Great price on the Maxtor Maxline Pro 500GB
Here’s a great deal: the 500GB (about 460GB formatted) Maxtor Maxline Pro 500GB SATA drive for only $179 at newegg.com. (“Maxtor MaXLine Pro 500 7H500F0 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive”). The Maxline series drives are supposed to be “enterprise class” drives. See my Nov 23 blog entry on this drive.
MacBook Pro: SATA or FireWire 800?
I’ve updated my Hard Disk Drives article with results comparing SATA to FireWire 800 (same drive, same enclosure). For work involving lots of disk access (eg digital photography), either approach offers substantially better performance than the internal drive in a MacBook Pro [Core 2 Duo].
This is the time of the year when the local newts make their annual “chicken run” across the road—except that they move at a glacial pace, especially when it’s under 55 degrees F. At warmer temps, they move fast enough to make it rather difficult to maintain accurate focus.
Those which don’t meet their demise as newt juice presumably go about the business of making next year’s newtlets.
“Newty”, Nikon D200
One of my favorite trees is the Japanese Persimmon (Diospyros Kaki). There are two varieties commonly grown here in the USA—Fuyu and Hachiya. While I’m not partial to the fruit of the Hachiya, the Fuyu produces excellent firm and non-astringent fruit not too unlike an apple in consistency. They are excellent fresh or dried, and a cross-section cut of the fruit is quite beautiful. And the fall foliage color is striking.
Fuyu Persimmon tree, Nikon D200
David Pogue, in his Nov 21 article The Truth About Digital Cameras, makes the claim that there is no difference between a 13-megapixel, 8-megapixel, and 5-megapixel image when printed at 16 X 24 inches (the 8 and 5MP images were downsized from the 13MP image). He claims:
I’m telling you, there was NO DIFFERENCE.
Thousands of people read his columns, so such broad-brush claims are worrisome without at least some description of the methodology, camera used, etc. Here are just a few of the issues:
- With which camera was the image taken? I don’t know of any 13-megapixel camera. The Canon EOS 5D is 12.7 megapixels. Was the image one that claims 13MP with a “high-res upsize mode”, but really only a 6MP sensor? Was it a digicam or a DSLR?
- What kind of print was made, and how was it printed?
- Was the image sharp to begin with? Was it shot on a tripod? Was it focused accurately? Was the subject perfectly still? Was there adequate depth of field? Was the lens stopped down so far as to be optically limited? Or was the image just 13MP of substandard blurry pixels?
- What was the viewing distance at which the prints were viewed?
- Was there lighting on the images so that they could be seen clearly?
- Did the observers have 20/20 vision?
Pogue’s sample print appears to be a baby picture. Certainly, portraits are more amenable to lower megapixel images. But I’m skeptical that the picture is technically good enough to be used as the basis for a comparison, knowing that a 13-megapixel camera requires extremely accurate focus (or it’s instantly a 6 or 3 or 1-megapixel camera). We can’t know, since Mr. Pogue offers no actual-pixels crop, nor does it appear that he is aware of such issues.
My own test: I don’t like to theorize or guess about such things. So I performed my own test. My results are somewhat different. Since my prints were made slightly smaller (22.6" vs 24"), any differences will be less obvious.
At a distance of about 36 inches, the print from the full-size original looks superb when printed 22.6" wide. The impression of smoothness with fine detail is strong, and I consider it a fine-art quality print. The overall impression is of very high quality. It looks like it might have come from a 4X5 camera.
The print from the 8-megapixel image looks quite similar at first glance, but it has a slight harshness and loss of tonality to it, even when viewed at 5 feet away, where the differences in fine detail cannot be resolved. Fine detail is a bit smudged when observed at closer distances. This print would still be acceptable as a fine-art print. The average “person on the street” would still be impressed, and likely would not be discerning enough to note the differences (maybe this is why fine-art quality photos make for a tough living).
The print from the 5-megapixel image looks noticeably harsh and “brittle”—even from 5 feet away. I would not willingly sell such a print, as no discerning person would consider it a first rate effort. The “person on the street” might see the difference with side-by-side prints under good lighting at a distance of less than 4 feet, but many would not. I showed the prints to my wife, under less than ideal lighting, and she noted that the 5-megapixel image looked different, but she was hard-pressed to distinguish the prints. Then again, she was not wearing her reading glasses! Visual acuity, lighting, and a discerning eye all matter.
Conclusion: Does this mean that you shuld just buy a 6-megapixel camera instead of a 10 or 12-megapixel camera? It all depends on what you’re after—snapshot quality or fine-art quality or something in-between. I’ve never been satisfied with 6-megapixel landscape images (Nikon D1X, Nikon D70), but I’ve also been very satisfied with 4-megapixel portraits (Nikon D2H)! The subject matter counts, pixel quality matters (eg a DSLR and not a digicam), and good technique is critical to make those 10 or 12 megapixels perform.
