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DAY 4

October 11th 2009 - Day 4 - 10:22 - It appears that a person or two on an online forum is a bit confused about a few things I said about the M9 sharpness. When I first got the M9 I found it to be less sharp than the M8  I had previously. After testing I realized it was my two lenses that were causing the sharpness issue. The 35 Lux focus shift seemed a bit worse on the M9 and my 90 cron was off at F2 and up close. On the M8 is was fine. My 50 Lux pre-asph is AMAZINGLY sharp on the M9 as is the 35 Summicron and 75 Summarit.

It was NOT an M9 problem, it was a lens problem. With that said, even with the shift, the 35 Lux gives sharp results on the M9, even at 1.4. Just not as sharp as it was on my M8. Does it matter? NO, because its still sharp as hell, and it is the focus shift that is well documented with that lens that causes any decrease in the sharpness. Some 35 Lux’s are optimized for 1.4, some for F2 but between 2.8 and F4 its lousy due to the shift. Again, its the lens, not the M9.

So to be 100% clear, to date I have had NO REAL ISSUES with the M9 and it is just as capable of producing sharp files as the M8. The one freeze up I had was due to me trying to zoom in on an image WHILE the camera was writing that image to the card. It froze and was fine after the battery was removed and re-inserted. A simple firmware fix.

I thought I cleared this up two days ago but I guess some people missed it. Also, I added a new full size download to page 9 of my review. Click on the cat pic to see a full 18MP file shot at 1.4 with the 50 Pre-ASPH. Plenty sharp and with a lens that is known for being soft wide open. I am loving the M9. Amazing camera.

October 11th 2009 - Day 4 - 9:00pm - OK, some real world super low light/high ISO stuff here...Had a family dinner to go to tonight and I brought the M9. Did not think I would use it as it was dark outside and in the house it was very dim with only a couple of table lamps for light. I cranked the M9 to 2500 and hoped for the best. I could NEVER do this with the M8 and get good results. So ISO 2500, indoor low light at night, no flash. Not bad! Still, the M9 will not be competing with the Canon 5DII or Nikon D700 for high ISO. I can say though that the M9 does in fact keep detail and color at these higher ISO’s. Something the M8 did not do so well.

This one was ISO 2500, 35 Lux 1.4

ISO 2500, 35 Lux 1.4 - Light source was the table lamp and thats it!

So all of you M8 owners, this is what you can expect at ISO 2500 indoors with very low light. Now, getting accurate color at these ISO’s with this lighting is another thing. Hoping for a good M9 profile to come out for ACR or Lightroom.

October 11th 2009 - Day 4 -  8:30am - So far so good. No real issues with the M9 besides the freeze up I had when trying to zoom in on an image (on the LCD) while the camera was still writing. Took the battery out and back in and all was fine. Maybe a firmware fix?

I had an e-mail this morning asking me if there is anything on the M9 I would improve. Well in a perfect world we would have had this for the M9:

34 MP 100% noise free sensor with new HD pixel technology. Usable ISO to 124,600.

6” Widescreen HD touch screen Display that can also tune in HD programming, with Sapphire glass of course.

Full weather sealing including full rubber covering over entire camera with a special camouflage paint version.

New shutter technology allowing you to use mind control to fire it. Oh and its silent too. Headset included.

Triple battery hand grip for those times you want to shoot all week on one charge.

Built in compass, clock and calender so you can keep track of your shoots.

Quadruple memory card slots - SD, CF, XD and of course the Memory Stick.

No more silly baseplate. Batteries and SD cards go in the side like a normal camera.

Special robotic arm that can focus the manual lens for you when you do not feel like MF.

New range of Leica BAZ lenses (Big Ass Zoom) for the M. Finally, Leica quality in a zoom, robotic arm compatible.

There you have it. What the M9 should have been! Just kidding of course. My only niggle with the M9 SO FAR is that they did not put the Sapphire glass on the LCD. That is it. I feel it would of been “complete” with that feature. Instead, I bet they will be offering it as an upgrade which IMO is silly, but what do I know. More updates later...

October 11th 2009 - Day 4, pic for today - M9, 50 Lux pre-asph, F1.4. Some post processing such as vignette, contrast and desaturate were done to this image. As I walked the cemetery I saw this small gravestone with an angel looking over it. Processed the raw in C1, filters in NIK Color Efex Pro, added vignette & selective sharpening on the Angel only.

