Small update. The M10 has the ability to not include any lens information - apparently if I leave that OFF, the field is left blank.
But, thanks to your curiosity, I found there is a menu where Leica lenses are listed - I can go down that list and select the lens I was using, and the correct information will go into the EXIF data. I just tested it, and it seems to work fine.
(The photo is of a sailboat that broke free from its moorings, and floated up against the shoreline, and is now trying to destroy itself by thrashing against the trees and large rocks. I took the photo, then reported this to the Marine Patrol. Of course I had to capture a photo… If it’s still there tomorrow, I suspect it might be under water.)
@mikemyers While what you say with respect to tearing the output image in half is correct, i.e. each half has the same DOF but that is not true about the process of taking the picture in the first place, where optics come into play.
The “trauma” that I experienced when I changed from taking pictures with my old 1/2.3" sensor cameras (Minolta F100 - 2.3 years, Lumix FZ5 - 5.5 years, FZ38 - 4.3 years - 2003 - 2014 with small sensors) to the LX7 with its 1/1.7" sensor means that there was a change even in that small sensor difference, which then got “worse” when I moved to the 4/3rds (MFT) sensor with the G7 at the end of 2015 and that simply doesn’t square with your statement!
I had become used to being able to take photos of plants in close up without any concern that part of the plants flowers might be out of focus, I had become “spoilt” by the the optics associated with the tiny sensor, size of the sensor matters in so many ways with cameras.
In addition all of those “compact” cameras came with “macro” mode and the Lumix (Panasonic) with tele macro mode, i.e. I could use the zoom of the bridge cameras in particular to “reach” across a flower bed and zoom in on an individual bloom or collection of blooms with little worry that any part of the target would be out of focus (mostly). As the sensor size increases so that ability “vanishes” as does the size of the zoom lenses available, affordable or “carry-able”!
The longest zoom I currently have on my MFT cameras is 12-200 i.e. 16.6x but that lens is a 24-400 equivalent lens because the MFT has a crop-factor of 2 (compared to a full 32mm frame size) and the term equivalent is the key to why the DOF changes with the sensor size change. Arguably the best camera I own for general use is my FZ330, baby sensor, 24 x zoom (not a superzoom by any means) and constant f2.8 across that zoom range with a 12Mp 1/2.3" sensor. Better bridge cameras are available and many have 1" sensors moving closer to the MFT sensor - most if not all with Sony sensors I believe.
Back to equivalence, which is a way of comparing one group of cameras with another and indicates what you can expect when comparing those groups of cameras and those “groups” are defined by their sensor size and the optics that then need to go with that sensor to deliver an image on a plate (now a chunk of silicon with varying degrees of sophistication (or not), absolutely “not” in my earlier bridge cameras.
I moved from camera to camera for a number of reasons but mainly because of the two main types of photography that I take, landscape (but I include cityscape and very limited street photography) and one love of our lives gardens and plants (including some macro work) and the other love of our lives grandchildren. The former normally takes place outdoors, albeit under cloud and in failing light, sometimes, and the latter outdoors, indoors, wherever and with (potentially) fast moving targets!
The old small sensor cameras could not keep up with the grandchildren, the newer cameras are now causing a reaction from them which being photographed by their parents on smartphones does not (albeit it is starting to), hence the purchase of a Pixel 4a (I will wait until the optical zoom smartphones get cheaper before persuading my wife that I need one and by that time the grandchildren will start pulling faces and shying away from even the smartphone!).
In all (or certainly most) of these situations the classic of separation is the reverse of what I personally want and seek, which I can get with the smaller sensor but then lose the dynamic range, “gain” more noise etc. etc. unless that tiny sensor is in a smartphone with all the processing power to execute the algorithms to “rescue” the photo in camera, i.e. computational photography.
The sooner cameras combine that processing power with the bigger sensor and optics available the better but that will probably only result in even more expensive cameras!
PS:- I will eventually finish the post on the original topic of processing “dull” grey skies thanks to the @wolfgang “fix” for your original images I am able to process them in PL5.
Certainly the lens is mentioned and the appropriate module downloaded and that switched on the lens corrections.
The exposure seems to be near enough OK. If you had spot metering, I would have placed the bright water at around +1⅔ stops but I guess that is difficult with the Leica. As it is, I can see you felt it was necessary to pull down the exposure in PL.
