Another crazy idea?

I have been looking into methods of making M9Tether more remote. To be able to control it (on the PC) through Wifi. It's for a specific need: those lightning shots.

I want to place the camera and laptop outside, but control the whole setup from inside.

You have no idea what mosquitoes can do (or perhaps you have...) if you don't move around. And these photos take extended periods of time trying to stand still, waiting for the moment... in the meantime I'm being sucked dry by these pesky creatures.

The first thing you think of obviously is the iPod (or a really long USB cable, but that's rather impractical).

But there's two problems with the iPod: I don't like Apple's App Store policy (in fact I don't like Apple at all... they surpassed Microsoft with their control issues). You actually have to pay them to develop for iPod... and you need an Apple computer (perhaps not anymore, but it's kinda handy).

So I thought: how to utilize the iPod without actually writing an application for it?

Now, Apple wrote quite a neat remote for iTunes, so that got me thinking.

What if I supply an M9Tether album, with the tracks having command names? So you'd have in the album for instance 'M9TetherShoot.mp3'. Than if you play it, through the remote, the camera would shoot...

Yes I know, it sounds kinda out there, and rather improvised, but I think it would work... You could actually control the whole camera that way.

I already got M9Tether to play tracks from iTunes, not that practical... now what I need is the reversed. If iTunes plays a track, M9Tether's got to act...

[Edit1: well, this actually works! It's not very sophisticated yet, but whenever I start playing a song in iTunes - also through the remote - the camera snaps a photo...]

[Edit2: It's a little bit more sophisticated now. Whenever I play a track with the name 'M9T_Shoot' it snaps a photo, then it rewinds the track after the camera is done... it's indeed a crazy idea, but it works beyond expectation and it's now possibile to not just shoot, but also adapt the settings, e.g. with a trackname like 'M9T_SetISO400'... I think I might be able to drag this even further into bizarro land, because it should also be possible for the endresult (the photo if it's JPG) to show on the iPod, if I can immediately set the album artwork...]

[Edit3: Well, setting the album artwork actually works, but it's not refreshed properly on the iPod (you have to click around a bit before it shows) and it makes the whole setup unstable, so I'm going to leave that one for now. In the meantime I can shoot remote and set ISO remote. It works like a charm, although through my Wifi router there is some lag. That's gone when I connect the iPod directly to my laptop, the intended setup anyway. Now just a matter of extending the album and this feature is finished...]

M9Tether 1.9 released

Version 1.9 contains some bug fixes and a few new options.


Showing camera temperature

(yes yes, also in Fahrenheit... but not in Delisle, Kelvin, Newton, Rankine, Réaumure or Rømer... sorry for that... and apologies also to any other scientist out there who invented a temperature scale not mentioned here... And might I add: points for effort to Delisle! He's clearly The Man! He seems particularly nutty, swimming against the tide and all that, I like him already... I might add him after all in version 2.0...)


Adds temperature reading from the EXIF data (it's not read directly from the camera but from the photos that are shot).

This only works if JPGs are viewed in the internal viewer of M9Tether, or files are stored on the PC. If both options are turned off, there's no photos passing through to read the EXIF data from.

The temperature field is read from the makernote data. I'm not 100% sure I have all the offsets right. Please shoot me an email if you see unrealistic temperatures pop up and if possible include the photo that caused the wrong reading (only JPGs directly from the camera please, no DNG or JPG later exported from the DNG - contact under 'Contact' on the download page).

In anticipation of new firmware I've locked this function to only operate on firmware 1.138. Any new firmware will first be tested by me and I'll then release a new version to reinstate it. Rather no temperature, than scare you with a possible wrong one - help, my camera is on fire - since new firmware might deal differently with the makernote field.


ImageUniqueID or shutter count

Adds ImageUniqueID reading (the shutter count - or so it's commonly believed) from the EXIF data.

This only works if JPGs are viewed in the internal viewer of M9Tether, or if files are stored on the PC. If both options are turned off, there's no photos passing through to read the EXIF data from.

The ImageUniqueID is presented in the Info window, with a timestamp. It will show you the last number M9Tether encountered.

Be aware that this number is not necessarily the latest one. If you shoot tethered without transferring to the PC and without viewing the JPGs, no photos pass through to read the value from, so you'll be looking at an outdated value. That's why the date/time stamp was added.