DAY 3

October 10th 2009, Day 3, Post 2 - Ok, yep...jut forget what I said yesterday about sharpness. The M9 has it in spades and this will be my definitive proof. M9 on a tripod, 50 Lux set at F8, shot with self timer. I shot this in RAW, JPEG fine, and then at F8 with the Panasonic GF1 in JPEG. Here is the image and the crops.

LEICA M9 - VIEW THE OUT OF CAM ORIGINAL JPEG OR C1 PROCESSED RAW OR THE

PANASONIC GF1 FULL SIZE JPEG - THE C1 RAW IS PRETTY AMAZING FOR DETAIL.

Here are the crops in case you do not have a fast connection to download the full size versions. What surprised me is that it appears the M9 JPEGS have improved over the M8 but still no match for a RAW processed in C1.

So there you have it. The M9 not only gives us FF, better high ISO, better color, but also amazing sharpness. You can see the RAW has more detail than the JPEG in the M9 versions. The Panasonic GF1 has less resolution and you can see this clearly. More to come tomorrow!

October 10th 2009, Day 3 , Post 1 - I The more I use the M9 the more I learn. This is true with anything, but I noticed this morning that the reason I may not be getting results with the M9 that are as sharp as the M8 is due to the lenses I am shooting with. I noticed that the focus shift of my 35 Lux seems a bit more extreme on the M9 and my 90 cron which was PERFECT on the M8 is a little off on this M9. Why this is I have no idea as they were dead on with my M8.

To see if this was a factor in getting maximum sharpness from my M9 I set my 35 to F8. This way, if the lenses are a bit off on the M9, setting it to a smaller aperture will compensate for any focus shift or slight mis-focus issues. This morning I took a shot from my back door at F8 on my 35 Lux, which is its sharpest aperture with this lens on my M9.

Now THIS is how I remember the M8 sharpness, so the sensor in the M9 is perfectly capable of the same sharpness. In yesterdays post I mentioned it was not as sharp but I was wrong as my 90 cron is a bit off at F2 on this M9 so the image from yesterday was not 100% in focus.

I have a 35 cron and 75 summarit on the way to confirm. Why the 35 cron and 75 summarit? These two lenses are sharp and flawless at all apertures. Two of the sharpest Leica lenses I have ever shot with and there are no focus shift issues with them at all. They should be here Monday so I will test those on the M9 at that time.

Anyway, here is the shot from my back door this morning at F8 with the 35 Summilux. Click it to get the larger version and look how sharp that 100% crop is. This just KILLS the Canon 5DII and a 35L IMO. Also, this is straight from camera color. On overcast days the color is sublime with the M9.

So it appears my findings yesterday were due to either focus shift or mis-focus at F2. More to come...

DAY 2

October 9th 2009, Day 2, pic of the day - Went to my Mothers house today to visit and she had a terrible headache. I snapped this off with the 50 Lux pre-asph at 1.4 and ISO 1600. This is a crop as well. Look at how terrific it is at ISO 1600. The tone, color and depth is there. Click image for larger version.

October 9th 2009 - Day 2, post 2 - OK, this was easier than I thought. I found an M8 file that I shot with my 90 Summicron at F2 during my review of that lens a few months ago (see review here). This was one of those shots that made my jaw drop with the sharpness/detail. Click on the image to see a larger view and the 100% crop in the image.

Now here is one i just shot with the 90 cron on my M9 at F2. As you can see in the crop it dos not have that crazy crisp, bitingly sharp look of the M8, BUT it is still plenty sharp. Also, just look at the image in general. It’s a shit test image but the look, color and feel is great. I love the M9 :) (Update, see post above - the detail and sharpness is still there but my testing here was flawed)

I used the same exact lens, shot both at F2 and I can see here that the M8 produces files with more bite. BUT, with that said, I am starting to really love the look of that M9 sensor. Gorgeous.

October 9th 2009 - Day 2, post 1 - It’s raining again today but I will be going out to shoot anyway. Also, I wanted to talk a little bit about the differences I am seeing between the M9 and the M8 in regards to image/file quality. I sort of hinted at it in my review but did not really have the camera long enough to really test this out.

The sensor in the M8 and M9 is pretty much the same except that one is full frame (the M9) and one is a 1.3 crop (The M8). When I am doing what I SHOULD NOT BE DOING, which is pixel peeping, I am finding that the M9 files are not as sharp as the M8 files, WHEN viewed at 100% on my computer display.

