality by itself cannot justify the M pricing.

Reporting on operational realities is what I hope to accomplish so readers can make their own informed judgments on the suitability of any particular camera system to their own purposes. Those purposes justifiably extend beyond image quality to all aspects, including ergonomics and look and feel or any other personal justification, possibly even just enjoying the craftsmanship and taking only occassional snapshots. One’s own satisfaction is personal and not subject to debate. Life would be boring if everyone liked exactly the same thing!

Street photography: an innocuous camera like the Nikon Coolpix A or Sigma DP Merrill provides outstanding image quality and fast and accurate autofocus (and there are many other good choices). None of them present any image quality barriers for street photography, which has never been about technical perfection. And some shooters do not have eyesight suitable for M focusing. Rather, it’s mainly about any operational and ergonomic issues and similar, e.g. shutter delay. While Leica M has a long and honored tradition for street photography, it is hardly mandatory; witness the iPhone as perhaps eminently suitable in some situations. Situationally, walking around with a $10K or $15K camera can be a personal risk that I would not entertain in some areas, just as a Rolex on a bare arm is a Bad Idea in some quarters. And one can have the M and have a spare or two alternative too.

Print quality: here in 2013, so many cameras can make high quality images suitable for large prints that one necessarily concludes that peak image quality is not the only factor. Thus, ergonomics and usability (and price) begin to play a key role in camera choice, as do the rendering style of a particular lens or sensor.

All these are fair game and it would be a mistake to make it a single issue decision based only on rigorous image quality considerations. Consider for example, one fundamental challenge: focusing accurately. As we age, it might not be physically feasible to use Leica M or Zeiss manual focus lenses—game over. Or consider the menu system and button layout and so on: some cameras make it tedious, or just don’t fit the handles well.

And so the choice of which camera seems to have become more personal than ever.

Shootout: Leica M Typ 240 / M240 +
50/2 APO ASPH vs Nikon D800E + Zeiss 50/2 Makro-Planar

Readers know that I have long discussed the benefits of oversampling, as well as lens performance. Well, here are the two, fighting it out.

In Guide to Leica:

Leica M Typ 240 + 50/2 APO ASPH vs Nikon D800E

Shootout: Leica M Typ 240 / M240 +
50/2 APO ASPH vs Sigma DP2 Merrill

Ultra premium $14,000 system vs an $899 Sigma DP2 Merrill point and shoot? Even more ridiculous than comparing to a Nikon D7100!

Well, let’s have some serious fun.

In Guide to Leica: Leica M Typ 240 + 50/2 APO ASPH vs Sigma DP2 Merrill

Hakan K writes:

Lloyd that was one outstanding article. Well done. It is one of the many reasons why I keep visiting your site everyday in that you don't care about what the brand is and you just present the facts.

Out of interest, Can you compare M240 with a Elmarit-M 28mm with DP Merrill 1. DPM1 will probably beat M240/28f/2.8 except perhaps in distortion.

And also I would love to see how the M240 sensor (with its new oval micro lenses) handle the acute incoming ray angles from its own native lenses.

DIGLLOYD: The DP1 Merrill lens is the weakest of the three DP Merrill cameras (still competitive with the best DSLR lenses), but then again the Leica 28/2.8 Elmarit-M ASPH (and 28/2 Summicron-M ASPH) both have field curvature, so they need stopping down to ƒ/5.6 for best results (or even ƒ/8 depending on subject matter).

See the D800E vs Leica M Monochrom comparisons—the MM has resolution at least as good as the Leica M Typ 240.

I plan on evaluating wide angles, including the Leica 21/3.4 SEM (widest I have from Leica), but I hope to get the Zeiss ZM 15/2.8 Distagon, 18/4 Distagon and 21/2.8 Distagon in time to evaluate also.

Reader Comments: Leica M240

Of course I want an M240, since I have a good assortment of M lenses. But with EVF and grip and spare battery, it is about US$9700 ($10,600 with CA sale tax). I need one in fact, for Guide to Leica. But I feel grumpy about sinking $11K into any camera body as they age and depreciate very fast.

Stuart W writes:

Around 2011 I was holding out for a follow up to the D700, and when that took longer than anticipated I went and purchased the M9P. The two camera designs are ultimately very different. (SLR and Rangefinder).

With me there still is a learning curve' going on regarding the operation and use of a rangefinder compared to a SLR. I have struggled to frame photographs accurately with the M9P. The frame-lines when using anything longer than a 50 mm lens are difficult for me to use. My focus have sometimes been off, especially with the Elmarit 90mm(unsharp eyes in portraits) Very Frustrating!

SO, for anything longer than 50mm I have gone back to the Nikon D700, and used the Zeiss ZF2. 100Macro Planar(recently bought). Even with the limited pixel count of the D700 compared to the latest high end FF cameras, I get really sharp, eyes, at ƒ/2. I m very happy with this Zeiss lens. I dare say I could not achieve this with a Summicron 90 Leica, or my own Elmarit lens at the similar or even smaller apertures .

Have ordered the 1.4 magnifier for my Leica Elmarit(as I need it!) Also using the x 1.25 with the 50 mm Summicron most of the time. It has certainly helped.

I love the Leica for its size, aesthetics, the beautiful lenses. Its is a thing of beauty. A intoxicating experience(sometimes). But ultimately not everyone can afford it. I over stretched myself(budget) by getting it, and love it to bits, however one has to agree that it makes a lot of sense to look seriously at the D800 E (now) if ultimate image quality in only a slightly bigger size is important for one's needs, and a lot more affordable!

Furthermore the Sony RX1 , Nikon Coolpix A also on offer represent a good size, and good image quality

I suppose it depends on what one buys a camera for?

I will wait to see what happens in the next few months. I fear from what I v heard, the Leica M240 is not what it could have been

DIGLLOYD: Yes, it absolutely depends on what one buys a camera for.

Focusing with the M9 is generally highly accurate assuming that everything is perfect: 20/20 eyesight, adequate lighting, subject, adjustment of camera and lens rangefinder mechanism. And try focusing the ƒ/0.95 Noctilux with the M9— I more or less gave up on it on the M9, but the M240 gives the Noctilux a new life.

Composition (framing) on the M9 is a nightmare: I frequently have to shoot 4/5/6 frames to get the framing I intended. The M240 eliminates that issue entirely.

Scott S writes:

I have sold my M9, and am seriously thinking of going across to a Nikon D800 and some Zeiss lenses. I am starting to feel that the investment is not worth the return on the new M. The main annoyances for me are no exposures over 60 seconds, no level overlaid on screen and no ability to move the magnified view around the screen.

I have been using a Sony NEX 6 with my Leica lenses for the last 2 months after selling my M9. The user experience on the NEX 6 is near perfect for a landscape shooter, if only the image quality was better.

I must say, I am at a difficult crossroads between systems right now and the path is not as clear as I would like it to be.

DIGLLOYD: seems clear enough: with 56 megapixels likely from Nikon (no AA filter) and new ultra high performance glass arriving this fall, 24 megapixels won’t be competitive for detail, let alone per-pixel image quality (oversampling).

One buys a Leica M for other reasons. I like the camera. But an all-around workhorse it is not.

Peter L writes:

You are feeding my impulse J. $16K is $16K no matter how much money I make which I have worked smart and hard for (no Wall Street huge bonuses nor windfall profits from stock options). And that’s where I hope the rational side prevails – be patient, let Lloyd finish his review.

The Leica M lenses are one thing which can be used with other mirrorless bodies with an adapter waiting for a future M360 or M480. Like you said prices of Leica is always pointing up partly caused by our FEDs QEs and demand exceeding supply (which is what Leica wants us to believe). But the M240 body is what is holding me back – it’s not quite the legendary Leica M is it? With so many shortcomings? I don’t want to believe Leica is taking the M into the luxury goods market and selling it like a Hermes. Germans can’t compete with the French and Italians in that front. Maybe they ought to make a limited MH “dressed up” by Hermes and sell it for $25K. It is still cheaper than a Hermes alligator, without seams, hand bag. And definitely please not follow Hasselblad with mahogany grips and bling. That will be the end of Leica as we know it.

I have to go back to your review of the RX1 and maybe temporarily satisfy my impulse. I wonder how it will perform with M lenses upfront?

DIGLLOYD: Pricing and exchange rates and competing currency wars are all affecting prices, but Leica has been raising prices steadily for years— more power to them— everyone is free to vote with their wallet.

Leica M lenses do very well on the Ricoh GXR. See the examples. Now if Ricoh would just make a larger and/or higher resolution sensor with current technology.

On other conventional sensors with cover glass over the sensor, Leica M lens performance is degraded off center (color and sharpness), due to sensor ray angle— and that’s with APS-C (smaller sensor)! Performance ranges from mediocre to quite good, depending, wide angles generally performing not so well. In the “good” case, see the Sony NEX 7 images with the Leica 50mm f/1.4 Summilux-M ASPH and 28/2.8 Elmarit-M ASPH.

The full frame Sony RX1 has a fixed 35mm f/2 lens (very high performance, perhaps even superior to Leica M 35mm designs— flat field for one thing, optimal by ƒ/2.8 or so).