If you see '[to be determined]' it means no photos have passed through yet.

In anticipation of new firmware I've locked this function to only operate on firmware 1.138. Any new firmware will first be tested by me and I'll then release a new version to reinstate this option.

OMG My Camera Has Been Used Before I Bought It, It Wasn't As New As I Thought It Was, Have I Been Cheated?!

Don't be shocked if the shutter count differs from the filename count. It's quite normal to have 200 - 300 shots difference. Those are the shots taken at the Leica factory when they test the camera. If the difference is a lot bigger (or mymymyohmy, the shutter count is actually smaller than the file name count!) consider that M9Tether might contain bugs or that your photo numbering got reset (e.g. by switching memory cards or loading new firmware)...


Save option in JPG viewer

Adds option to save the JPG in the viewer. This option seems redundant, since the JPG is stored on the SD card, but a new future option where the RAM disk of the Leica will be used, makes this a useful addition. If you had 'transfer to PC' switched off you still can save the photo this way.

Two buttons ('Save' and 'Save As...') were added to the button row that pops up when you move your mouse towards the bottom of the viewer. The save options are also added to the right click popup menu.

Use 'Save' to save it under the set folder in the main window, with the current file name (it will warn if a file with the same name already exists). If the set folder in the main window doesn't exist, the Save button will be disabled.

Use 'Save As...' for a new location and/or new file name.


Bug fixes

Fixes some memory bugs where PROPVARIANT structures were not initialized. I don't think these bugs were a big problem to the functionality of the program, but nevertheless...

Fixes a crash on the Cancel button in the window that appears when starting up M9Tether with multiple PTP devices connected to the PC. The application would attempt to close a device that hadn't been opened yet.


Download

See http://www.mymymyohmy.com/software/m9tether.html for the details and download.


Version 2.0?

Yes, that one is already in the making and will contain the RAM disk addition, enabling you to shoot tethered with faster transfer times and without SD card. It's working quite well, but I have some details to work out before I can release it.

Lightning over Malaysia III

Photo taken 21st of May 2011, click on it for the bigger one...

Secret II

The 'secret' RAM disk of the Leica M9 proves to be rather useful.

It didn't give me the big speedup I was hoping for though, but the transfer does go faster.

On my PC transferring a JPG (fine / max resolution) takes about 6 seconds before it shows up in the viewer. With the RAM disk enabled it takes about 4 seconds. That's still a respectable 30% speed gain.

Another big advantage: you can shoot tethered without the SD card in the camera. The camera happily takes a shot and stores the photo on the RAM disk, without complaining about a lacking card.

I have to fine tune this a bit. The object on the RAM disk needs to be deleted before the next shot is taken, and I haven't accomplished that yet. Makes testing a bit awkward, because after one shot I need to switch the camera off to empty the RAM disk, else the camera freezes up. Also the DNG + JPG setting doesn't work, because the RAM disk can only hold one object (even when the RAM disk is not filled up fully).

So my first step will now be some functionality to automatically wipe it clean after transfer.

Another headache with this: the filename on the RAM disk is always the same: M9_0001.dng. I haven't checked the EXIF yet to see if the unique numbering simply continues or what the next shot on the SD card is, but when using this I obviously have to implement some solution to give the transferred file a unique name on the PC.

I'm still unclear as to what the RAM disk is exactly or why Leica put it in there. I've been asking around, but so far no answers. There's not many options though. It's either for internal testing at Leica, or for tethered shooting, with the specifics about it perhaps released to some software vendors when they ask for it.

Leica does not mention this in their technical specifications (under 'storage' they only mention the need for a card), so thus far I am inclined to believe I discovered something undocumented.

M9Tether development - secret discovered?

Got some feedback from a M9Tether user in the UK, who likes to photograph in Canada on snowy mountains (I'm a stickler for privacy, so I won't mention his name without his permission).

He seemed quite happy with it, but had some remarks. One of them was the idea to overwrite the aperture field in the EXIF data, since it's a guessed value. The camera doesn't know the F-stop of the lens because there's no electronic connection between lens and camera body. The camera just guesses a bit through a secondary light reader (a small dot near the red label).