Let me say up front that I am not big into pixel peeping as in reality it has nothing to do with a photograph. Since it is something I noticed with the M9 files over the M8 I felt I should mention it. Am I saying the M8 produces better quality files? NO! The M9 may not be as sharp but it is still PLENTY sharp and kicks the panties off of Canon and Nikon FF cams IMO.

With the M8 you have hyper detail and sharpness, even at 100% viewing. With the M9 you still get sharp files which are plenty sharp, but you will not see that same bite you see in the M8 files. If you shoot or have shot an M8 and processed its files with a RAW converter you will know what I am talking about. The M8 produces some of the most detailed images I have seen out of ANY digital camera.

BUT as I have said, the M9 being a little less sharp than the M8 is not a bad thing. The M9 still provides sharp files and also gives you a smooth, rich, deep file with improved color and dynamic range. I have noticed some people in the forums saying they see a difference between the M8 and M9 images and could not figure why.

I feel it is due to the M9 files being a little smoother, a little less sharp and the color being a little different than the M8. I feel the quality of the M9 sensor is just superb and it balances IQ, Color, High ISO and Dynamic Range very well. The M8 has some crazy intense sharpness (not by very much), but I feel everything else goes to the M9. Some may even like the fact that the M9 files are not quite as sharp. Others may feel the opposite.

I hope to have some new full size samples up later today. Oh and BTW, my M9 froze up twice today while reviewing images on the LCD. The camera was writing images and at the same time I was trying to zoom in and review them. The camera froze up and I had to remove the battery to get it going again. To me, nothing major and I am sure future firmware will fix this issue. If anyone else has had this happen, feel free to comment below.

So check back later for some full size samples from the M9. I’m going out to brave the weather with my camera and hopefully it survives :)

DAY 1

Day 1 of M9 ownership - October 8th 2009 - As of October 7th 2009 I have taken delivery of my very own Leica M9 camera thanks to my fave Leica dealer, Mr. Ken Hansen. On this page I will write about my ongoing experience with the camera as well as show more sample images. For the M9 review on this site I only had the camera for 3 days before I had to ship it back to Leica. Now that I have my own M9 to shoot with every day I can write more about my experiences with the camera. I will have a new page for every month for the next few months or so.

This will be my ongoing “diary” on the camera as I use it, so if I find any flaws, quirks, or anything I can write about it here. I may update this page daily, or sometimes weekly. It all depends on how much I shoot and what I find to write about. Some days will just feature images from that day and other days will have tests or comparisons to other cameras I check out. COme back daily for something new on the Leica M9!

Just so happens that weather sucks and the wife is sick in bed all day. I am stuck indoors so I decided to crank up the ISO a bit. Yep, I just HAD To shoot something today, and this is about all I shot. Really, it is raining like MAD and has been ALL day and we all know the M9 does not have weather sealing :)

In the below image of my sick wife (and man oh man would she kick my ass if she knew I posted this)  it may appear that there was plenty of light coming in the room here but it was actually pretty dim. It was a little underexposed so I brought it up in the RAW conversion. This actually added noise to the image.

With the M9, just like the M8, if you shoot high ISO you can minimize the noise by slightly OVEREXPOSING. Then, when you convert the RAW you bring down the exposure in your raw software. This will bring down the noise as well. In the image below, I did the opposite so even though it is ISO 1000, it shows more noise than it should because the image was under-exposed and brought back up.

Yes, my wife just woke up and called me in to the room to bring her a thermometer. I brought the M9 as well, and as you can see, she did not look happy about it. For this one, you can NOT click for a larger version :)

I also had to torture my son again with a test shot using the 35 Lux wide open. It seems my 35 Lux focus shift is a bit more pronounced on the M9. You can not see that here, but when viewing at 100% I am noticing my 35 at 1.4 is not as sharp as it was on the M8. Still, as long as I keep my print sizes under 20X30 I should be OK with this lens at 1.4. Ha ha...

Tomorrow I should have some new full size samples to download. Many of you may have noticed that the m9 images look a little different than the M8 images. Yes, there is a difference and tomorrow I will talk about those differences.

M9 MYTH OF THE DAY: I have been seeing quite a few people saying they are finding the M9 easier to focus than the M8. I am not finding this AT ALL! It is exactly the same. The RF patch is the same, the contrast is the same, and it is the same clarity. Not sure how the M9 could be easier to focus when it uses the same focusing method as the M8. I never had any issues focusing the M8 and the M9 is the same. So, is that a bunch of BS? I can’t say for sure as I am not technical guru but I do not notice any difference focusing the M9 compared to the M8. If anyone has a reason why the M9 would focus easier feel free to comment below!