Details: I used my Norway Birches image taken at f11 on a tripod using mirror lockup with the Canon EOS 5D and the Nikon 85mm f/2.8D PC Micro-Nikkor at f11, converted from the RAW (CR2) file into a 16-bit TIF (4368 X 2912 pixels or 12.72-megapixels). The image was critically focused, and is about as sharp an image as the 5D can produce.
Actual pixels crop, Unsharp Mask {150, 0.3, 0}
- the uncropped images were printed 22.6" wide, allowing the printer driver to scale the image.
- sharpening for all prints was {500, 0.3, 0} using Photoshop Unsharp Mask on the Lightness channel.
- printed on the Epson Style Pro 7600 with the ultrachrome ink set.
- the 8-megapixel (3464 X 2309) and 5-megapixel (2738 X 1825) images were downsized from the original using Photoshop
Bicubic Sharper.
In the September 6 blog entry, I reported trouble with the battery life of my Nikon D200, at that time less than 6 weeks old. The D200 was sent into Nikon for repair, and returned the day after I had left for my trip to Norway (That’s why my color photos in Norway were taken with a Canon EOS 5D). I used the D200 on a number of occasions since then, and it seemed to work fine, with normal battery life, though I didn’t put it to any rigorous test.
Two days ago, I pulled the D200 out of the drawer, not having used it for about 2 weeks. I turned it on, and the battery info showed 100% (using the “Battery Info” menu). I shot a frame or two as a sanity check, put it into the bag, and went to my shoot. About a dozen frames later, the red battery low indicator was flashing within the viewfinder, and the D200 died, corrupting the last NEF. Total shots on that battery: 46.
Fortunately, I had brought along a point and shoot camera (an infrared-converted Fuji S6000). Better than nothing. I won’t ever trust to having one D200 battery ever again.
Later in the day, I installed a freshly-charged battery. Today, two days later, “Battery Info” reads at 87%, with a “Pic. Meter” of 11.
My D2x never behaved so badly, exhibiting stellar battery life. I guess it’s time to send the D200 in for a 2nd repair.
Rather than bloat this blog, I’ll be collecting future experiences with hard drives, RAID, etc in the Hard Disk Drives page. Some past articles including the recent ones (see below) have been incorporated already.
Maxtor MaxLine Pro 500GB drives in 2-way stripe
My storage needs have hit 500GB, which means that one of my backup systems was due for an upgrade in capacity. I purchased two Maxtor MaxLine Pro7H500F0 500GB bare drives at zipzoomfly.com ($239.99 each), and installed them into a FirmTek SeriTek/2EN2 (an exceptionally well-built 2-drive external SATA enclosure).
Next, I created a striped RAID volume with the two new drives, using Mac OS X Disk Utility.
2-way striped RAID volume
It is always wise to run the DiskTester test-reliability command (“disktester test-reliability BackupDuo”) overnight on new volumes that are to be put into production—which I did. No errors were detected.
The new volume was then tested for performance on the Macbook Pro using the FirmTek SeriTek/2SM2-E ExpressCard 34 adapter, which provides two external SATA II ports. I also performed the identical test on the PowerMac G5 Quad (using the Sonnet Tempo E4P PCI Express card).
The results are quite good, though they are about 25% slower for writes than the 300GB Maxtor 7v300F0 (see Feb 16 blog entry). But they are in a different enclosure, and tested with an updated system, so this is not a surety.
Observe how performance drops on the outer tracks of the drives; speed is only about 60% of maximum as data is read from the outer tracks. This is true whether you use a single drive or a striped RAID. But at least with a striped RAID (in which the hard drives work in parallel to store alternating chunks of data), worst-case performance still remains well above that of the maximum performance of a single drive. When backing up 500GB of data, a 4-way stripe can accomplish the task in about 90 minutes; on a single drive that jumps to about 6 hours—long enough to discourage regular backups.
MacBook Pro DiskTester Results
“disktester run-area-test --iterations 3 --chunk-size 32M --test-size 2G BackupDuo”
---------- Averages for "BackupDuo" (2GB/32MB, 3 iterations) ---------
Area (928.8GB) Write MB/sec Read MB/sec
0% 122.3 132.4
10% 127.3 131.9
20% 128.3 131.0
30% 126.4 126.8
40% 125.2 124.1
50% 122.0 120.9
60% 114.4 113.4
70% 109.2 107.2
80% 100.1 98.5
90% 89.2 87.8
100% 75.2 74.6
Average write speed across the volume: 113MB/sec
Average read speed across the volume: 114MB/sec
Command "run-area-test" executed in 1238.39 seconds.