I liked the idea.

Set a value in M9Tether and the field is filled in properly, since you know what the F-stop is. Obviously there's a lot of room for error if you change the aperture but not the setting in M9Tether, but hey, then it's your own fault. And I won't touch the DNGs on the SD card. This would only be done on the transferred files, so the original is always there as a backup 'guess'.

So I dove into the EXIF of the DNG and JPGs produced by the M9.

Turns out the setting is in the Makernote field and overwriting it isn't too difficult, but it requires some more research on my part, plus some safety features, like anticipating firmware changes.

If the targeted field starts to shift after new firmware it could seriously corrupt files.

Then I discovered something else: the temperature of the camera is also stored in the Makernote.

And since reading is somewhat easier than writing, I decided to start with that one.


Secret?

Then I got interested again in some mysterious fields I haven't been able to figure out. And low and behold, I think I discovered a Leica secret!

I've successfully enabled the RAM disk in the Leica (yes there is a RAM disk in there, I just don't know what I'm looking at: the buffer or something additional - if you read this and you know what it is, let me know) and I am now able to actually record a DNG on it. It has exactly enough space for one DNG.

So far that RAM always stayed empty, I've looked at it before.

I presume Leica put that RAM disk in there for either testing the M9 internally in their factories, or for tethered shooting. The option to turn on the RAM disk isn't documented (not that I know of anyway), but it's a very pleasant discovery if it does what I think it does.

Haven't tried to get the image out yet - which seems to be mandatory, because a second shot freezes the camera: the ram disk is full.

So at this point I'm not sure if this is going to lead to something. Also have to figure out if the necessary events for picking the DNG from the RAM disk are available, and if that succeeds, if the pick up can be done before the write to the SD card (if that's still going on, also something I have to test). I might then be able to start skipping the SD card reading (that would be a big bonus). If this succeeds it will speed up the transfer quite a bit.

Will keep you updated and I think I will release 1.9 soon with at least the temperature reading...

Annoyance

Discovered something annoying about Lightroom.

When exporting to JPG the saturation of the original isn't the same. The JPG looks slightly under saturated compared to the original in Lightroom.

After some Googling this seems to be a well known problem, with a lot of people pointing to color spaces (sRGB versus ProPhotoRGB) or monitor profiles.

Now, despite the fact that profiles and color spaces surely can have their effect (depending on the program you view the JPG in) I don't think that's the whole story.

I have my doubts, because if it's ProPhotoRGB versus sRGB, why is it that an exported TIFF in ProPhotoRGB (doesn't matter with what settings, 8/16 bit, compressed or non-compressed) with Lightroom, on a monitor without a profile, also looses saturation when viewed in Lightroom?

When I compare the original RAW with the exported TIFF there's a difference, mainly in saturation.

Surely an uncompressed 16 bit TIFF should look exactly the same when exported with the same color space as the original, when viewed in the same program that supposedly uses ProPhotoRGB as working color space? But it doesn't... so what am I missing here?

I must add though that the assumption that Lightroom uses ProPhotoRGB is mainly taken by hear say. It's claimed by a lot of people on the Internet, but I think the first step should be to confirm it myself through some info from Adobe.

Then I'll be doing some more testing, since it seems that there's also a difference between RAW files. My older Canon 40D files seem to be less affected by this problem than my 5DII files. But perhaps it's me not noticing this sooner, because it's not something you would expect. Or perhaps it requires certain tweaks in Lightroom that I only applied to my recent photos.

I also want to have a good look at the DNG files. Perhaps this is more specific to the RAW conversion of Canon files.

I have a vague idea that this problem has 'something' to do with the 'blacks' slider and less with color spaces (or perhaps the mysterious black point moving around, thus a combination of converting color spaces with a cranked up 'blacks' slider), but I'll be testing that a bit more.

Yes dear reader, when it comes to the digital world, almost nothing is simple. These manufacturers don't seem to be able to come up with a lot of definite standards. Try browsing through your PhotoShop's 'color settings' and you'll know what I mean. It's a mess. No sane person would actually want to know how it works, but sometimes you have to... so, reluctantly I'm now diving into the fascinating world of color spaces...