Shootout: Leica M Typ 240 / M240 +
50/2 APO ASPH vs Nikon D7100 + Sigma 35/1.4 DG HSM

Full-frame vs DX? Ultra premium vs low/mid-range? Ridiculous!

No, thought provoking and relevant. The camera world is changing fast.

In Guide to Leica:

Leica M Typ 240 + 50/2 APO ASPH vs Nikon D7100 + Sigma 35/1.4 DG HSM.

This comparison took a long 14 hour day to shoot, analyze and write up. I hope my readers find it as fascinating as I did in preparing it. Definitely some food for thought in this one.

Leica M Typ 240 / M240 Usability

All the usability issues with the M240 which I’ve found are now detailed, which follows the bottom plate issue and the Live View / EVF issues.

The Leica M Typ 240 emits a vibe of inattention to the details. For a $7000 camera, these issues are disappointing. The same is true for a $2000 camera, but at least with that, one has $5000 left over.

The Live View + EVF + high-res LCD is a big win, but I am not finding any other operational characteristic that I would call improved; the camera handles less well for still photography than the M9, which I’ve used since November, 2009.

Nikon Buy Together and Save: D800/D800E, D600, D7100

Nikon Buy Together and Save.

Commentary + Reader Comments on Leica M

I am not done by any means with my review of the Leica M240, so I want to be explicit: on the whole I prefer the M240 because of its Live View with high-res LCD, and the EVF option; these are extremely useful, especially with the Noctilux. I am less sure about the overall ergonomics, to which my initial reaction ranges from ambivalent to unfavorable.

BTW, the M240 feels like a brick: over a kilogram (1016) with the 50/2 APO ASPH mounted. And that’s one of the lighter lenses. A Nikon D800E with Zeiss 50/2 Makro-Planar is about 1450 grams.

Value

Leica is raising prices again on May 1. Only 2-3%, but prices go up every year. And never down. Compare that to the increasing value proposition and generally lower prices from Japan, every year like clockwork.

Warranty? One (1) year. Any plastic piece of crap camera has a one year warranty.

Truly Leica is becoming a luxury good (if it wasn’t already?). The M is a serious camera for serious shooters, but price is rapidly transforming it into a camera for dilettantes who will buy for cachet alone, like buying a watch or jewelry an exotic leather belt. A camera as a fashion accessory. This can’t be good for Leica long term. Or maybe it is; perhaps that luxury market is long term reliable given the limited production capacity. Why not double the price and limit production to 5000 bodies?

Well, I get queasy thinking about having to pay $$10,000 for the privilege of having features that any $900 APS-C point and shoot already has (~$9500 with grip and EVF + 9.25% tax here in California). Just for a camera body with a grip and no lens that has image quality little different than the M9P and less good than my D800E. No trade-in program for M9 owners. The price-to-value ratio on an image quality basis is now sky-high (meaning laughable). A luxury good masquerading as a camera. I’m all for luxury goods, I am glad they exist. But that’s not the issue for photographers.

Reader comments

Roy P writes:

My guess is, Leica wanted to avoid directly competing with the massive Japanese companies like Nikon/Canon. So they let themselves be kicked out of the 35mm DSLR domain. I think that was a strategic blunder. By staying in the 35mm digital game, they would never have made a dent in Nikon/Canon, but they would have still leveraged the overall growth in 35mm digital photography, and still grown as a niche player, like a Rolls-Royce or a Ferrari in an overall growing consumer auto business.

I think that's also why they created the S - at the high end, they did not want to take on PhaseOne head on.

Problem is, Leica has created these islands now where they think they can call the shots, but the islands are beginning to shrink because the mainstream that Leica tried to avoid is now beginning to flow right into Leica's turf. At the high end, the high end 35mm cameras (D800E, D4x) are going to be all over the S domain. At the low end, FF mirrorless is going to be a tidal wave that's about to hit the M line.

Absent Zeiss, Leica could have probably made their strategy work, but with Zeiss making the high res sensors in other cameras really shine, Leica will increasingly find itself up the proverbial creek without a paddle.

Not a good position to be in, both price and performance-wise. This is the

Peter L writes:

Like Des H I was also eagerly waiting in the sidelines for your review but so far from your preliminary review this M240 is a non-starter for me. I don’t know if Leica will come up with your suggested M360 or M480. They have to (I hope sooner than later) as otherwise, excepting for the diehards, they will start losing some of their loyal customer base, like Des H.

Leica’s high premium prices is not really an issue for its customer profile BUT they have to keep up with the performance curve established by the Japanese. Selling based just on your legendary brand alone is not going to find Leica new customers like me who is willing to invest $40,000+ into the M system for personal use.

I believe Leica is using a customized CMOSIS sensor. CMOSIS currently offers a FF 70MP sensor, albeit at slow 3fps. Leica should leapfrog the competition and have the sensor company adapt this 70MP sensor to the M240 (actually M224) to be a M270. Even if Leica charged $20,000+ for the body, most of Leica’s clientele will not flinch and have a 12 month or more wait list.

I don’t know if the M240 can have its sensor upgraded when Leica improves the sensor’s pixel count. That should have been designed into the M system Use a business model akin to RED Cinema cameras, offering a 5K sensor upgrade from 4K for $7,500. The M240 video features ought to be an option because the still camera purist do not want the video feature in their M system. The video option has to be at least as good in performance as a 5DMk3 if not a Black Magic 4K cine camera. The latter also using a CMOSIS sensor.

I am really disappointed and was so anxious to purchase the M240. I will now wait on the sidelines again. The expectation for Leica’s performance is high and this M240 system is not meeting that expectation. In my opinion they are tarnishing the legendary Leica brand and diluting its brand equity. Despite saying that, I believe Leica will have more than enough M240 buyers whose purchasing decisions are not based on being ahead of the performance curve.

DIGLLOYD: I consider the Live View and EVF features of the M240 to be extremely helpful, especially with the Noctilux and the high-res rear LCD is a huge improvement over the one in the M9. The viewfinder drives me crazy: there are no frame lines unless I turn on the camera and the release button and mode “stick” and don’t work as smoothly s on my M9.

Sensor upgrades are “hard”: the generally would mean the sensor plus all the electronics and CPU support. And labor costs.

Shootout: Leica 50mm Lenses on the Leica M Typ 240 / M240

Now in Guide to Leica is a 4-way comparison on the Leica M Typ 240 of the 50/0.95 Noctilux, 50/1.4 Summilux, 50/2 APO-Summicron ASPH and 50/2 Summicron.

How does Leica’s new flagship 50mm lens stack up against its vaunted siblings?

Compared: Leica M Typ 240 / M240 vs Leica M9P

Now in Guide to Leica is a first comparison of the Leica M Typ 240 to the Leica M9P, using the outstanding Leica 24mm f/3.8 Elmar-M ASPH.

The results show the resolution differences, color rendition differences too, and include generous crops both at native pixels and resampled to match.

Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera

B&H Photo has the about $995 Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera available for preorder. The about $3995 Blackmagic Design Blackmagic Production Camera 4K is also available for preorder.

The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera looks like a hot little number. But as far as I can tell, no image stabilization, so for my bouncy mountain bike rides, probably would not work.

The feature list reads like these guys really think about what they’re doing:

• 13-stop dynamic range.
• Super 16 format at 12.48mm x 7.02mm on the sensor.
• 1080p ProRes 422 (HQ) files and lossless CinemaDNG RAW recording.
• Frame rates of 23.98p, 24p, 25p, 29.97p, 30p.
• Record to to fast SDXC cards.
• Focus button turns on peaking.
• Iris button automatically adjusts the lens iris settings so no pixel is clipped in film mode. Scene average auto exposure in video mode.
• Micro Four Thirds lens mount— instant access to hundreds of lens choices.
• Ultra portable (which is perhaps a downside for handheld use!), 355 grams.
• High resolution 3.5" display at 800 X 600.
• Integrated stereo microphones.
• Professional connectors for professional usage.
• Built in grip and appealing design, magnesium body.

Looks slick as heck. And has one of my favorites: a form of ETTR which the still camera guys just cannot figure out.

Iris button automatically adjusts the lens iris settings so no pixel is clipped in film mode. Scene average auto exposure in video mode.

I just wish it had the Olympus style 5-axis image stabilization so I could take it on my rough bike rides.

Leica M Typ 240 / M240 with 50/0.95 Noctilux-M ASPH

The Leica M Typ 240 Live View and EVF seem almost expressly designed to support the accurate use of the 50/0.95 Noctilux-M ASPH, long a frustrating lens to shoot on the M9, though with beautiful results.

Now in Guide to Leica are examples with the 50/0.05 Noctilux-M ASPH taken in conditions too dim to focus in using the M9 predecessor to the M240. At retina resolution as usual.

My experience with the M240 focusing in very dim light is discussed with pairs of images with the Noctilux, showing what is now feasible. The Noctilux becomes a far more viable lens on the M240 with near-perfect focusing.

Douglas S writes:

The Digital Leica comes of age...at last.

The first three images display the wide open magic of this lens camera combo.
The Deck chair wide open is a picture, stopped down a very expensive snapshot, great stuff Maestro.