PowerMac G5 Quad DiskTester Results
“disktester run-area-test --iterations 3 --chunk-size 32M --test-size 2G BackupDuo”
--------------- Averages for "BackupDuo" (2GB/32MB, 3 iterations) --------------
Area (928.8GB) Write MB/sec Read MB/sec
0% 122.3 133.9
10% 126.5 133.7
20% 128.7 131.1
30% 126.7 126.6
40% 125.6 124.5
50% 121.9 121.7
60% 114.0 114.0
70% 108.9 108.0
80% 99.7 99.0
90% 89.0 88.3
100% 75.2 74.9
Average write speed across the volume: 113MB/sec
Average read speed across the volume: 114MB/sec
Command "run-area-test" executed in 1236.13 seconds.
World’s fastest telephoto—Nikon 200-400mm f/1.4 G ED
Looking for a fast telephoto zoom? See page 92 of the November, 2006 Outdoor Photographer with Nikon’s 200-400mm f/4 ED-IF AF-S zoom labeled as f/1.4! (Only 3 stops off).
That such a ridiculous error should actually make it to publication is not too surprising given that so much of the material in Outdoor Photographer is little more than a stale rehash of the manufacturer’s marketing hype—usually 3 months after the information was available on the web. Sometimes mistakes are made when keyboarding material from the brochure! :;
I have yet to see an equipment review from OP that provided any substantive insight into the performance of a lens or camera—no sense offending the advertising clientele! You get what you pay for.
A bad computer day—readers inquire
Readers have emailed me lamenting their computer issues after reading A Bad computer day. I responded with the best advice I could give, based on many years of professional experience. Good luck to them, and everyone else who might be suffering from inexplicable problems.
A friend of mine asks:
“My question is...what do poor normal people (like me) do when all that $@()* happens to them!”
Good question! This is one reason to make it someone else’s problem, or at least try to—purchase a support plan such as AppleCare (Mac) or the equivalent if it’s (yuck) a Windows PC.
Here are some diglloyd.com resources related to computer perplexities:
Error
Correcting Code Memory
Uninterruptible Power Supplies
PowerMac Quad Sleep Problems
PowerMac G5 Quad Setup
DiskTester
diglloydTools
Summary of approach to problem solving computer freezes, etc.
- Is it bad memory? Buy only OEM quality memory, ECC memory if your computer supports it.
- Consider an uninterruptible power supply, to ensure clean power to your Mac and the drives.
- Install a fresh system on a newly formatted disk. This could be a Firewire drive or a spare internal drive. Boot off this drive and see if the problems recur.
- Never put data on the boot disk. I dedicate an external firewire drive for the boot drive so that I can use the internal drives for data (only). I even make a symbolic link in my home directory for Mail to my data volume, so that I can pretty much wipe the boot drive at my pleasure. If an extra disk (< $200) is beyond your budget, then partition the boot drive into a “Boot” and a “Data” partition. These can be erased independently.
- Be sure to run Mac OS X to check that the volumes are good, and use “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” when formatting a disk.
- Don’t install programs that require drivers or other specialty software that can destabilize the Mac OS X kernel. This includes screen savers and anti-virus (for Mac, PC users must use anti-virus). Someone will disagree on the anti-virus, but FUD is the rule for anti-virus vendors.
- Test for reliability before putting a new RAID or disk into production use.
Mac OS X or not, sometimes strange problems crop up—like yesterday—my day in computer hell, though thankfully only my toes were burned!
Of course, as soon as things go wrong, I back up my data just in case. And then I can afford to erase the boot disk (I never keep data on the boot disk (even mail), but backups are always a Good Idea). And I keep 3 or 4 rotating backups too, just in case I make a mistake.
First, the Epson driver for my R2400 crashes repeatedly (every time I print).
Second, Photoshop CS2 refuses to open various files, particularly JPEG files, citing a program error. No number of reboots or re-launches of Photoshop fixes this problem. Searching the Adobe site claims that deleting the various preference files will solve the problem, but that simply wasn’t true, and I tried multiple times and various ways.
Adobe Photoshop CS2—error opening a file*
*Programmer-speak for “Screw you—we were too lazy to produce a helpful error message”.
I decided to reinstall Photoshop—but there is no Uninstall. Multiple Adobe “help” documents blithely say to uninstall before reinstalling (since the installer refuses to install over an existing copy!), but it takes 30 minutes of searching the Adobe site to find an obscure note describing which files to manually delete (!). How is that an “uninstall”? And none of the documents provide any link from the word “uninstall” to the document saying how to do it. Thank you Adobe—and thanks for the headache of having to prove that I’m not a criminal by repeatedly having to authorize and de-authorize my copy of Photoshop CS2. You are hereby designated Software ShitHeads of the Year. Too bad there isn’t a competing product or you’d be history. But misery loves company, so there is always the bug-laden DreamWeaver 8.