Some suggest you should export as TIFF, then do the main work in PhotoShop, but that adds a tremendous amount of work to the whole work flow and it sort of defeats the purpose of all those handy sliders in Lightroom. If it's really color space, I wonder why Lightroom can't be switched to sRGB.

Here's an example, created in a somewhat unorthodox way: they are shots, snipped directly from the screen. That does seem to preserve the original saturation.




The first is from the original as viewed in the Lightroom Develop module. The second is from an exported 16-bit TIFF in ProPhotoRGB also viewed in the Develop module.

The difference is what I see in Lightroom.

Kinda ironic that I can see my saturated example as JPG, but that I have to copy/paste it directly from my screen. Come on Adobe...

I mean, how is it possible that a simple cheap screen grabber gives me the JPG I expect to see, but the export from a sophisticated piece of software doesn't come close (well, relatively speaking)?

I don't have an explanation.

Obviously, with the JPG export the ProPhotoRGB to sRGB conversion doesn't help, which might explain the stronger effect with the JPG compared to the TIFF, but I first like to figure out why the TIFF looses color too and if I'm missing something here (apart from my saturation!)...

Slideshow

Added somewhat of a slideshow to the main album page. Some of my own personal favorites. They are randomized, which means the order in which they are shown will change every time you refresh the page. You can click on any of them to see the full version.

Turns out there was an error in the photobrowser code, causing Firefox not to show that last thumbnail with 'Info' on it if you viewed an album. That one is fixed.

The 'Info' thumbnail produces a page with some info about the album and a background story if there is one. The info page also shows any related albums.

Also, you might have spotted it already, the first album of Hong Kong is online.

For the album with 13 photos click on the photo and for the story click on the very last thumbnail in the album.

Festival

Although technically some of the photos in the next 'new' album do not meet my self imposed present day standards, I show them anyway, since some of them do reflect the atmosphere of the event quite well. Also the resizing to 'bigger' doesn't help some of them, so not all photos are resized in this album (mostly the portrait ones).

It also contains a few new ones not shown before.

For the album click on the photo and for the story click on the very last thumbnail in the album.

Downside Up

Was playing around with older photos from Zoo Kuala Lumpur.

Was concentrating on this one:

Not great, bad lighting, black creatures lit from above hanging upside down at the wrong time of day with the sun full out. Makes it hard to see any details or their heads and the contrast is harsh. Fill flash might have worked, but I wasn't that advanced back then.

I do have flashes now for the Canon, but I hardly use them.

They're inconvenient, too much hassle, and with a bit of a lens they propel the camera to 2 kilos. Let alone the fact that flash photography is darn complicated. As if taking a good photo isn't difficult enough...

Truth though is that this photo was taken with a Canon EOS 40D, which has the built in flash, I simply didn't realise I should use it during the day...

Anyway, playing around with the photo I thought: what if I turn the picture over, like they were standing?

And I found the result to be quite interesting (note that the crop is a bit different, so this one has more bats):

They transform into these elegant fashion models, wrapped in designer clothing, with the one in the corner about to break into dance (and perhaps song)... little Grace Jones'... you can almost see him tip-toeing around the others on some Tchaikovsky...

They also seem more vulnerable, standing up, and less intimidating... these guys just eat fruit by the way, so they're quite harmless...

Amazing faces also these bats. They somehow reminded me a bit of pictures of Egyptian gods, and after some googling it turns out I was thinking of Anubis, ancient Egyptian god, protector of the deceased and their tombs. The guy with the jackal head...

Still the not so great lighting, that didn't change :-)

Anyway, thought I should share...

Click on any of the photos above for the full new album of Zoo Kuala Lumpur with 21 photos.

Qibao

The next reworked album is not for the squeamish, vegetarians or devout animal lovers.

They better not click on the photo, which in itself looks harmless: the album behind it isn't, especially with the bigger size photos...

Don't say I didn't warn you if you choose to ignore these words (and note that despite my somewhat dry sense of humour, I'm really only partially kidding here)...

It was the next - rather gloomy - day in Shanghai, visiting Qibao... from that same brochure:

Located in the center of Minhang District of Shanghai, only 18 kilometers (11.18 miles) from the downtown area, Qibao Ancient Town can satisfy your curiosity about ancient water townships without the bother of either long distance or the rush of crowds. As the only ancient town forming part of greater Shanghai, with a history spanning over one thousand years, Qibao is more than just a living fossil of ancient Chinese conurbation and urban planning.