DIGLLOYD: wide aperteres or small ones can help or hinder or be overused and cliched in both cases.

...

Contact me if you’d like to engage me for a photo tour down this awesome canyon in Yosemite National Park (early June with some flexibility on dates).

Reader Comment: Leica M Typ 240 / M240 Features and Cost

Reader Des H writes:

I am eagerly awaiting more of your Leica M insights. Two or 3 years ago I got an M9, to make sense of Zeiss lenses I already owned from my film days, many good points with the camera, but the viewfinder I find totally annoying, the brightlines are virtually invisible after the Zeiss Ikon, and framing is hit and miss, the inaccurate framing leads me to believe that the M8 viewfinder has been carried over. The lack of any horizontal and vertical line in the v/f (and any accessory finder) makes levelling any wider angle shot a real challenge. The M240’s promise of an EVF gave me hope for far greater things.

So, when I had to pick up the M9 and a lens from Leica’s London store after being repaired, I took along a few lenses with intention of doing a quick shoot with their demo M240. Keen to see how the EVF works with the Zeiss 15 and 18 lenses, as well as the 75 Summicron, and pictures compare with the M9.

Needing to press three separate buttons to set it up was confusing, the ‘salespeople’ were unfamiliar with the controls, no great expertise there.

My own initial ‘quick shots’ with both M, and M9 for comparison were a bit inconclusive.

The EVF viewfinder is so much better, with those lenses. No grid though, disappointing, but maybe a firmware thing for future. Exposure with the M was more accurate (matrix against the vague centre-weighting?).

Quality/sharpness – I felt the M9 was better, despite being careful with focus peaking on the M. Something was not quite right – totally lacking the crispness of the M9. Maybe the camera is out of kilter – maybe it was me

Colour fringing – identical on both cameras, Leica claim the new sensor to be improved in that department, but could see no difference. In fairness I didn’t check whether the M was set to detect the 6 bit codes (both the Zeiss lenses are converted to 6 bit). If you have time to try a wide Zeiss lens, that would be valuable.

Just my own unscientific ‘quick and dirty’ test. I think I’ll hire one before committing myself. Finally:

1) my own feeling is that by having the tripod socket in camera is preferable to it being on the base plate, likely to give a more solid connection between camera and tripod?

2) that absurd label telling you not to put the camera in the refuse bin.... as if

3) camera manuals – Leica are quite the worst – verbose, with no sense of design, hierarchy, or clarity/readability to the text/font. The index on the Monochrom manual, is a direct translation from German – so it is no longer alphabetical. Have written to them saying that it’s a disgrace, and requesting a proper version. Watch this space

DIGLLOYD: my research on the relative sensor merits (sensor + lenses) is still in progress. The Live View feature is a godsend for composition and the EVF can be very helpful for focusing lenses that aren’t set accurately for rangefinder coupling or that have no rangefinder coupling at all.

Some good features certainly, but there seem to be some awkward things too, so I need more time with the camera to sort it all out. Then there are the really dumb things, like not being able to focus at 10X except in exact center and the absence of gridlines overlaid on the image in Live View— features I use constantly on my Nikon D800E.

The future

Can Leica take the M line forward in a compelling way? Where is my 36MP or 48MP Leica M360 or M480 and/or a Leica M Monochrom with 36MP sensor and EVF/Live View? And already the Leica prices are enough to make me blanch, and Leica keeps raising prices 5-7% per year, year after year, while the Japanese companies keep dropping them or at least raising the feature ante at the same price.

It’s a fact that already a D800E with good glass easily outperforms a Leica M system (even the Leica M Monochrom) at a small fraction of the cost. What happens to the value proposition with a 56 megapixel D4x and when the new ultra high performance Zeiss lenses begin to ship at about half the price of the best M lenses, and with superior performance on a sensor with 50% or 120% more pixels? That day is perhaps ~6 months off. Sure I like the M form factor, but it’s actually as bulky as a D800E once the grip and viewfinder are added. The lenses are smaller on the M, but they cost 2-4X as much on a relatively low-res sensor.

Leica M Monochrome with Color Filters and 50mm f/2 APO-Summicron-M ASPH

The Leica 50mm f/2 APO-Summicron-M ASPH is arguably Leica’s flagship lens. So how well corrected is it for color? Really well, and as good as other Leica M APO lenses, but that is a relative statement of course.

The visible spectrum does not focus in the same plane unless the lens is something really special.

An APO (apochromatic) lens makes some (undefined) extra optical effort to reduce the disparity in the plane of focus across the visible light spectrum (primary longitudinal chromatic aberration aka LOCA and secondary longitudinal chromatic aberration) as well as correcting color fringes (lateral chromatic aberration).

But shoot with colored filters on a monochrome high-resolution digital camera such as the Leica M Monochrom: this is unforgiving of errors. It quickly becomes clear just how well corrected a lens is (or isn’t) for longitudinal chromatic aberration by the simple result of focus accuracy.

Read Focus Shift with Color Filters on M Monochrom.

Filters assessed and compared to unfiltered include blue, green, yellow, light orange, orange, red, dark red.

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Cosmic Radiation Can Cause Pixel Defects

From the Leica M Typ 240 / M240 user manual:

Sensor — Cosmic Radiation can cause pixel defects.

Please remember that the next time you travel to the moon. I think it’s cute that Leica has included this important note in the manual. I’m not aware of any other camera vendor that bothers.

Seriously, flying in an airplane or traveling to high elevation subjects you and your camera to a substantially higher risk of a few cosmic rays than at sea level. Computers are subject to “bit flips” for the same reasons.

Jeff H writes:

Oh yes this is true.

It used to be that when I flew with my D3x, it ended up with a couple dead pixels per 10,000 miles which after a while I took to Nikon Ginza to map out. After a few round trips, it got me thinking. Perhaps X Rays, Cosmic Rays, Radiation etc can zap the circuitry. Otherwise how would these damages occur? With the D3x priced at what it was, I could not take any further chances.

Soon I crafted myself 2 pieces of 8x10 Lead sheets which I wrapped the Camera + Body Cap (sans the Lens).

The security X-Rays are also a source of potential havoc, so first time thru, the Lead wrap would always elicit an open and search.

Although I never had any problems with the guards, the X ray safe shield bags for Film from the yesteryears may raise fewer eyebrows at airport security.

Mind you I think the D3x was more sensitive to this and was more prone to stuck pixels than other cameras.

I had a gut feeling that operating Live View also aggravated this problem but was not able to verify which was the major contributory cause.

On the same note, I think sensors of today are more resistant, and less prone such errors now. Although depending upon the pricing of future D4x and likes, I may want to continue to err conservatively.

DIGLLOYD: interesting anecdote!

Leica M Typ 240: GPS Deactivated in Some Areas

GPS is available with the Leica M using the optional Multifunctional Handgrip M.

Quoting from the Leica M Typ 240 manual:

• In certain countries or regions, the use of GPS and associated technologies may be restricted...

• The use of GPS inside the People’s Republic of China and Cuba and close to their borders (exceptions: Hong Kong and Macau) is prohibited by national laws.

• Violations will be prosecuted by the authorities. The GPS function is therefore deactivated automatically in these areas.

One could look at this in various unpleasant ways. But of course one could also view it as a “save your butt” feature.

See SCIENCE, 25 January 2013 Vol 339. www.sciencemag.org for a disturbing article on this topic which speaks to my “unpleasant” comments above.

“Since at least 2007, it has been effectively illegal for foreigners to operate a GPS device in China. International brands of cameras with GPS capabilities have been rigged to avoid displaying coordinates if the user is in China, says Stefan Geens, an analyst in Stockholm who studies networked digital maps and geospatial imagery”.

At least Leica has spelled it out, whatever one’s view on the matter might be. Presumably, Leica products would be banned in China and Cuba otherwise, and I’ve heard that Canon and Nikon do the same with their GPS hardware.

I wonder if Apple has been forthcoming on this issue with the iPhone, or if GPS has been disabled in the iPhone for China also. Apparently Apple has disabled GPS in Egypt.

Mark S writes:

Curious note from Leica on GPS functions in china. I've spent quite a bit of time in the PRC, in a dozen or so cities and the GPS on various iPhones (going back a few generations) has always worked. Haven't tried camera GPS except, of course, for the iPhone's own camera.

Originally it was at times confusing because of major misalignments between the photos and the maps, placing the blue dot several blocks away at times on the map but not on the aerial, or vice versa, but that has mostly been corrected.

DIGLLOYD: sounds like GPS is enabled on iPhone, at least in ordinary areas.

Gianluca A writes:

The GPS on the iPhone 3GS was working perfectly in Beijing and Shanghai, as I used it with an offline map application.

I didn't know I was breaking the law...

DIGLLOYD: Perhaps you weren’t. I don’t know Chinese law or whether Leica is correct. It might be that only certain sensitive areas are at issue.

Leica M Typ 240 / M240: Color Aliasing

Documented in Guide to Leica is a curious form of color aliasing with the Leica M Typ 240, a variety I had not experienced with the Leica M9/M9P in several years of use.