I felt the bright water was drawing the eye too much, so I pulled down the highlights slider and used the Spot Weighted Smart Lighting to rebalance the image in favour of the boat, which is the intended subject? (It looks like you forgot to use the Spot Weighted part of Smart Lighting?)
You should try taking macro shots with a 5" x 4" LF camera
IMO, this article is dangerous. It contains a lot of techno-babble, half truths and downright myths. Including the misapprehension…
This fact means that at the same f-stop (relative aperture) and field of view , the M4/3 camera gets 1/4 the light that full-frame does.
Possibly if you measure the illumination over the entire image area but, on a luminance per pixel level, there is absolutely no difference and that assertion is simply confusing to those who do not appreciate the optical science behind it all.
With 56 years of photographic experience and knowledge, I found the article unnecessarily complicated, difficult to follow and inaccurate - heaven help those who are just starting out.
Nyyyaaaarrgggghhh!!! For heavens sake! To quote Syndrome from the Incredibles movie…
and when everyone’s super… no-one will be
And the world will no longer have a need for PhotoLab, or any other means of expressing their own creativity, because the “machine” will do all your thinking for you.
I have always said that I use photography to chronicle a day. I take up to 500 photos at a garden we visit and the process of reviewing them as I import them into my laptop that evening, helps “cement” the memory into my brain. We used to take 2 x 1 week holidays in the U.K. a year to areas with gardens that we could visit (plus other “attractions” e.g. cathedrals, ancient ruins, Elizabethan towns etc. for rainy days) with one or two gardens a day.
My creativity extends to using the images for Christmas and birthday cards where I mix photos from the visits with some from our garden with pictures of the family. For me the beauty is in the subject and the quality of the picture I took of that subject rather than being particularly creative with the photo itself. PL5 is a means to “improving” the photo but not really creating anything with it.
Using Macro gives an insight into the flower itself, the picture of the yellow flower in an earlier post is the picture of a Lamium (dead nettle) which is a low growing spreading plant with fairly inconspicuous flowers, it is grown for it’s variegated leaves and spreading habit rather than it’s flowers.
For me photography is an adjunct of a number of “hobbies”/interests, not especially a hobby in its own right. But I need (sorry want) to get the photography right to support those other interests properly so any tech that can help (as long as it falls within budget) is O.K. by me!
I can always switch the auto-fix off if I so choose, although not so easily on my Pixel 4a which appears to be applying a mild HDR all the time, hence the problem with the “blues” and unfortunately we have a number of blue, hardy geraniums in the garden. In fact the biggest issue I have had over the years is the accurate representation of the colour of the plants I photograph.
My post avatar is actually a picture of the long border at Great Dixter at Northiam and this picture was taken at the same time in 2014 with the LX7
Well, I struggled through it and think I may have found why some people seem to write about “equivalence” and it has nothing of any importance to do with DoF.
It seems that the supposition is that, for larger formats, the claim is made that, because they let in more light, they offer lower noise levels. Which is not the whole reason.
As a “counter argument”, I would refer you to this article, which talks about pixel size and pitch as being much more relevant. Of course, the smaller the sensor, the smaller the pixels and the distance between them. This is the cause of smaller sensors being noisier and has nothing to do with just the size of the sensor alone and certainly nothing at all to do with aperture, DoF, etc.
Apart from that, all the rules of optics, exposure, DoF, etc remain constant, no matter what the sensor size.
My thoughts - everything you write is obviously important, especially to you, and it also deserves a discussion (which I don’t understand well enough to make any comments), but if we’re talking specifically, and ONLY, about depth of field, most are irrelevant. Here’s a link to the Wikipedia definition of depth of field:
From that page:
" For many cameras, depth of field ( DOF ) is the distance between the nearest and the farthest objects that are in acceptably sharp focus in an image. The depth of field can be calculated based on focal length, distance to subject, the acceptable circle of confusion size, and aperture."
I was wrong before, and what I’m reading here matches how @Joanna explained it to me - the relevant factors are:
focal length
distance
circle of confusion size
aperture
Lots of other things are important to capturing a good image, and they deserve their own discussion, and I don’t think I understand what you meant, but they are separate from Depth of Field which is a calculated value.
I will read up on “circle of confusion size”, which I understood long ago, but have mostly forgotten. I think it is normally calculated based on viewing an 8" x 10" image held at hand’s length from a person’s eye - taking into account the viewing distance. This is why a perfectly nice 8x10 photo that looks great when you’re holding it, and looking at it, will likely look horrible when enlarged to a five-foot-wide image viewed while standing in front of it.