The town was built in Northern Song Dynasty (960-1126) and grew into a prosperous business center during Ming (1368-1644) and Qing Dynasties (1644-1911). Qibao is the Chinese for 'seven treasures' and there are two popular theories about its derivation. The more reliable one says that the name originates from the Qibao Temple, famed for its good reputation. It was this that contributed to the growth of business and culture of the previously unknown town. The other theory seems more popular among the local people who tell folk tales about seven treasures. These were an iron Buddha made in Ming Dynasty, a bronze bell also dating from the Ming Dynasty but said to have mysteriously appeared from nowhere, a Gold Script Lotus Sutra written by an imperial concubine of the 10th century, a one-thousand-year-old Chinese catalpa tree, a jade axe, a gold cockerel and a pair of jade chopsticks. Actually of these seven treasures, the existence of only first four can be verified while only the Scripture and the bell have survived to this day.

Click on the photo to see the whole album...

Click here for the total index.

Favorites?

Sometimes people ask me: what are your own personal favorites?

Well, actually nobody has ever asked me that, but let's pretend...

I have a bunch, with some favorite-favorites, so when they ask me that question I always show them at least this one:

Or, depending on my mood, this one:

No just kidding... Charlie is cool, but he's no match...

I meant 'or this one':

If you stare at it a bit you can almost hear the silence... I think it's the still water responsible for that effect... anyway...

The weather was nasty.

It was cold - December, around 5 degrees Celsius - and drizzling almost the whole day. My shoes were soaking, the water was creeping up my trousers and my mood wasn't too great after slouching through the rain with only 4 hours of sleep.

But that all lifted pretty quickly when I saw the scenery.

And there are some advantages to not so great weather: less tourists polluting the nice scenes and the rain and mist do give a different atmosphere you won't find in the brochures.

It's Zhouzhuang, an hour drive from Shanghai, also called 'the Venice of China'... you can see why...

From a Chinese travel brochure:

Zhouzhuang, one of the most famous water townships in China, situated in Kunshan City which is only 30 kilometers (18 miles) southeast of Suzhou. It is noted for its profound cultural background, the well preserved ancient residential houses, the elegant watery views and the strong local colored traditions and customs. In the Spring and Autumn Period (770 - 476 BC), Zhouzhuang was a part of the fief Yaocheng and called Zhenfengli. After being donated to Full Fortune (Quanfu) Temple by Zhou Digong, a very devout Buddhist, in 1086 during the Northern Song Dynasty (960 - 1127), Zhouzhuang got its present name as a memorial of the donor. In an area of half a square kilometer (124 acres), 60 percent of the Zhouzhuang's structures were built during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, which is from 1368 to 1911.

These photos are from one of the reworked Shanghai 2007 albums, click on any of the photos above, to see them all.

Click here for the total index. You'll find all the reworked and new albums under 'New albums' (how convenient...).

V - Leica M9: The Fuzzy Aspect

Please note that posts about the Leica M9 and Leica lenses on this blog are not aimed to be a 'review' in the strictest sense. They should be considered as highly opinionated, biased and therefore not very objective. However, in the technical aspects they do try to be factual. All the posts which have me babbling about the M9 are gathered under the label 'Leica talk'. Click here to see them all...


The fuzzy aspect

The M9 tends to take better pictures in comparison with the Canons I used (350D, 40D, 5DII).

I know, it's the photographer behind the camera who takes the photos, but what I mean is that it seems to go right more often.

Perhaps I should say: with the M9 I tend to take better pictures.

With the M9 I set the aperture, I focus (yes, that was a bit of a learning curve, but I'm getting better at it) and I concentrate on composition. When I snap, the result seems to be more often what I hoped and expected it to be. There's less thinking involved (should I change to spot metering or not? oh wait, the M9 doesn't have that option, never have to think about that again...), which for me seems to work.

Now, if that's me, forced to work harder through the manual settings of the camera, or if it's the camera itself, I'm not sure. Perhaps it's both...

The machine simply forces you in a different direction.