Third, my 2-week-old 30" Apple Cinema Display develops what I’ll call the “green crawlies”. I can’t show a screen capture, because they don’t show up in a screen capture—which means something between the video card and the display, or the display itself. I had seen this problem with my dual 2.5GHz machine (not a Quad) and an older 30" display. This is with a brand-new 30" display, and my PowerMac G5 Quad. Since a screen capture won’t show it, I shot the image below with my Nikon D200. The greenish pixels are around everything on the screen, edges in particular. If you know what causes this, please email me. The problem comes and goes, though it first appeared yesterday.
“Green Crawlies”
Finally, Disk Utility reports problems that can’t be fixed, requiring a boot into single-user mode, and using the command line “fsck_hfs”. Eventually I fix the file system to be error-free, but neither Photoshop CS2, nor the 30" Cinema Display, nor the Epson R2400 driver consider that an improvement.
I resolved to reinstall system software. A clean slate, first verifying things on a spare drive, then erasing and reinstalling on my original boot drive.
So I try to boot off the Tiger install CD from my Mac OS X Family Pack (I misplaced my G5 Quad install disk). I lose again—it’s 10.4.0, which pre-dates the Quad, and so the boot sequence results in a kernel panic, making it impossible to reinstall system software. A friend with a Quad comes to the rescue—thank you!
But Apple deserves some praise—when booting up a newly-installed Mac OS X, it offers to copy your applications, data and preferences from another computer or disk. This worked beautifully, even keeping the nefarious Photoshop CS2 authorization scheme happy. The green crawlies remained, so this suggests it is not a software problem, though there is a non-zero chance that the copied data could be involved. And the green crawlies are now gone, but from past experience I know that they come and go.
I haven’t yet installed the Epson R2400 driver, but all else is well, and I’m back in business. At least it wasn’t Windows, though in this case it sure felt like it!
Which RPM hard drive in MacBook Pro?
Shootout: Various MacBook Pro Internal Drives from barefeats.com should be of interest to any existing or prospective MacBook Pro user.
Drive speed can be a significant factor in MacBook Pro performance, especially with Photoshop or other programs that open large files. But everything feels perkier when the hard drive is faster, though maxing out the system memory can also help because it allows Mac OS X to scarf up unused memory to use as a large disk cache.
System hang (crash)—Sonnet Temp at fault?
Please see today’s earlier discussion (below) of the Sonnet Tempo “Interrupt Storm”.
For the fifth time today (in only 3 hours or so of usage), the interrupt storm problem kicked in. As usual, I was forced to sleep the PowerMac G5 Quad to make the problem go away. Unfortunately, the Quad never came out of sleep—the fans quickly churned to their highest speed, and my only option was to cut the power and reboot.
Is this too the fault of the Sonnet Tempo card? Perhaps, and perhaps not. But if the Sonnet Tempo card didn’t have the interrupt storm bug, I wouldn’t have been forced to sleep the machine in the middle of my work!
Though not all days are this troublesome, six months of this behavior is enough, and Sonnet’s inability or unwillingness to address the problem in a timely manner is simply unacceptable. My patience has reached its limit. (I was a beta tester, and I have reported the problem many times directly to the engineer responsible for the card firmware, so it’s not like the message has gone unheard).
Sonnet Tempo™ “interrupt storm”
As readers might know from reading past blog entries [1, 2, 3] and PowerMac G5 Internal Drive Kits, I use two Sonnet Tempo PCI-X cards--an E4i to support four (4) additional internal SATA drives, and an E4P to support four (4) external SATA drives in a FirmTek 2eEN4 external enclosure (PowerMac G5 Quad).
The foregoing setup has performed admirably, except for one irritating problem that Sonnet has not been able to fix: the so-called “interrupt storm”, first reported here on May 15, 2006. Six months of waiting has not resulted in a fix for this problem.
This problem results in nearly an entire CPU core being used to service spurious interrupts from the E4i or E4p. The net result is that on a PowerMac Quad, you lose 20-25% of your processing power, and on a dual-core PowerMac G5, you lose nearly 40-50% of your processing power. Of course, all this activity causes additional heat, which causes the fans to run louder too.
A screen capture from Mac OS X is shown below. Note the 81.4% CPU usage by “kernel_task”, which represents the core of the Mac OS X operating system, within which hardware drivers run:
“Interrupt Storm”
This is what it looks like after the workaround—forcing the computer to sleep, then wake up:
After sleep/wake
I’m disappointed with Sonnet’s attention to this matter, having waited patiently for 6 months for a fix. It happens to me at least once a day, sometimes several. But what if you use your PowerMac Quad for video processing or another application where you can’t stop the middle of a big job (eg video acquisition)? Or just a job where you really need all 4 cores? In a word: bummer.
Apropos: a few hours after I wrote the paragraph above, I started running a CPU and disk intensive job, processing 480GB (yes, 480 gigabytes) of data. For the fourth time today, the interrupt storm problem kicked in, stealing nearly an entire CPU core from my job, and making other activities on the system less responsive.