Suggestion - each of the issues you described should probably be discussed individually. For example, people’s reaction to a camera is obviously important, but it’s a completely different discussion. I’ll need to read up on your link to “equivalence”, which I never heard of until just now.
I agree - we aren’t talking about the same thing. I have only been discussing depth of field, which is not the same as any trauma you experienced switching between cameras. The ONLY four things I’m talking about (now that I know better, thanks to @Joanna are focal length, distance, circle of confusion, and aperture, which is how depth of field is calculated.
Everything else may also be just as important, and maybe much more important, but for different reasons, and for me to even begin to understand what you mean, you’ll need to provide many more details, since I know nothing about those cameras or how they differ.
Until today, I never knew about “equivalency”, which has now come up twice. I suspect that if I move to a different camera with a different sensor, I can find a focal length that will capture the same field of view, but what I’ve just learned from this video is that I will need to select a different aperture as well, to get the same depth-of-field.
The video clears up something that’s been bouncing around in my head for ages - that moving from one image size to another (as in going from full frame 35mm to a large format camera, or to a much smaller camera, the depth of field is less with the larger camera, and more with the smaller camera - but this video clearly shows that I ALSO need to adjust the aperture to get the same (equivalent) depth of field.
Individually, it all makes sense to me, but I never thought about it enough to come to the obvious conclusion - that when switching from 35mm full frame to a different format (larger or smaller) I also need to adjust the aperture to keep things “the same”.
I guess I knew enough about this to be able to do it, but by using the formula (how much larger/smaller the focal length is, I need to also apply it to aperture.
@Joanna may have been saying this all along, but I never picked up on it.
My example of taking a full frame 35mm image and cutting it in half was misleading, as the smaller image, to capture the full scene, I would have needed a lens with a smaller focal length.
Having just written this, I find myself wondering how things change as soon as I start cropping my images. Need to think about this some more. …and if I crop the original image to half the original size, people examining the image would need to know this in order to evaluate the image. More later, more reading to do…
@Wolfgang - that’s a good bit of advice for one person who happens to have the two cameras you noted, but suppose someone here who only owns one camera wanted to “get everything in” or “creative freedom” as you called it. What would your advice be for them, regardless of what camera they are currently using?
I imagine in the first instance, you would say use a wider angle lens (smaller focal length). I think you would say the same thing in the second instance, to use a longer focal length lens… but from what I just learned from the video @platypus linked to on DPReview, the aperture would probably also need to be changed, based on the type of picture one wanted to capture.
Yikes! I have been very wrong in how I thought about this before. Changing the lens was all I knew, but changing the aperture is something I hadn’t considered. …for me, I currently have only two “tools”, full-frame sensor cameras, and my Fuji X100g which has a reduced frame sensor. Thank you to all of you, for bringing this up.
Having just written this, I find myself wondering how things change as soon as I start cropping my images. Need to think about this some more. …and if I crop the original image to half the original size, people examining the image would need to know this in order to evaluate the image. More later, more reading to do…
Mike,
the important thing is the output and if you got it “right”.
Everything else (camera, focal length, DoF etc) gets inferior interest as long …
… for me, I currently have only two “tools”, full-frame sensor cameras, and my Fuji X100g which has a reduced frame sensor.
Just use your cams (FF, APS-C or the small Canon …) to your advantage and take interesting pics.
@Wolfgang - I have a few thoughts bouncing around in my head, having watched a very long, “live” broadcast last night about the Leica M11, where the two fellows answered questions that they were asked in a simultaneous ‘chat’. I also asked a few questions, two of which they answered.
If you play this video, and fast forward to 1:48:15 you will find them giving a lengthy answer to my question, about using “vintage” lenses on the new Leica M11.
This is a list of my lenses that work on my Leica M rangefinder cameras:
As I was watching this, I can understand what I’ve been reading in the Leica Forums - that the “vintage” lenses are not able to provide the information the newer lenses can when use on a digital M, especially the M11 with a 60 meg sensor, but they provide “artistic” images that many people prefer to the razor-sharp images from the newer lenses. Most of my Leica lenses are between 50 to 60 years old. That has never bothered me before, as when I do things right, I’ve been satisfied with the results.