I don't know why exactly, hence the 'fuzzy'.

Perhaps it's the viewfinder, perhaps it's the manual focusing, or perhaps it's the feel and shape of the camera, or its size, or perhaps it's the knowledge how much money you spent (funny, when family found out about the price, they immediately wanted to see my first total crappy M9 photos, somehow expecting miracles... "you payed that much, so they must be good". Shows that people out there still think that good photos are made by the camera, when we all know it's really the photographer) or perhaps it's all of the above.

Also, when it's a crappy picture I cannot blame the machine, or have doubts about auto focus, metering settings, tweaked micro focus or any other menu setting that might have gone wrong.


Options

If you read for instance about the newest auto focus options on the newest Canon models, with their how many focus points, with the ability to be set in a million different combinations, with a number of options per point, or block of points, through numerous menu settings, you wonder if they're not missing the point (no pun intended).

It adds a lot of frustrating variables to the question 'are my settings ok?' if your photo isn't...

Mind you, I'm not bashing Canon or DSLRs.

I took many happy photo with my Canons. They started off this hobby, which I still enjoy very much and I understand there's a market demand for better auto focus, so they will deliver it (or try to), these machines depend on it.

And when browsing through my 5DII photos, with a lot of them I really doubt if I could - on sight - pick which one was the Leica and which one was the Canon (talking 5DII here, the 40D and 350D clearly lag behind the full frames).

The 5DII is extremely capable with a good lens. It's a great camera - the best Canon I have used.

Was handling the 5DII a while back with the macro lens, and it was very noticeable how smooth it all operates electronically compared to the M9. It's fast, quick and responsive. It makes the cameras hard to compare (what I also noticed quickly was how heavy the 5DII is, how confusing the menu and buttons if you haven't used it for a while, and how bulky it is to handle with a bit of a lens mounted).

Overall, I think the lack of options on the M9 is just a logical consequence of the different approach to photography. The idea that it is, and should be, the human factor determining the outcome, and placing that idea central. That the electronics are an almost evil necessity to support digital and should be limited as much as possible.

Then add the fact that the electronics aren't an obstacle (although as stated earlier, they don't seem to represent 'state of the art' and there's definitely room for improvement, mainly in processing speed), the great Leica lenses, the lower weight, and you have a package that should become a success.


Application

Obviously this all also depends on the application of the camera.

I like city trips, shooting street scenes or whatever I come across, and I like to do it especially in the evening (take photos). The M9 is perfect for that.

But if you're into wildlife, action sports, or moon shots, the M9 will be a useless brick.

Depending on what you like to photograph, you might actually want to have both types of cameras around (rangefinder and SLR) or the M9 might simply not be the camera for your style of photography at all.

I don't think the M9 can beat my 5DII with 100mm macro lens mounted. No praying mantis is going to be impressed by a Leica (although they might think it's pretty).


Weight

I'm also very happy about the weight, with which I started these posts.

It was a major reason for me switching to Leica.

Carrying the M9 around the whole day is a breeze compared to the 5DII. I have two lenses now (looking for a 90mm F4 to complete the set - darn, where to find the single lens without paying the additional bundle for the macro stuff I don't need? Why isn't that lens sold just as the single lens?) and the total package is small and weighs around a kilo. It's a joy to travel with, seeing how little space it all occupies.

The 90mm I'm looking for will add another 200 grams and is also pretty small.

Yes, it does limit the options. I will keep my Mark II for macro for instance. The Canon 100mm macro IS is a superb lens (as is the EF-S 60mm macro). And for long range the Leica isn't suitable. Not having my 70-200mm F4 around will make me loose out on some shots (I still love that lens, a lot of my personal favorites were shot with it), but I can live with that. I hope the 90mm will cover at least a bit of that loss.

Knowing I have cut my travel weight by some 5 kilos without loosing on the quality - gaining in some aspects - and this different back to basics approach to photography, definitely makes it worth it.

If it wasn't for the price I might actually add the M7 and try out film (that would be a first, I'm a digital child...), but the M7 is as steeply priced as the M9, so that will have to wait...


After party

I wrote this piece before leaving for Hong Kong and some additional remarks after returning and reviewing the photos I took there.