Performance degradation on a real task
Other PowerMac users report that a recent beta firmware update (available from the Sonnet site) has resolved this issue for them—but it hasn’t resolved it for me. Perhaps it’s because my PowerMac Quad has two of the Sonnet Tempo cards installed. I don’t know, but speaking as a longtime software engineer, I really don’t think Sonnet knows how to fix this problem. Sonnet, will it ever be fixed?
Click on the image below to see more.
Fish
Fight © Copyright
2004 Lloyd L Chambers
Just to be clear—that’s my shot below, not Leica’s. Taken February 2004 in Homer, Alaska using a Nikon D2H—and it’s a wild eagle, not captive (maybe not certified organic though). My D2H also suffered from excessive infrared sensitivity, though none is apparent here. I don’t know whether the D2Hs has the same issue, and I no longer own a D2H.
Stalking
Eagle © Copyright 2004 Lloyd L Chambers
As discussed previously (November 8), and also in Infrared Contamination: Good Color Gone Bad, the Leica M8 has an infrared sensitivity problem which causes magenta or purple discoloration, subtle on some subjects, and pronounced on others. I am very skeptical that it is as rare as claimed. Instead of objective evaluation, I suspect a case of “The Emperor’s New Clothes”.
Suggested “solutions” recommend a color profile or adjustment to eliminate a red/magenta color cast—good for some parts of the image, bad for others, since infrared is reflected just as unequally as red or green or blue and so wholesale adjustment of the image is non-optimal. Desaturation is yet another band-aid solution. Any of these might improve an affected image and so they are worthwhile if your image is afflicted, but they are not fixes, as I learned first-hand with the Nikon D2H.
The Leica M8 sample image (see “Performance Proofs”) [thanks to a reader for pointing this out] is likely the European eagle, Haliaeetus albicilla, not Haliaeetus Leucocephalus, the North American Bald Eagle. The yellow beak and eyes of Haliaeetus Leucocephalus appear with sexual maturity, so identification is complicated by that.
Juvenile Haliaeetus
Leucocephalus © Copyright 2004 Lloyd L Chambers
I downloaded Leica’s sample DNG file of the eagle head and opened it in Adobe Photoshop CS2 Camera Raw, Tint=0. I tried a few different color temperatures, and no matter what, the dark background is actually a very dark red—about 10 points more than green or blue. The whole image is too red also. I tried removing 3 points of red in Photoshop, and it became more natural looking, though still not quite right. Is this the infrared sensitivity problem manifesting itself as excessive red? Without knowing the lighting, it’s hard to say for sure, but it seems unlikely that Leica would have used a red background, or a red eagle.
I also downloaded the JPEG file “M8 Performance Proof - White-tailed eagle_en.jpg”. It is tagged with the Adobe RGB color space, though it looks more natural if sRGB is assigned to it instead (usually the wrong thing to do). The reddish cast is strong, and the color is also over-saturated. Not all all a good rendering.
I do still envision buying an M8 once Leica sorts out this challenge. In fact, I have a very nice 35mm f/2 Summicron ASPH sitting on my desk right now, purchased in advance for the M8.
Canon rebates though Jan 13, 2007
If you’ve ever lusted over a Canon EOS 5D, now is the time. You can get a double rebate of ($300 X 2 = $600) by purchasing an EOS 5D and another item, such as a lens or flash. Rebates also apply to the Canon EOS 30D, and a variety of lenses. Of course, these rebates mean that Canon is likely to announce updated models at Photokina in February.
The lowest priced item that triggers the double rebate seems to be the Canon 430EX Speedlight (about $239 less $20 rebate = $219). The excellent 85mm f/1.8 USM ($339 less $40 rebate = $299) is another useful choice. The rebates apply only to USA (non gray-market) equipment from authorized dealers.
Please consider buying through amazon.com via the search box on the diglloyd.com Recommended page—at no cost to yourself, and a small commission to diglloyd.com, which helps support this site. Amazon.com has the rebate form online.
Who can you trust? Getting the facts straight, and telling it “like it is” counts for a lot in a world full of misinformation. [This discussion concerns a recent “review” of the Leica M8; the website is well-known].
When you read a camera or lens “review”, you have a right to expect that everything will be told—good and bad. Writing about good points while deliberately omitting the bad, no matter what the reason(s), is unethical and misleading. If there are legal restrictions (eg a non-disclosure agreement), then it is better to publish nothing, rather than mislead by publishing only part of the story. No subsequent mea-culpa or “addendum” can rectify this breach of ethics. Honest mistakes are one thing; deliberate acts are another.
No objective reviewer should feel at ease submitting a camera or lens evaluation for “review” by the manufacturer prior to publishing it—instead, any points of clarification can be posed as questions, and the answers then incorporated into the full review.
Journalism has a long and time-honored history in the United States (though one has to question today’s journalistic ethics). Publishing a “review” which deviates from a full and fair report is a disgrace. Do not accept this—get your information from a source that values integrity and responsibility first and foremost, whose goal is Service*.