I’m speechless - I didn’t think I could capture that much detail without buying a LF camera as @Joanna uses so effectively. Between the 15 stops of dynamic range, and this kind of quality, I could almost get tempted to put my name on the waiting list.
Of course, a more realistic plan would be to buy a newer Voigtlander 35mm lens, since 35 and 50 are the two focal lengths I mostly use. The better lens I can even afford buying new: Voigtlander 35mm for M
Having read all this, I was wondering what effect it might have on my photography. I already own the Voigtlander 50mm APO-LANTHAR lens, which people I respect in the Leica forum said was on a level along with the far more expensive Leica version. So, I went out on my balcony this morning, and took a photo, hand-held, with the Voigtlander 50, downloaded it, and inspected the results. I’ll upload the image below, with no editing other than what is done by the Preset. No DeepPRIME, nothing.
I look at the full image on my iMac display, and it looks fine, not spectacular, and no hint as to how much details is there. Then I view it at 100%, and I get a feeling like I did last night, watching David’s NYC image in the presentation.
Summary - after watching the two hour presentation last night, and all the reading I’ve done here, and a lot of time just thinking about this stuff, I think my M10 with the Voigrtlander APO-LANTHAR is plenty good enough for me, more than good enough, and I think my M10 is more than “enough”.
I’m also curious right now, how my Nikon gear would compare. To be a fair comparison I would use my D750, and my “standard” 35mm Nikon lens. I used to do this comparison every few years, and the Leica always came out on top - using my “vintage” lenses. This was long before PL5. I’ll try it again, attempting to get the best possible results.
Geez, I’ve written way too much here. But I need to always remember, the technical stuff isn’t what’s most important - that would be what Wolfgang noted above:
Strangely, I found that article to be very intuitive. No more trying to figure out what was being said, and was it correct - it all fit together perfectly. Before I read this, I would have struggled to explain it, but I already had the concept right.
Now I need to read about “equivalency”, to see if it makes sense to me.
You are right about the “norm” that it is based on.
However, for a 5" x 4" LF camera, the CoC is reckoned to be 100µm, which gives me a minimum aperture before diffraction of f/51! So, I can fairly much choose whatever aperture I want, but the “golden rule” I was taught is 2 stops larger than minimum for a given shutter diaphragm, which is usually f/64.
Which is why I can print up at 30" x 24" and still be able to put my nose up to the print and still see more detail. If I don’t mind having to stand a bit further back, a 5’ x 4’ print looks stunning and can be approached fairly closely.
I once took a shot of some old wooden sheds, about 7ft tall, and whilst de-spotting the neg, I come across a spot on the door frame… except it wasn’t a dust spot, it was a fly and I could see both wings.
As for more conventional full frame digital sensors, as long as you don’t mind being restricted in DoF, with something like a 45Mpx sensor, it is possible to open up to f/5 to get a sharp image that will print at up to 30" x 24".
Basically, just multiply or divide the aperture by the same “crop factor” as you would the focal length to get the equivalent. e.g. a 5" x 4" film has a crop factor of 0.29 compared to a 36mm x 24mm full frame sensor, therefore, the equivalent of f/2.8 on a DSLR is ~f/9 on a 5" x 4" camera. And the equivalent of an 85mm lens on a DSLR is ~300mm on a 5" x 4" camera.
But the taking distance to get the same area in the frame remains the same for both
If you wanted the same field of view, yes. Your Fuji X100 has an APS-C sensor, with a crop factor of 1.5, so any lens on it only needs to be ⅔ the focal length of a lens on a full frame. The apertures will also be the equivalent of ⅔ that of a full frame; so, given that the minimum aperture before diffraction for a full frame DSLR is f/13, you would want to stop at f/8 on the Fuji, for the same size print.
Contrary to urban myth, Leica are not always the sharpest. Here is an article by Ken Rockwell comparing Nikon, Leica and Canon 50mm lenses. It’s not just a case of the glass, it’s also about how many megapixels and what aperture you shoot at. Let’s put it this way, you can get every bit as sharp images with a decent Nikon prime lens at medium aperture than a Leica.
It would all depend on the model and age of Nikon lens that you chose. here’s an extract from Ken Rockwell’s review of the AF-S NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8 G…
Sharpness performance
Warning 1: Image sharpness depends more on you than your lens.
Warning 2: Lens sharpness doesn’t mean much to good photographers.