Close Range Performance with Leica 50mm f/2 APO-Summicron-M ASPH

To properly compare the Leica M240 to the Leica M9P, I needed to understand the performance of the Leica 50mm f/2 APO-Summicron-M ASPH; critical comparisons demand an understanding of the optic involved in order to avoid errors of various kinds, most notably focus shift.

I didn’t expect any focus shift or field curvature, but I don’t like to assume.

Accordingly, I first present a meticulously-shot (2mm increments) study of 50/2 APO ASPH sharpness and focus shift, along with a study of secondary longitudinal chromatic abberation with the 50/2 APO ASPH. Shot on the Leica M240.

Leica M Typ 240: Bottom Plate Design

For a $7000 camera, could Leica possibly print a manual in English-only instead of German + English so that the manual isn’t half an inch thick with English in the 2nd half?

Or at least number the English-language pages starting at page #1 instead of page #129. This inattention to my customer experience annoys immediately. Why should the quality of customer experience end where the manual begins?

Well, the reason I needed to read the manual at all is due to some operational surprises—a stunned disbelief that certain key operational features simply do not exist being the main thing I needed to flagellate myself with as part of the Leica experience.

Mounting on a tripod

Nikon has done its best to irk me with design decisions that cause me grief. But Leica?

When one mounts a camera plate (for tripod use), this screws through a hole into the camera itself.

Which means that to get to the card or battery on the Leica M Typ 240, you must unscrew the mounting plate in order to remove the bottom plate. Which means that if you want to shoot on a tripod, carry an allen wrench to change the battery!

It also means that every time I want to check a test series on the computer, I have to get out the allen wrench, remove the plate, then put it back on. Which means that the camera angle might change subtly each time, since the plate won’t necessarily orient exactly the same each time.

This isn’t an academic issue: out in the field it really means carrying an allen wrench and a spare allen wrench for use after the first one dropped into the rocks or creek or just lost itself somehow. Or you lost the shot just as the battery ran out. For that matter, it could mean losing the base plate or mounting plate or wrench, etcetera. By comparison on a Nikon, just pop the hatch, pop the battery insert new battery, you’re good in about 3 seconds.

Perhaps the optional Handgrip M provides a better alternative. But I nominate this as one of the worst physical designs of 2012 and 2013.

Aravind K writes:

I see that you've started your M240 review. I got mine late last week.

One of the major reasons I shot with the M9 was for operational reasons. I like the simplicity of the design and attention to what a photographer would want.

The M240 drives me bonkers with two major (to the way I shoot) regressions.

First, the insistence of pressing that teeny button on front to change EC (you could just scroll the wheel with the M9). Its so damned hard to change EC now. Second auto ISO in manual mode now just doesn't work.

In aperture priority, it works as it used to (camera picks shutter speed and ISO). But if you have the audacity to change the shutter dial from A to a shutter speed of your choosing, no more camera picking ISO anymore. This was one of the things that worked amazingly well with the M9 (and a few other cameras like Nikon's pro cameras and Pentax) and now they broke it. WTF? I'm wary to now see what else they've broken with the new M.

DIGLLOYD: there are a lot more issues than that. Already I like the M240 less than the M9 in its “quick” things, though that is a preliminary and very limited impression. And with crippled Live View (several things) and the tripod mounting, the argument for the M240 is seriously weakened. Yet there are positive things too, so how the balance nets out remains for me to sort out with usage.

Rob L writes:

Bob is not a subscriber to Guide to Leica.

I've heard you comment numerous times about how you don't like shooting with a tripod. It stifles spontaneity and creativity. Leicas are not meant to be shot on a tripod.

This is a camera designed for reportage photography. I understand that this is inconvenient for testing and evaluation but I find this diatribe about the baseplate to be inappropriate to this camera as well as the mirrorless options where you've made the same point. It feels like you have a bit of a prejudice against this camera already.

DIGLLOYD: I prefer to shoot handheld, but I shoot on a tripod a great deal. But I don’t know what I’d do if someone asked me to to do “reportage”. As for the remainder, it is not so nice to receive this kind of email.

A Yen ¥ For Gear

Setting aside the unprecedented ballooning of the money supply* over here in this country (the one that invented modern currency manipulation), now comes the first blatantly obvious salvo via the JCB in the competing currency wars (likely to intensify)—with the result that the Japanese Yen ¥ has plunged yet again relative to the US dollar.

What does the plunge in the Yen mean for pricing of Canon, Nikon, Sony, Olympus, Panasonic camera gear?

Continued downside movement in the value of the Japanese yen could be interesting.

* inflation is an expansion of the money supply, usually but not always leading to a rise in prices.

Leica M Typ 240 / M240 and Leica 50mm f/2 APO-Summicron-M ASPH: Testing Begins

Out of the blue, a reader wrote me offering to send me his new Leica M Typ 240, Leica 50mm f/2 APO-Summicron-M ASPH and Leica M Monochrom. Wow! I don’t generally get such a generous offer. Those first two are exceptionally hard to find (total non-success so far).

The testing begins. First, I want to establish the relative performance of the M9P (18MP CCD) against the Leica M Typ 240 (“M240”, 24MP CMOS sensor and possibly against the Leica M Monochrom as well.

I also want to determine whether wide angle lenses perform better on the M240 versus the M9, particularly the 21mm f/3.4 Super-Elmar-M.

And then the “50mm shootout” to follow, once I’m clear on using the new M240 and its performance behavior.

Leica M Typ 240 / M240 Can Have a Dead Pixel Column Too (same as With The M9)

Reader Andrew Wonder sends a Leica M Typ 240 image that shows a dead pixel column running the entire height of the sensor.

I first reported on this dead pixel column issue with my Leica M9P (CCD sensor) in Sensor Defect: Bad Pixel Column, thinking it might mainly be a CCD issue.

But it’s clear that the CMOS sensor in the M240 can exhibit the same issue. The dead column can be mapped out in firmware (by Leica), but I am not persuaded that this is sufficient: on certain types of straight lines, that missing column won’t look right, see example further below.

These three crops are from top, middle, bottom of the Leica M Typ 240 image.

Here is an example of what a bad pixel column can do to detail (Leica M9):

Compared: Nikon Coolpix A vs Sigma DP1 Merrill (Dolls, Close Range)

In Guide to Mirrorless—

• The Nikon Coolpix A produces 16 megapixel images from its APS-C sensor and its 28mm (equiv) lens.
• The Sigma DP1 Merrill delivers 14.75-megapixel finished images from its Foveon X3 true-color APS-C sensor, also with 28mm lens.

Actual sharpness of a final image is a function of both sensor technology and lens performance (which can vary with focusing distance!), so how does the Nikon Coolpix A compare at close range to the Sigma DP1 Merrill?

Compared: Nikon Coolpix A vs Sigma DP1 Merrill (Garden Tables)

In Guide to Mirrorless—

• The Nikon Coolpix A produces 16 megapixel images from its APS-C sensor and its 28mm (equiv) lens.
• The Sigma DP1 Merrill delivers 14.75-megapixel finished images from its Foveon X3 true-color APS-C sensor, also with 28mm lens.

These two cameras thus offer final images that are very close in resolution, but due to a slight difference of focal length, the per pixel magnification is nearly identical, making a direct comparison easy to do.

Actual sharpness of a final image is a function of both sensor technology and lens performance, so how does the Nikon Coolpix A compare to the Sigma DP1 Merrill?

At about $800 the Sigma DP1 Merrill is a lot less expensive than the about $1200 Nikon Coolpix A (with UR-E24/HN-CP18 hood/filter). This comparison should add some clarity to the choice.

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The Ultra High Performance SSD Option for Photoshop or Lightroom

Ready to stop messing around with slow hard drives and/or want the fastest SSD around?

How about dual eSATA ports as a bonus?

The OWC Mercury Accelsior PCIe SSD is my SSD of choice for my work since it arrived about a year ago—rock solid and I even make a RAID-0 stripe of two of them for about 1100MB/sec of insanely fast disk speed.

The Accelsior is an ideal drive for your Lightroom catalogs, huge working Photoshop files, Photoshop scratch drive and all of the above at the same time. And it works in a Mac Pro (PCIe slot), or any Mac with Thunderbolt (via the OWC Helios enclosure).

I still store my original digital camera image files (NEF, CR2, X3F, ORM etc) on hard drives (capacity issue and not relevant to performance) but all active work, LR catalogs, etc always go onto the Accelsior, so my work is never hindered by disk speed.

See review of the OWC Mercury Accelsior.

Reader Asks: What to do About Lenses if one has Both Nikon and Canon Systems?

Reader Christopher E writes:

I have enjoyed your writing as a subscriber for several years now.

I am an advanced amateur with both Nikon D800E and Canon 5DMkIII systems. I try to use Zeiss lenses for most of my photography to maintain a uniform look. This includes the ZF, ZF.2 and ZE series as well as Conurus converted 24-85, 100mm Makro Planar and 85mm Contax N lenses. My favorite lenses I have as both ZE and ZF/ZF.2 versions (21mm, 35mm/f2, 50mm/f2).

Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar

Regarding the new 135mm APO lens, I will have it in my hands shortly as a ZF.2 version and am hesitant to continue investing in both versions. I know I will use it mostly for serious landscape shots on a tripod, currently with the D800E.