Purchasing decisions are often made using the available published information. Angry indeed might be a buyer to learn that problems were observed, but not disclosed.
Worse than committing an ethical breach is compounding the offense by blaming others, failing to take responsibility, and insisting you’d do it again! A very Low State* indeed!
This site will always publish the unvarnished facts.
New article: Infrared Contamination
Last night, I attended a talk by the Leica USA west coast and a Leica representative from Germany. I had a very brief chance to take a few quick snapshots with the M8. I had brought with me what I had previously determined to be potentially troublesome fabrics. Later, I performed the same test with the Nikon D200 and a Canon EOS 5D-IR. See for yourself how the M8 handled it in Infrared Contamination.
| Leica M8 | Nikon D200 | Canon EOS 5D-IR (infrared) |
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Leica M8—for “gentlemen” only?
Last night, I attended a presentation hosted by Keeble & Shucat Photography in Palo Alto, CA. The Leica USA west coast representative was present, and the Leica Germany representative went through a somewhat tedious bullet-point presentation of the current Leica digital lineup (see Leica vs Panasonic below). His knowledge of the products was quite limited, and of no use in understanding the more interesting issues, such as infrared contamination, or bit depth of the raw files.
One of the presentation slides suggested that the M8 had been designed for the “gentleman” who wants a smaller, less conspicuous camera. I had noted this Germanic oddity and wondered to myself if anyone would protest, and indeed one female attendee brought the matter to the Leica Germany representative’s attention, accompanied by a chuckle from the (mostly male) crowd. Apparently Germany has not yet achieved fully virtuous politically correctness, in spite of numerous laws that would never pass constitutional muster here in the USA. Hurray for diversity.
Somewhat disappointingly, no professional-quality images were shown as part of the presentation; I suggest to Leica that a key sales point in any presentation is to show what the cameras are capable of, with skillfully-composed professional grade prints, and high-resolution images on-screen. The “wow” factor can help sell cameras, and that opportunity was forfeit, with the Leica representatives apparently counting on the tried and true assertions of superior Leica quality. No doubt this is true of build quality with the M8, but image quality is an open matter.
One question I asked was how the Leica digital cameras compared to the Panasonic equivalent. The response was that Leica insists on a higher level of quality control, modifies the firmware, and “picks the cherries” (or, in Germany, “picks out the raisins”). Quality differences are hard to verify without actually buying several cameras, but precision assembly is critical with digital cameras, so this claim might have merit.
Leica also supplies a longer warranty and a flash card, albeit a small one. The claim was also made that the equivalent Panasonic models do not hold their value nearly as well as the Leica models, a claim supported by a slide showing an ebay auction. Not very persuasive, but probably true.
Below are how the Leica and Panasonic models compare.
| Leica/Panasonic Digital Camera Lineup | |
| Leica | Panasonic |
| C-Lux 1 | Lumix DMC-FX01 and DMC-FX50 |
| D-Lux 3 | Lumix DMC-LX2 |
| V-Lux 1 | Lumix DMC-FZ50 |
| Digilux 3 | Lumix L1 |
| M8 | no equivalent |
It appears that the new $5000 Leica M8 uses glass over the sensor that is quite inadequate to block infrared light—great for infrared shooters, a serious problem for visible-light shooting. I don’t have my own Leica M8 to test, but pictures posted on the Leica Camera forum [thread] show the characteristic problems associated with infrared contamination. I have also confirmed the issue with a friend that owns a Leica M8.
Having experienced serious headaches with the infrared sensitivity of the Nikon D2H, I have canceled my Leica M8 order until I learn more of this issue, because for me it is an absolute show-stopper, completely unacceptable, especially for a $5000 camera.
The Nikon D2H had eerily similar problems, and it is simply mind-boggling that Leica chose sensor glass with weak IR-blocking qualities. The D2H caused enormous headaches to wedding photographers and similar professionals, especially those shooting with flash (which emits a massive amount of infrared). I have more than a few photos taken with the D2H with people’s faces that look like they are sunburned. In other cases, clothing or furniture or upholstery turns purple, like the entire interior of a BMW X5 (sorry, I threw those images out in disgust a few years back).
Only by using a B+W 489 or similar infrared-blocking filter can the influence of infrared be eliminated. While the B+W 489 introduces its own slight cyan cast, it is easily corrected because the entire image is affected uniformly. Try removing 3-6 points of cyan in Photoshop, or adding the same amount of magenta.