The 50mm Summilux F1.4 is everything they claim it is. I had my doubts after my quite limited use of shooting it mainly wide open or close to wide open (F1.4 to say F2.0), which is the most difficult range for this lens. It's known to be not too sharp out of the center when shooting it wide open and at the lowest apertures focusing becomes a challenge.

Shooting it with narrower apertures in Hong Kong showed it can easily compete with the very sharp 28mm Elmarit I also own.

Severe pixel peeping did show some chromatic aberrations. On the Summilux it's easily fixed by moving the red/cyan slider under Lens Corrections (talking Lightroom here) somewhere to between 0 and -10. Sometimes it's gone already when turning on defringing on all edges. For the Elmarit it requires -5 on the same slider and +5 for the blue/yellow slider.

Without these corrections it's not noticeable though on regular size, I'm really talking extreme detail here when viewing at 100%.

All in all I'd say that everything they tell you about Leica lenses is true: they are superb. Well, the two I own seem to be anyway...


Less positive about the camera

Battery wears down quite fast. I have two, so no harm done, but with my 5DII I could shoot for two days on one battery. With the M9 I hardly made it through a full day. Flipping through the photos on a coffee break probably isn't the best idea if you need to save power.

The electronics are lagging. It's all too slow. I do hope this will be a different story for the successor of the M9. It's not a big deal for the end result, but when you are used to more responsive equipment it does become slightly irritating.

When using the timer (the innermost position of the power button) the camera fires already (starts the timer) at the first stop of the shutter button. I understand why, but when you're used to waking up a sleeping camera that way, you're in for a surprise if you forget to turn the power knob back.

Wake up time is slow. If the camera sleeps and you want to take a picture quickly, you're too late. After a while in Hong Kong I changed the setting to let the camera go to sleep after 10 minutes, in stead of the 2 minutes it was on. I'm not sure if sleeping is a real power saver - it might, maybe the change to 10 minutes caused the rather quick battery drain - but next time I'll probably turn the option off completely.

I do miss the focus check on the LCD. As mentioned before, it's a step back compared to the 5DII, and although I do seem to develop a sense of 'this is ok and this is probably not' (mainly by not going for the highest zoom - one step before seems to tell it more accurate) a higher resolution LCD would be welcomed by me.

The strap provided by Leica is a shame. There's fine threads coming out of it on the side that blow in my face and mouth when I'm taking a picture. Feels a bit like running through a spider's web. For a camera this price you'd expect a little bit more quality on that not so unimportant accessory (ok, this is me whining, but I had to mention it... I'll be looking for a better strap soon, after shaving the present one...).


The 'one issue'

Red edge, I noticed it too on a few photos shot with the 28mm Elmarit. One was particularly nasty, since it seemed to produce green edge on the other side. That one is also jokingly called 'the Italian flag syndrome'...

I didn't fancy the photos particularly, so it isn't a big deal, but I have to admit that fixing this in post is troublesome. The annoying part of it is that it seems to be very scene specific. On the vast majority of photos I took with the Elmarit, this problem doesn't occur. I does seem to need specific lighting, with lots of highlights and the light striking from a specific direction. Apparently a new firmware is around the corner, and rumours have it that Leica specifically addresses this 'red edge' issue with the new firmware... let's wait and see...

Overall I wouldn't want to go back though, the above list consist of only small irritations, which quickly drop away when I look at the photos, and especially after seeing the many people lugging their big Canons and Nikons around in Hong Kong, some humongous backpacks included.

I couldn't help but snicker a bit (I know, I know, that's petty, but I just couldn't help myself...). That was me, not too long ago, I know how it feels, and the M9 feels a lot better... In fact, my one extra lens in the bag around my neck was so light that at some occasions I thought I had forgotten it somewhere: where's my photo bag! oh, still around my neck... a scary byproduct of these lenses.

Well, this concludes my rambling about my new camera for now... if there's more to tell, I will keep you posted...

Terengganu

Turns out that after my trip to Terengganu, I left out some nice ones, like the one shown here. Not sure why, maybe I was rushing things...

Click on the photo above to see some new material and reworked photos of Terengganu, in total 21 photos...

Also redesigned the album page, have a look here for that one.

Girls on Beach

...true or false...?

April 3rd 2011

Click on photo for the bigger version...