My thought for the future is, would you use a high quality N-EOS converter (if so, which one), or change the mount using a Leitax kit down the road when Nikon's sensor is eclipsed by Canon? I am afraid that any geometric misalignment will show.

How precise are the Leitax mounts compared with the best adapters? I am trying to avoid buying future Zeiss lenses in duplicate. Perhaps sometime in the future I can finally make a decision on one DSLR camera system (probably Canon), but for now Nikon offers something Canon does not and the difference is currently very large for landscape type applications.

Regarding Sony, will you perhaps someday test the autofocus Zeiss lenses of that system? There is very little information available on those lenses and an objective test of your quality would be very welcome.

DIGLLOYD: At present, Nikon rocks with its D800 resolution, dynamic range, low noise, and color quality, with a 56-megapixel D4x rumored for this year.

But Canon will respond, and the two will continue to trade places. The game will result in resolution in the 50-80 megapixel range, but ultimately must move towards a true-color sensor (though probably done differently than the Sigma/Foveon X3 sensor, probably 3-way color splitter approach for each pixel).

Finally, both camps are entirely clueless about real innovation, so maybe Sony will eat their lunch, though Sony is clueless about the pro market and seems to think all cameras are just another consumer product (rather than working tools). But Sony is learning fast, the RX100 and RX1 showing hints of greatness. If only Sony could involve pro photographers in the design process and skip the tacky branding crap on the cameras. But heck, even Nikon can’t stop making truly stupid design mistakes.

Lens adapters

As far as lens adapters, I prefer the CameraQuest.com ones, which have served me reliably for years (for years I shot Nikon lenses on Canon DSLRs). Novoflex is also very good. I’ve had ugly luck with cut-price brands (paint made to look anodized flaking off into camera throat, a lens adapter that had to be destructively cut off to free the lens, a lens falling off because adapter would not lock). I avoid certain brands like the plague.

As far as using a lens adapter to mate the Zeiss ZF.2 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar to a Canon body, I would discourage this idea— the lens is already heavy. Adding a lens adapter adds two mating surfaces each of which is subject to sag (even 0.1mm is a BIG deal). It might be satisfactory, but I’m not going there myself. However, for the 21/2.8, 50/2: these should be just fine.

A manual lens adapter also means totally manual operation of the lens aperture/diaphragm and no recorded EXIF info. Manual operation can actually be a plus (video work, methodical tripod work), but for all around shooting it’s a hassle.

Leitax conversion

Leitax: flat with no skew in my experience (Leica 100/2.8 APO, 180/2.8 APO, 90/2 APO), but there is individual lens variance in flange focal distance, which means infinity focus can be an issue. For example, my Leica 90/2 APO-Summicron-R would not focus past 15 feet or so after Leitax conversion (Leitax offered swap for one for my particular lens if I could measure very precisely, but I did not have the tool for it). Other Leitax conversions have worked fine, particularly for APO lenses that focus “past infinity”.

Sony/Zeiss

As for Sony/Zeiss lenses for Sony DSLRs: I reviewed the Sony A900 and lenses back in 2008, but demand is just about nil (hardly any pros or serious shooters choose Sony, these are my main customers). Just makes no business sense for me, at least not at present.

Camera Plates for Tripod-Mounting Small Cameras (Sony RX100, Nikon Coolpix A and similar)

Camera plates allow instant mounting of the camera in any compatible quick-release clamp on a tripod head, such as any of the Really Right Stuff tripod heads, or my workhorse Arca Swiss Cube with Really Right Stuff B2 Pro II clamp.

Here are camera plates that I have found useful on a variety of small cameras:

• The Really Right Stuff B9 plate is useful on many cameras (not just Olympus PEN), and it has no cork to 'squirm' when tightened down. Its anti-squirm flange can be engaged or ignored.
• The Really Right Stuff BPnS: Small Bi-directional plate is small and square and has a durable cork backing (I’ve used it on a variety of cameras of all sizes).
• The Really Right Stuff 'BPnS-S: Narrow Plate for Slim Cameras (below) is the smallest plate offered by RRS, and is suitable for very narrow cameras like the Sony RX100.
• See also full L-bracket with grip for the the Sigma DP Merrill and also the L-bracket with grip for the Olympus OM-D E-M5.

Sony RX100

The Sony RX100 cannot accept any camera plate without blocking the card/battery access door; the hinge is only 1-2mm from the socket screw threads, an incredibly bad design but there it is.

The Really Right Stuff 'BPnS-S: Narrow Plate for Slim Cameras fits well on the Sony RX100, but to avoid the anti-twist flange being blocked by the lens bulge, put the screw on one side, which shifts the plate over the battery/card door—doesn’t matter because there is no way to mount the plate without blocking it anyway.

Leica 50mm f/2 Summicron-M Needed for Testing / Comparison

See notes on testing the new Leica M Typ 240 and Leica 50mm f/2 APO-Summicron-M ASPH.

If anyone has the existing non-APO Leica 50mm f/2 Summicron-M, I could use a “known good” sample for testing against the new APO version. I will also likely test against the Zeiss ZM 50mm f/2 Planar, which I do have.

UPDATE: several readers have offered (thank you!) and one is one the way.

Nikon Coolpix A: Aperture Series in Color and Black and White

In Guide to Mirrorless—

An apertures series with the Nikon Coolpix A from ƒ/2.8 through ƒ/16 is presented in color as well as in three separate black and white series.

The very high sensor quality of the Coolpix A lends itself nicely to black and white conversions.

Nikon’s latest sensors really are sensational. I eagerly anticipate a future 56-megapixel Nikon D4x.

The Coolpix A has some disappointing design blunders, see the Coolpix A usability comments. But at about $1100 (more than many DX DSLRs), I really wish Nikon would pay more attention to the needs of those using the camera seriously.

Nikon Coolpix A Examples

In Guide to Mirrorless—

I’ve posted a page of examples with the Nikon Coolpix A, mainly tulips but also a few others.

 

 

This image is in the ProPhotoRGB color space. It will look lousy if viewed without out a colorspace-aware web browser (or iPhone or iPad), but the colors are flattened in a bad way when converted to sRGB or AdobeRGB.

Nikon Coolpix A Sensor

Operationally, the Nikon Coolpix A sometimes make me tear my hair out. But the sensor is fabulous (and has no anti-aliasing filter). Very sharp, gorgeous color. Wow.

The lens—well it’s excellent centrally, but disappointing at the edges and corners for any planar subject, at least at close range, meaning it’s still sharp in the corners but not necessarily in a flat field.

No saturation added; these tulips are the real deal.

This image is in the ProPhotoRGB color space. It will look lousy if viewed without out a colorspace-aware web browser (or iPhone or iPad), but the colors are flattened in a bad way when converted to sRGB or AdobeRGB.

Click for a larger image.

Sigma DP1/DP2/DP3 Merrill: Which Lens is Best?

A 28mm is not a 45mm is not a 75mm. One can ask which camera/lens is best, but that ignores the reality of subject matter. Still, some of those looking for one DP Merrill model with the best overall performance want to know which is best.

To my review of the Sigma DP1/DP2/DP3 Merrill cameras, I’ve added a discussion of Sigma DP Merrill lens performance.

   

DP1 Merrill (28mm) , DP2 Merrill (45mm), DP3 Merrill (75mm)

Sigma Firmware Updates for Sigma DP1 Merrill, DP2 Merrill, DP3 Merrill

I just updated my Sigma DP1/DP2/DP3 Merrill cameras with the latest firmware.

• Sigma DP1 Merrill firmware update v1.03.
• Sigma DP2 Merrill firmware update v1.04.
• Sigma DP3 Merrill firmware update v1.01.

The DP1M and DP2M firmware version both showed as “****” after the first try, so I performed the update a second time and then all was well, with the proper firmware version listed.

Formatting bug

I saw this bug before the firmware update as well, which means it is not fixed: format the card and it blinks the red light forever (never finishes formatting). Solution: pull the battery, try again and it formats in two seconds or so.

Flash bug

One cannot set up the flash settings without attaching the flash. This is a bit annoying if one wishes to sync-up the flash settings on all three cameras.

File compatibility

Could there be a firmware change for image quality? A file compatibility change with a firmware update is rather odd. Sigma has not yet replied to my inquiry as to whether the DP3 Merrill image quality is “better”.

Once you update the firmware of DP1 Merrill to Ver. 1.03, it is necessary to install Sigma Photo Pro 5.5 to develop the RAW images. The previous versions (Sigma Photo Pro 5.4.1 or earlier) cannot process it properly.

Leica M Typ 240 / M240 and Leica 50mm f/2 APO-Summicron-M ASPH

Out of the blue, a reader wrote me offering to send me his new Leica M Typ 240, Leica 50mm f/2 APO-Summicron-M ASPH and Leica M Monochrom. Wow! I don’t generally get such a generous offer. Those first two are exceptionally hard to find (total non-success so far).

I’m told I’ll have these items starting next week on loan for about a week, so I’ll be dropping everything else during that time in order to focus on these exciting new items.