With Leica lenses, having to use a filter can be problematic, because Leica uses multiple filter sizes eg 39mm, 46mm, 55mm, 60mm—and too, Leica fans look askance at using filters (and why shouldn’t they, after paying $1500-$3500 for just one lens?!). The B+W 489 isn’t exactly cheap, it’s single-coated only, and often takes 10 weeks or more to obtain (personal experience). Still, if you want one, click on any of the images below to go the B&H site, one of the few vendors that offers them:
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Infrared reflectivity is highly dependent on the subject matter. This means that no color profile or white balance can correct the problem, because different items within the same frame are affected differently! Items that are coal-black in visible light might be extremely bright in infrared. Consider these Halloween wreaths, which are coal-black in visible light (infrared photo taken with an IR-modified camera). They are relatively bright in infrared (the door is bright white in visible light).
When a particular item in an image is highly reflective of infrared, yet very dark in visible light, a sensor whose cover glass doesn’t block infrared adequately will “see” the item as a very bright... something. Color rendition will depend on the sensor, but typically magenta is the resulting color. (In the shot above, the camera has been modified to respond only to infrared, so color rendition is strictly due to infrared light). See Digital Infrared for more on infrared shooting.
The upshot is that under some conditions, faces will look sunburned, black velvet will look magenta, brown fabrics will look purple, etc. And at the same time, other objects will be perfectly normal. Such problems can be extremely difficult to deal with without lots of laborious Photoshop work; the only solution is to block the infrared before the picture is taken.
In short, unless you’re willing to apply filtration on the lens, the Leica M8 appears to be a risky choice for those with varied shooting situations, where the unpredictable infrared characteristics of the subject matter can spell serious problems.
UPDATE: Sean Reid has posted an unofficial response from Leica in the Leica Camera Forum (Nov 8, 2006). [One wonders why Leica can’t post this on their M8 website!]. In short, Leica says they’re aware of the issue, and that’s the way the M8 was designed, and it’s why a “special IR barrier filter” is offered. I doubt that this special filter will be free, or even inexpensive, so add a C-bill or so to the price of each lens you plan to use with the M8. Why should users have to pay to fix an inherent defect? At the least, M8 users should get a rock-bottom price to buy these filters.
As one poster (“clayh”) quipped: “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature—It'll cost you some extra money to turn off the feature, though.”
MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo vs Core Duo
If you’re considering a MacBook Pro for digital photography, it appears that the new Core 2 Duo model is substantially faster with Photoshop and Aperture than the original Core Duo model. Read for yourself at barefeats.com—Shootout: Two MacBook Pros - Core Duo vs Core 2 Duo.
Many times infrared is most attractive in monochrome (usually black and white eg grayscale). But sometimes an image works as a pseudo-duotone. Learn how to achieve effects like this in my upcoming Introduction to Digital Infrared—the followup to my October 25th class—look for it in early December.
Equipment for shift lens stitching*
I’ve had a few queries about what equipment to use for creating a “stitched” image using shift lenses. While time doesn’t allow a full article just now, I thought I’d show what my current setup is for making stitched images. Look for the authoritative guide on making stitched images using a shift lens around the mid-2007 time frame.
In the meantime, if this subject interests you, be sure to check out my 28mm Shift Lenses review, as well as The Sharpest Image and other paid reviews, which help support this site.
Shown below is a reduced-size version of a 26-megapixel infrared image (5967 X 4368 pixels). It was created by taking three frames on the Canon 5D-IR with the Nikon 85mm f/2.8D PC-Micro Nikkor: a center frame, a left frame shifted by 12.4mm, and a right frame shifted by 12.4mm. (12.4mm is the maximum shift the 85mm PC-Micro Nikkor allows). That’s a “virtual” sensor width of 12.4 + 12.4 +24 = 48.8mm, or 2.03X that of a single frame (in landscape mode it would be 1.68X that of a single frame).
The result is easily sharp enough for a 48-inch wide print, as the combination of the Canon EOS 5D-IR and the Nikon 85mm PC-Micro-Nikkor is magical , provided that perfect focus is achieved.
Parallax is the displacement of an object due to a change in the position of the observer. In this case, the “observer” is the lens, which moves left or right (or up or down) when shifted, thus altering the angle from which the subject is seen. This differs from a view camera, which offers the choice of shifting either the rear (sensor/film) or the front (lens). In my about page, I can be seen posing with a view camera. With high-resolution cameras such as the Canon EOS 5D, an 85mm lens poses parallax problems even 300 feet or more away—just try getting power lines to align. The human eye (brain) is amazingly good at detecting discontinuities, so if you want to do precise work, parallax must be dealt with.
To defeat parallax, a countershift must be done. Failing to do so would be a very serious problem with this image due to the many straight lines which must join precisely, a nightmare of post-processing hand-work in Photoshop.