With those caveats, the Nikon 35mm f/1.8 G is super-sharp, especially on the demanding 36 MP FX D800E. The corners are sharp, even at f/1.8.
There isn’t much separating this lens from optical perfection as far as sharpness is concerned. The biggest limitation optically is the slight yellow-blue color fringing in the last millimeter of the corners.
We have this lens and would totally agree with Ken’s opinion.
Just out of interest, here’s an image taken on the D850 with my 28-300mm at 150mm, f/10…
Going back to “how can I make a sunny day out of a cloudy day”. IMHO, you can’t get a true reproduction of the sunlit version of cloudy Miami. Fudge some of the aspects to maybe look sunny-ish, but, again IMHO, you’re not likely to get anything believable. Sunlight is, at least on a reasonably clear day, a point source of light. Add clouds, and it’s diffuse source. Just is, and that’s the way of the world.
Your choices are to say the heck with and jump back into the pool or plan on shooting a cloudy day in ol’ Miami town. Life hands you lemons, make lemonade. [grin]
Mormon Row in Grand Teton National Park is on the must-see list. Think old weathered buildings just asking to be photographed any way possible. 'Course, anybody near this “ready to shoot” location is also there, armed with anything that will capture photons. The weather had been absolutely “blow your eyes out” fantastic. Until we headed for Mormon Row. The light went away, the idiots were everywhere, and… why am I here? Dis is da pits. And then I found this bit of corral. I knew I’d have to retouch out a couple of “tourons”, and the top of an RV, but I shot the foundation of something.
With a little care and effort, I dragged this out of an otherwise busted day.
I rooted around in FP6 to find something that got me darn close to what I was after. Tweak the clouds, damp down the sunny day on the field in the far background, and… IMHO, not a bad glass of lemonade from an otherwise lemon kind of day.
I have those 60-year old Leica lenses. If you get to watch the video I linked to, in the Q&A, I asked the guys about using “vintage” lenses on an M11. You can listen to their advice. In the Leica forum, a LOT of people like the artistic quality look from those 60-year old lenses. Me too. For better or worse, I bought the Voigtlander 50mm APL-LANTHAR, and now I’m spoiled.
In my own tests, I think I used my Nikon D3. I just looked it up - it has 12.1 megapixels. I was comparing it to my LEICA M8.2 with 10.3 megapixels. At the time, I “wanted” the Nikon to win, but the Leica photos were slightly sharper at 100%. Close enough, that it didn’t matter, and at the time I needed the speed of the D3, not the sharpest images. My lens was the standard “kit lens” that usually was purchased along with the camera.
My tentative plan is to take a photo tomorrow morning, early, with the standard 50mm lens on my D750, and in the computer capture a snapshot of the whole image, and another showing the tower at 100%, and see how it compares with the photo I took this morning.
Today’s project was getting my GPS to work - turns out that just like any GPS, it takes a while until it “locks in”, but it should be a lot faster next time if I’m still near my home.
@Wolfgang Thank you for your comments. I have MFT cameras and I want larger DOF, little or no separation and as much as possible in focus for as much of the time as possible so I arguably have the right cameras.
Well, I checked the video around those times you indicated and the presenters’ summary is the same as with any other high megapixel cam – you need high quality lenses.
But to paraphrase vintage lenses as ‘artistic’ is very kindly.
Your Voigtlaender 50mm APO is sharp, but shows some vignetting and at 100% also some chromatic abberations you have to deal with → manual correction. At first I thought the CAs were in the screenshot only, but the dng file reveals them clearly. – For as you said to do some comparison, the sweet spot for your Nikon 50mm is f5,6 / f8 → Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8G - DxOMark
About a better 35mm lens – when I see and remember your pics and you mostly crop a lot, it really would be better to get a decent (tele)zoom for your D750, which doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg. Then you will see better what you are doing plus you have more wiggle room to play with → https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1349415-REG/nikon_20068_af_p_nikkor_70_300mm_f_4_5_5_6e.html
Just try it and shouldn’t you really like it, sell it again. – That lens is better than the former one you knew, and it fits perfectly. People even suggest to use this budget lens plus adapter with the new mirrorless cams.
BTW, did you never consider to take your Fuji X100 for walking around? There you have a good wideangle alternative – small, lightweight and, what I’ve seen from a few of pics, with a pretty fault tolerant exposure. Getting the interesting shot (and you still can trim it in PL) is way more important than any super duper technic stuff.