Given the short time frame, traveling to my favorite photographic destinations for field shots probably doesn’t work (time consuming); I need to be at home and to evaluate and publish results efficiently, learning as I go. So I’ll try to nail things down technically and I do expect to eventually get a Leica M Typ 240 and 50/2 AA of my own later in the year.

Key things I have in mind:

• Relative performance of the Leica 50mm lens line (50/0.95 Noctilux, 50/1.4 Summilux, 50/2 APO ASPH, 50/2 ).
• Features and usability differences between the M9P and the M240.
• Image quality differences between the 18-megapixel M9P CCD sensor and the 24-megapixel M240 CMOS sensor.
• (possibly) Leica M Typ 240 vs Leica M Monochrome for black and white detail.
• Evaluation of the EVF, and its usefulness for framing and focusing precision.
• Evaluation of performance of a variety of lenses on the M240: 21/3.4, 24/3.8, 28/2, 28/2.8, 35/1.4, 50/0.95, 50/1.4. And perhaps the Zeiss 35/2 Biogon and 50/2 Planar.

Sigma DP Merrill: Leica M Lenses?

I’ve received a number of inquiries from readers on You can now add Leica M-mount to Sigma DP cameras for $300.

A member of the Chinese website Taobao is offering a service that modifies a Sigma DP compact camera and fits it with a Leica M-mount by removing the fixed lens and attaching an additional plate with the lens mount to the front of the camera

I am distinctly not a fan of sloppy journalism that cannot be bothered to clarify the key question: Sigma DP or Sigma DP Merrill or both? Totally different cameras. It’s like saying Nikon Coolpix vs Nikon D800. At least one of the pictures I see shows a Sigma DP (not Merrill), yet there is an “under $1000” buying link at the end, which implies the Merrill models.

Assuming the conversion is of the 'Merrill' variety and you trust some guy in his underwear over in an apartment in China to modify your camera, issues remain:

• Sharpness and color shading issues from the acute ray angle with Leica M lenses; not a given to expect good results, as Sony NEX testing proves.
• Precision: plane parallel alignment of the lens mount to the sensor.
• Intrusion of dust into the camera.
• Manual focus, quite awkward without always zooming in.
• Voided warranty.
• Whether the camera will generate oddball artifacts from a 'foreign' lens whose characteristics will be different.
• Whether Sigma Photo Pro has built-in knowledge of the lens that it uses and whether it will mal-convert for a 'foreign' lens.
• Whether the mount might damage the Leica lens, or lock onto it and not come off (I have had this problem with a Zeiss lens and a lens adapter brand I will never use again).
• Whether the mount is of quality materials, or whether it might shed metal flakes into the camera (I have seen this with inexpensive lens adapters that look anodized but are cheap paint).

I don’t like reporting on horse-shit solutions, but after getting so many emails I wanted to address the issue.

Now maybe I’m all wrong here, and if someone sent met a converted DP Merrill camera, sure, I’d try it. But the fact is that the SIGMA lenses on the DP Merrill are excellent first rate optics.

In short, rather than mess with this camera-hack, buy all three of the DPM cameras for under $2K (about the price of one of the cheapest Leica M lenses) and be done with it.

Mini Travelogue: Leica M Monochrom in Pine Creek Canyon (Eastern Sierra)

These images shot with the Leica M Monochrom early last October.

In Guide to Leica is an extensive page of examples with the Leica M Monchrome, using the Leica the 21/3.8 Super-Elmar-M ASPH, 24/3.8 Elmar-M ASPH, 28/2.8 Elmarit-M ASPH and 50/1.4 Summilux-M ASPH.

View the examples.

 

Mitigating Contrast Loss From Diffraction aka How to Make ƒ/16 Look Crisp

This is an important read for anyone looking for both depth of field and crisp per pixel sharpness.

While diffraction remains a challenge for high-res DSLRs and the peak aperture for a top-notch lens remains ƒ/5.6 (on the full-frame Nikon D800E), it is possible with appropriate sharpening to greatly mitigate the micro contrast losses. Though there are limits: a low-noise well exposed image can accept more aggressive sharpening without developing uglies far better than a noisy underexposed image.

In Making Sharp Images, as a followup to Diffraction Limits for High Resolution DSLR, I show-and-tell what sharpening can do to mitigate the contrast losses from diffraction.

 

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Details...

Nikon Coolpix A Initial Comments

Sensor and image quality

The sensor in the Nikon Coolpix A is outstanding: there is no optical low pass filter (anti-aliasing filter), and this is immediately evident in seeing the detail that the Coolpix A delivers (impressive), along with superb color rendition.

Surprisingly, the 28/2.8 lens appears to have some field curvature issues which degrade off-center sharpness (in a planar sense). But otherwise it is a first-rate lens.

Rear LCD

The rear LCD is very nice, but suffers from the same complex Nikon menu system— wade through the mire and the camera can be configured sensibly, but as usual there is no “RAW only mode hide the JPEG cruft” setting or anything to reduce the kitchen-sink complexity which mixes irrelevant features into those that one wishes to use.

Operation

Things that get in the way of smooth operation bug me. Elegant design anticipates a variety of usage scenarios and eliminates barriers to usage. The Nikon Coolpix A repeats the same design flaws found in the heap of similar cameras to be forgotten in a year or two:

• Enabling the self-timer unsets itself after one shot. This is an irritating waste of time when trying to make more than one exposure. Well, this behavior is not unique to the Coolpix A, being found on other compacts.
• Autofocus— on the same subject (on a tripod), the Sigma DP Merrill locked on instantly, the Coolpix A was unable to lock focus. It took manual focus to finally lock focus.
• The tripod socket is well off center from the lens, so even the smallest camera plate (for tripod usage) blocks access to the battery and card door. Carry an allen wrench to change the battery or access the card. Since the tripod socket is off-center, panorama stitching becomes a headache also (parallax with rotation).
  
  UPDATE: most plates block the door but the Really Right Stuff B9 plate has an offset screw slot that allows the door to open. Hooray!
• No way to screw on a filter directly; requires the $99 optional hood and filter adapter. So it’s really a $1200 camera with hood and filter capability. Once done, the camera grows in bulk considerably. All this so the lens can collapse by a measly 1/2 inch when powered off and with the wobbly extend-a-lens feel?
• The area for gripping the camera at right rear feels precarious (hardly anything to grasp), and the front raised ridge is a token more than being useful. Sure I can adapt, but it makes me nervous about dropping the camera. Those with very small hands might find it to be OK. Perhaps Really Right Stuff will offer a proper grip that solves this handling issue, but that grows the camera in bulk.
• The menus are the same-old-same-old Nikon pile. Does a beginner want this mess? Does an advanced user shooting RAW want this mess? Pass the boilerplate.
• No electronic viewfinder (EVF) built in. This is a serious limitation for those of us getting on in years (presbyopia). At lower cost, one can accept not having an EVF but for an $1100/$1200 camera it’s not really acceptable.
• The On switch seems easily activated, making making me nervous about toggling the camera on by accident in a pocket or bag (speculation, not experience as yet).

The foregoing is not entirely fair to Nikon in one sense: nearly all competing cameras these days suffer from similar drawbacks.

Is the Coolpix A a bad camera? Certainly not, it is perfectly good and defensible in the context of competing cameras, in the context of operational mediocrity. And the image quality is very high. But it’s an $1100 ($1200) camera. That’s a big chunk of change that raises expectations.

Form factor

Shrinking the form factor is appealing, but better to have a good grip and proper placement of controls and tripod socket, etc. Bottom line: it’s awkwardly small for my hands and it’s no Sony RX100 in terms of pocketability.

The Nikon Coolpix A is a bit smaller than the Sigma DP1 Merrill at first glance. But the Sigma DP1M can have filters screw right on (no extra cost or bulky parts) and has more to grab hold of.

Nikon D800 / D800E Firmware Update

I updated both my D800 and D800E to Nikon’s latest firmware.

The mangled (subsampled) magnified Live View remains the same as before. This was really the only critical thing I wanted to see fixed, and it has not been addressed.

For my use at least, nothing of significance has changed, except perhaps the “gamut for AdobeRGB”, which I have not yet evaluated. Something of real value would have been allowing for a wide gamut color space sufficient to fully cover the gamut of which the camera is capable, e.g., “MaxCameraGamutRGB” (this would allow a histogram that properly describes the capture). The D800 color gamut greatly exceeds what AdobeRGB can handle, especially with bright or saturated reds. Of course, many shooters still can’t see such colors, since they don’t have a wide gamut display.

The “exposure preview was always on” thing never really mattered to me, as the problem with meat on its bones is that the camera insists on stopping down to the aperture that is chosen, so one has to constantly open up the lens to focus, then close down to shoot.

Modifications enabled with this upgrade of firmware, April 2, 2012

• Support for the AF-S NIKKOR 800mm f/5.6E FL ED VR has been added.
• Subject tracking performance in AF-C (continuous-servo autofocus) autofocus mode with framing using the viewfinder has been improved.
• Gamut for Adobe RGB images displayed in the camera's monitor has been changed. This enables more vivid display of images.
• With live view photography in [M] (Manual) exposure mode, exposure preview was always on. This issue has been resolved.
• In some very rare cases when certain memory cards were used, movie recording would stop, even when the time remaining display indicated remaining recording time. This issue has been resolved.
• With shooting at an image quality setting of TIFF (RGB) and an image size setting of Small, the right edge of images contained a purple line. This issue has been resolved.
• In some rare cases, images recorded in JPEG format could not be opened by some software applications. This issue has been resolved.
• In some very rare cases, colors would change with shooting when white balance was set to a specific color temperature, as with Preset manual or Choose color temp. This issue has been resolved.

Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar: Performance at Distance ƒ/2 - ƒ/16 (D800E, Mosaic)

In Guide to Zeiss is shown a Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar aperture series from ƒ/2 - ƒ/16 on a planar target at distance.

The full resolving power of the Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar is in evidence, showing just how incredibly good the lens is wide open at ƒ/2. Also included is a brief discussion on reversing the effects of diffraction at ƒ/16 by appropriate sharpening.

Retina-grade images and generously sized crops from ƒ/2 - ƒ/16.

Sigma 180mm f/2.8 APO-Macro DG HSM: Focusing and Image Stabilization

I've added working notes on focusing and notes on image stabilization to my review of the Sigma 180mm f/2.8 DG HSM.

Spring Green with the Nikon D7100

Spring is in full swing in northern California. So I took the 24-megapixel Nikon D7100 out for a spin.

Nikon D7100 comments

Terrific sensor color and resolution (best yet in DX sensor), but the D7100 body has usability flaws that make it a hassle for the way I work: totally unnecessary booby-traps for making mistakes. How Nikon manages to screw up something with every new DSLR is baffling.

I took the Nikon D7100 out for a spin, expecting to benefit from a Live View feature that does not suffer from the mangled subsampled Live View seen with the D800E. But the D7100 proved more troublesome to focus than the D800E: that weird half-second blur delay along with a contrast issue made focusing more difficult than I had anticipated (based on studio conditions). In spite of the D800E limitations, I quickly concluded that I preferred the D800E over the D7100 Live View. And that D7100 screen sure is shiny.

Next I noted a frustrating bug with the D7100: set the camera to (for example) ƒ/1.4 or ƒ/2, enter Live View mode with a bright scene, and the camera simply ignores the aperture and closes down to ƒ/4 or so. Completely defeating the focusing accuracy of using the wider aperture. If you happen to notice—which at first I did not. No warning is given. Adding to this, the camera won’t change apertures once in Live View mode. So one has to exit Live View, put a hand over the lens to fool the brightness algorithm, then enter Live View mode at ƒ/1.4 or ƒ/2, then remove the hand. Uggg.

Since one can’t always predict when the D7100 will engage in this behavior, it requires checking for it every time Live View is used. Oh, and then there is the lack of an AF-ON button, which drove me crazy. More specifically, one can use custom setting f4 Assign AE-L/AF-L button to assign AF-ON, but when one does that it disables autofocus via the shutter release. I can find no AF Activation= Shutter/AF-ON option in the D7100 as is found in the D800. Yet one more case of capricious changes to make using a mid-range body different from a semi-pro body.

I use Live View all the time, so this camera behavior turns me off to the D7100. But I suppose if one shoots the D7100 with autofocus and so on and doesn’t use Live View, then who cares as it won’t come into play.

Compared at Distance: Sigma 180/2.8 APO Macro DG HSM vs Leica 180/2.8 APO-Elmarit-R

The Leica 180mm f/2.8 APO-Elmarit-R has a cult following among Nikon and Canon users (converted for Nikon or with an adapter for Canon). I bought mine some years ago brand-new (latest variant), back when it was still in production.

Previously presented were the doll's comparison and the rulers comparison, but these were at close range and could be expected to favor the Sigma, which is presumably optimized as a macro lens, while the Leica 180/2.8 APO-Elmarit-R is presumably optimized for medium and long distance.

This demanding planar comparison was shot meticulously, with seven focusing series for the Leica and three for the Sigma with cross checks to be sure of the results. I consider the results definitive for anyone looking to choose betweem these two lenses. But with both lenses, there is a fly in the ointment.

DAP: a comparison of the Sigma 180/2.8 APO vs Leica 180/2.8 APO-Elmarit-R.

Guide to Leica: comparison of Sigma 180/2.8 APO vs Leica 180/2.8 APO-Elmarit-R

Using the Sigma DP3 Merrill for Stitching: 66 Megapixels of Biting Sharpness

I hesitated to show this stitched image due to things being cockeyed; I shot it in a hurry using a tripod, but without doing the proper leveling or using the proper multi-shot stitching or panoramic hardware like that from Really Right Stuff.

The image below is 66 megapixels (9170 X 7300) after stitching and cropping the stitched result, stitched from 10 frames (probably I could have done it with fewer frames).

One can automate the taking of the photos with the Gigapan Epic, though for myself I prefer not to lug along such bulky things, so I’d prefer something like the Really Right Stuff PG-02 package.

The actual pixels crop below represents the sharpness of the entire image— I’m not seeing any weak areas, or stitching seams. The point being that with a point and shoot camera on a tripod with proper hardware and some care for rotating about the lens entrance pupil, one can make images rivalling (or exceeding) detail of the highest resolution medium format cameras available today. Weak spot: the dynamic range of the DP Merrill sensor has its limits as the blown-out sky shows (I could have brought the exposure down to save the very bright sky, but opted not to).

The best camera for high-res stitching is the Sigma DP3 Merrill with its 75mm (equiv) lens. Shoot it at ƒ/5.6 preferably, or ƒ/8 if more DoF is needed.

The best part? The autofocus nails the focus spot-on with scenes like this; just press the button to autofocus, switch to manual for all the frames, shoot.

Reader Asks: Optical Viewfinder for Sigma DP Merrill?

Reader John R writes:

Tell Sigma to put in a viewfinder, even a simple optical one. I'll buy all 3 models tomorrow. But until then: inconceivable.

DIGLLOYD: I’ve suggested many things to Sigma. Perhaps someday some of them will be implemented.

An electronic viewfinder (EVF) would be ideal, but Sigma does not offer one.

However, the Sigma VF-11 optical viewfinder (28mm) and Sigma VF-21 optical viewfinder (41mm) are suitable for the Sigma DP1 Merrill and Sigma DP2 Merrill.

There does not appear to be an optical viewfinder for the DP3 Merrill with its 75mm (equiv) focal length.

The viewfinders mount in the hot shoe of the camera as shown. Naturally as with any such viewfinder (as on the Leica M9), there is a parallax issue at close range, but they are reasonably accurate for framing at medium and far distance.

Any brand 28mm viewfinder ought to do for the DP1 Merrill (Zeiss, Leica, others), but the Sigma viewfinders are priced about as low as one might hope for. I used one on the original Sigma DP1 (non-Merrill) about two years ago, and it works well enough to be useful for some types of shooting.

Nathaniel P writes:

Wanted to drop a line on the question of viewfinders for the DP3M: Voigtlander makes/made a Voigtlander 75mm viewfinder to accompany their (LT)M-mount 75/2.5
Heliar. Bright and compact, I'll attest.

DIGLLOYD: sounds like a match for the Sigma DP3 Merrill.

Samuel L writes:

I don't use the Sigma DP Merrill cameras myself --- just not the right tool for me, as I need to take pictures in very low light.

What I am very happy with, however, is the Ricoh GV-2 28mm optical viewfinder. I went to B&H and I tried the Sigma VF-11 and Ricoh GV-2 OVFs side-by-side. There is no comparison. The Ricoh is a little more expensive, but is so much better. The view is clearer and larger; the framelines are much more visible and the whole object is much more solid, and they are the same size. Highly recommended. Of course, up close there's significant parallax error.

I am planning to sell the EPM-1 soon, and I won't have any more need for the GV-2 viewfinder. I'd be happy to sell it for $200, with free shipping.

DIGLLOYD: There is also the Zeiss Ikon Viewfinder ZI 28mm / 25mm for ZM.

Sigma DP3 Merrill Sharpness

Had your “holy cow” moment today?

Posted in my review of the Sigma DP1/DP2/DP3 Merrill cameras is a Sigma DP3 Merrill aperture series from ƒ/2.8 - ƒ/16 with generous crops.

The sharpness is astonishing, but if one wishes to dispel any doubt, LensRentals.com rents the Sigma Merrill. The Sigma DP Merrill cameras just never, ever disappoint on the sharpness front unless you somehow manage to misfocus— the AF is actually very good, indeed I used AF for this series— razor sharp accuracy.

Also added are several new examples with the DP3 Merrill.

A Lizard’s Risks—Life Fills Every Niche

Early yesterday morning I was waiting for someone in town when I spotted a shape that did not quite blend in, nestled up under one of those concrete stops at the front of a parking space.

This poor guy was stiff and cold (not able to move as yet), waiting for the warming rays of the sun. But what a high risk life—in one direction squashing by car tires and in the other a constant flow of feet. Life fills every niche.

LensRentals HD Rental Program: a $79 value FREE to First Three “Everything Deal” Subscribers

See the details on the LensRentals HD program. LensRentals.com is a first-class outfit I use myself, and the HD rental program is a steal if you rent three or more times per year, or even twice for some locations.