My equipment allows a precise countershift, or movement of the camera/lens assembly by precisely the same distance as the shift, but in the opposite direction. If the lens is shifted 12.4mm to the left, the entire camera/lens assembly should be shifted 12.4mm to the right, thus putting the front of the lens in precisely the same position as prior to the shift. This technique yields parallax-free frames which can then be trivially combined. Equipment that makes it easy and reliable is best, which brings us to today’s topic (click for larger version):
The assembly consists of three Really Right Stuff parts**:
- A PCL-1 panning clamp (A) (mine
is an older version; the newer ones are even better). The PCL-1 is handy for rotational stitching (3) [an
entirely different approach], but for shift-lens stitching any ordinary clamp would do just as well, so long as it
has reference marks. The PCL-1 has a few laser-engraved reference marks, but it would be much better if it were engraved
at 1-millimeter intervals.
- A “CRD-Rail” (B),
clamped into (A). The CRD-Rail rail is laser-engraved, which makes it easy to execute
a precise countershift using the reference mark on the clamp (1). The CRD-Rail also sports
a clamp at one end (2), thus enabling vertical countershifts, something I long
went without, with no small frustration.
However, you’ll have to scratch reference marks into the clamp because it bears no markings, not even a center mark (this is not really right, and I’ve passed along this suggestion to RRS before, apparently to no avail). You’ll also notice that when employed in this capacity, the CRD-Rail has its numbers upside-down. Since an “L” bracket on the camera is at camera-left, the CRD-Rail must be used as shown above, which looks odd, but works just fine. - A B2-FAB (C) back-to-back clamp. Again these clamps could use laser-engraved reference marks.In this particular case, the countershift is executed by sliding the CRD-Rail in the PCL-1 clamp, or the camera in the CRD-Rail clamp, so no reference marks are needed on the B2-FAB.
To summarize the countershift technique—
- Take a center frame.
- Shift the lens to the left, loosen the clamp, countershift the assembly to the right, tighten the clamp, then take a 2nd frame.
- Repeat step 2, but in the opposite direction.
The result is 3 parallax-free frames which can be seamlessly merged, though some blending might still be needed due to minor density differences, or slight subject movement.
Of course, all of this must be done with care, so be sure of a solid tripod setup, and make sure that everything else is locked down; don’t bump the tripod between frames, etc. Focus and exposure must be set manually so as to be identical for all 3 frames. Doing all this right means very little post-processing effort; doing it almost right means a huge hassle merging the frames if any of the subject matter is close (relative to the focal length).
The whole setup can be simplified by eliminating (B) and (C), and shifting the camera with attached L-bracket within (A). However, the lack of laser-engraved marks on the L-bracket, and the limited reference marks on the PCL-1 make this a trickier business to execute reliably, and vertical countershifts are not possible. Please, RRS, get the laser engraving really right on the PCL-1 panning clamp and the other clamps!
* not be be confused with “shit
lens stitching”, a not-uncommon problem.
** Most of their “stuff” is really
right, but some of it could be improved
Photoshop and Aperture performance
Concerned that if you get a new Mac Pro that it won’t run fast enough as compared with a PowerMac G5 Quad? Take a look at barefeats.com for some tests, which suggest that the Mac Pro might be quite a good choice, at least for some users:
Shootout: Aperture 1.5 on Three Macs
Special Report: Photoshop CS2 Runs Faster With Latest
OS X Build (10.4.8)
Hard drives: Maxtor 7V300F0 vs 7V320F0 AMUG review
Looking for fast hard drives, either singly or for RAID? Look no further for the outstanding Maxtor
Maxline III 7V300F0 [buy]
The Maxtor 7V300F0 is the drive I use in my PowerMac Quad (see PowerMac G5 Internal Drive Kits) and external enclosures; I have about 10 of them. More information may also be found in this blog (Jan/Feb and later months). It is my #1 pick for a hard drive when constructing a RAID system.
This fellow has a bad sunburn, and needs some plastic surgery!
Following up more with the Fuji F30-IR (see yesterday’s entry), here are few snapshots taken with it a few hours after receiving it.
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Handy keyboard shortcuts for Mac OS X 10.4
Keyboard shortcuts are always handy, and often hard to remember if used infrequently. Here’s a handy list of useful ones: http://www.danrodney.com/mac/index.html.
“You lose” design—SanDisk card readers
SanDisk’s MultiMate multi-card reader regularly hangs my PowerMac G5 Quad so that it requires rebooting to clear up any programs that might have tried to access the disk (though the OS still is running fine in general). This happens when the card is removed without first unmounting it from the desktop, and if it is physically removed too quickly after unmounting. This was never a problem with my Lexar reader, though it is a FireWire-based unit.
| SanDisk MultiMate | SanDisk MiniMate |
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The SanDisk MiniMate SDHC card reader (which ships with their 4GB SDHC card), is so wide (35mm) that it cannot fit side-by-side in the USB ports on an Apple LCD monitor, forcing me to duck under my desk to plug it into the front of my PowerMac Quad. Nor can it be plugged into the keyboard, because the keyboard cannot supply sufficient power. The MultiMate reader won’t read SDHC cards, so using the MiniMate is mandatory.
Perhaps SanDisk could think a little harder about these issues.
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