First three subscribers to the diglloyd “everything deal” (either one or two year term) get a FREE subscription to Lens Rentals HD. How it works:

1. Email me to confirm “first three” status.
2. Promptly subscribe to the everything deal (new or existing subscribers, any duplication of existing subscription(s) adds to existing term).
3. I’ll forward your name and email (nothing else) to LensRentals.com, cc'ing you, and they take it from there.

What is LensRentals HD?

LensRentals HD is a shipping discount program. By signing up, you’ll get free Standard Shipping on all the orders you place for one year, and you’ll even save 50% on all FedEx Overnight shipping.

No items are excluded from the program: if we carry it, we’ll ship it free. Need a jib in Los Angeles? It’s free. Need 10 tripods in Miami? Totally free. More...

Everything deal

Compared: Zeiss 135mm ƒ/2 APO-Sonnar vs Canon 135mm f/2L (Canon 5D Mark III, Dolls)

In Guide to Zeiss is a comparison of the Zeiss ZE 135/2 APO-Sonnar to the venerable but aging Canon EF 135mm f/2L.

Reader Comment: Sigma DP3 Merrill from LensRentals.com

Stephen P writes:

The DP3 is TFA. Totally. Freaking. Awesome. I thought my Nikon D800E files were sharp, they are but pale versions of the files from the DP3 Merrill I rented from LensRentals.com.

I took the dogs for a walk right after I got it today and, apart from canine induced blur, the files were absolutely incredible. I am only curious on one issue, are the images from a DP1 Merrill as good as those from the DP3? I tend to shoot wide angle the vast majority of the time (~75%).

PS. Sigma Photo Pro is a dog but no more than the write time of the files to the SD card.

DIGLLOYD: It is true that the DP Merrill sensor offers sharpness on a per pixel basis that cannot be matched by any conventional Bayer-matrix sensor. Also, the lower pixel density is subject less to diffraction. All of the DP Merrill cameras share the same sensor and all have high quality ƒ/2.8 lens, as my review of the Sigma DP Merrills shows.

An alternative RAW converter is the well-written Iridient Developer.

Compared to conventional

The Nikon D800E delivers substantially more total detail, something easily seen by resampling to a common resolution.

The D600 and Canon 5D Mark II offer marginally more detail, but generally do not have the same visual impact for that detail, and the Sigma sensor has none of the digital artifacts produced by a Bayer-matrix sensor.

See the two comparisons in in Guide to Mirrorless:

• DP1 Merrill vs 24-Megapixel Nikon D600 (Yellow Aspen)
• DP2 Merrill vs 22-Megapixel Canon 5D Mark III (Redwoods/Bridge)
• How Large for Printing?.

Rebates and deals on Nikon and Canon End March 30 (?)

The best “word on the street” I have is that many of these rebates will not be extended beyond March 30.

• Sony Alpha Rebates.
• Canon Buy Together and Save.
• Canon lens and speedlite rebats.
• Nikon Buy Together and Save.
• Nikon lens rebates.
• 6% rewards items.

Zeiss ZE 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar on Canon 5D Mark III — Examples

Added my review of the Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar in Guide to Zeiss are some initial examples of the Zeiss 135/2 APO-Sonnar on the Canon 5D Mark III.

I’ll have a comparison of the Zeiss 135/2 APO-Sonnar to the Canon 135mm f/2L shortly.

Backyard photos are about all I can manage right now, as I am still recovering from a nasty viral pulmonary infection which drains my energy by mid-afternoon.

How to Safely Transfer Photos or Verify Backups: IntegrityChecker for OS X

• Suppose that you are switching to a new system
• Or that you have upgraded to a newer and larger hard drive.
• Or that you burned files or photo to a DVD or BluRay and want to know if the files remaing “good” a year or two later.
• Etcetera.

How do you know (prove) that the files are 100% identical to the originals? (And if it’s a restore from backup, you might not have the originals).

That’s why I wrote IntegrityChecker years ago. It’s part of diglloydTools for OS X: to avoid “bit rot” and corruption from transfers. It removes the worry from the process.

Using a cryptographic hash (SHA1) IntegrityChecker makes a record in each folder for each file in that folder of its hash. This saved hash detects the tiniest change in content (or of course, length of the file too).

The type of file does not matter: image files, Lightroom catalogs, JPEGs, raw files, spreadsheets, mail, word processing files, music, videos, databases, etc—anything that you create and has value to you.

The process

The process is simple and can be run on a single folder or entire volume.

1. Run Update on the original files (computes and writes the hash values for every file in each folder into a hidden “.ic” file in that folder).
2. Make the copy or backup or burn the DVD/Blu Ray or whatever (this naturally carries along the hidden “.ic” file in each folder).
3. At any later time (tomorrow or a year later), run Verify on the backup / copy (this recomputes the hashes and compares to the values in the “.ic” file).

IntegrityChecker can verify any files on which 'Update' run before, even without the originals (there are alternatives such as “diffing” source and backup, but those are far slower, and require the original and the copy).

Some pro photographers burn DVD or BluRay discs containing files with IntegrityChecker support; these discs can be verified at any time. There are numerous such uses.

See How to Safely Transfer Data or Verify Backups.

Usage

Both command line (Terminal) and GUI versions are provided (command line version recommended for routine efficient automated use).

The GUI is not fancy, but the internals are what counts: it is one of the most efficient multi-threaded programs of any kind you’ll ever find, capable of utilizing CPU cores to the maximum extent that I/O speed allows. Not only that, the command line version can be used to verify any number of folders or volumes sequentially or simultaneously. It doesn’t get any more fast or efficient.

A Finder Shortcut for Organizing Photos or Files Into New Folders

These two simple shortcuts save me time every time I drop new photos onto my Mac:

• How to Organize Photos or Files Into New Folders in the Finder.
• How to Quickly Preview and Sort 1000 Images the OS X Finder.

Sigma 180mm f/2.8 APO Macro DG HSM at 1:3 (Poppy, Nikon D800E)

Added my review of the Sigma 180mm f/2.8 APO Macro in DAP is an aperture series at 1:3 at ƒ/4, ƒ/8, ƒ/11, ƒ/16. This example is about overall rendition.

Sigma 180mm f/2.8 APO Macro DG HSM at 1:1 Life Size (Doll, Nikon D800E)

Added my review of the Sigma 180mm f/2.8 APO Macro in DAP is an aperture series at 1:1 (life size) from ƒ/5 (wide open) to ƒ/32.

Additional aggressive sharpening is shown for the crops in order to evaluate the ideal tradeoff of sharpness versus depth of field.

Sigma 180mm f/2.8 APO Macro DG HSM at ~1:2 (Half Life Size, Nikon D800E)

Added my review of the Sigma 180mm f/2.8 APO Macro in DAP is an aperture series at 1:2 (half life size) from ƒ/5 (wide open) to ƒ/32.

Color correction, micro contrast and additional sharpening for ƒ/16 and ƒ/22 are discussed.

Robert F writes:

Thanks so much for your testing of the new Sigma 180.

I have had the lens since December and use it (along with a Nikon 300 f4) exclusively for butterfly photography.

This morning (after viewing the comparative doll shots) I was SHOCKED to see the performance at f22 – I have been afraid (and never considered) using the lens at such a small aperture.

Your subscription price is a bargain!

DIGLLOYD: Yes, on a D800E, ƒ/22 is best avoided for most purposes. See MTF at ƒ/22 with the Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar.

Spring Poppy

I confess to having little patience for close-up (macro) photography. But it can be fun to play with simple compositions. This one captures the essence of the California Poppy in three ways: a flower bud amid its foliage, and an active flower, which closes late in the day, and opens in the morning.

APO.chromatic:
+ Sigma 180/2.8 APO Macro DG HSM
+ Sigma 150/2.8 APO Macro DG HSM
+ Leica 180/2.8 APO-Elmarit-R
+ Voigtlander 180/4 APO-Lanthar
+ Nikon 70-200/2.8G VR II

In DAP is presented a comparison of five APO/ED lenses:

• Sigma 180mm f/2.8 APO Macro DG HSM
• Sigma 150mm f/2.8 APO Macro DG HSM
• Leica 180mm f/2.8 APO-Elmarit-R
• Voigtlander 180mm f/4 APO-Lanthar
• Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II

Also documented is focus shift, with some surprising findings.

A variant of this comparison minus the Sigma 150/2.8 is presented in Guide to Leica.

The test scene was set up specifically to ferret out secondary longtinudinal chromatic aberration in particular, but also lateral chromatic aberration.

An apochromatic lens should greatly reduce or eliminate both longitudinal chromatic aberration (LOCA) and lateral chromatic aberration (LCA). As related bonuses, it should also minimize secondary longitudinal chromatic aberration, spherical aberration and spherochromaticism. See Optical Aberrations in Making Sharp Images.

There is no marketing definition for “APO”, nor does the term guarantee better performance than a lens lacking the APO designation. Each vendor is free to correct for color to the extent deemed appropriate and to apply or not apply the APO term to its lenses. For example, many Canon and Nikon lenses with special types of glass (“ED” and fluorite) would quality for the APO label, but Canon and Nikon choose not to do so.