Official Talk Leica thread

A few shots through my Leica branded Panasonic 100-400mm lens...

Airobatic team at Weston Super Mare Air Show G9 P1010456.JPG

Big tractor with digger bucket and powered trailer G9 P1012984.JPG

Chinook big red hands P1012894 .JPG
 
Any good ideas for sensor cleaning....

The one thing that really p***es me off with the Leica M10-P is the amount of dust it attracts constantly and having no in-camera sensor cleaning.

Only had the sensor cleaned in November by the Leica Store in London and it's getting dirty again - I try and be careful with lens changing... in fact if I can get the sensor clean again I'm not changing lenses ever again on it!

I've never cleaned a sensor before so obviously doing one myself concerns me and I've never had a camera that attracts dirt to a sensor so much!

Got a dust spot of some kind pretty much bang in the centre of the sensor that starts to show from f4 so it's really annoying and not much chance of getting to a Leica store to get it sorted anytime soon! :mad:
 
Any good ideas for sensor cleaning....

The one thing that really p***es me off with the Leica M10-P is the amount of dust it attracts constantly and having no in-camera sensor cleaning.

Only had the sensor cleaned in November by the Leica Store in London and it's getting dirty again - I try and be careful with lens changing... in fact if I can get the sensor clean again I'm not changing lenses ever again on it!

I've never cleaned a sensor before so obviously doing one myself concerns me and I've never had a camera that attracts dirt to a sensor so much!

Got a dust spot of some kind pretty much bang in the centre of the sensor that starts to show from f4 so it's really annoying and not much chance of getting to a Leica store to get it sorted anytime soon! :mad:
Same here. Blower doesn't shift it.
I think I'll need to risk it with the sensor cleaning pen of some sort.... Or swap to another camera and use an adapter.. Got dirty very fast... Haven't been back yet to ask about the fringes on the side nor get it cleaned. But Netherlands is on a lock down now, so unlikely in the near future (at least two months).
LR does have the fix, there is an option on there to tick to convert to black and white difference. I found cranking up to 70 or 80 make halo effects. circles are dirty.
There is also an in camera option on the m for dust/dirt, but is sooooooo tricky to take. And I'm not quite sure how to use it. :D
 
erm.. How did you get the shot to look negative to start with ?
Or did you process it to negative, pass to the app to convert o 'film' via negative processing ?

it’s a command line app...

you tell it to process the dng into a ”negative” and you get a tiff that looks a negative (see the sample I posted above) then you edit that tiff the same as if you’d scanned a film negative into your computer. The app dev uses a dedicated app for this (I would imagine that anyone who regularly scans film has one) but there’s a trick you can do in LR etc with the tone curve (drag the darkest point, ie the bottom left hand corner, straight up to the brightest part, then vice versa with the right hand side of the curve) which reverses the negative nature of the file, then edit as normal (but with the caveat that raising the exposure darkens the image, and vice versa, because the file is a negative)
 
There is also an in camera option on the m for dust/dirt, but is sooooooo tricky to take. And I'm not quite sure how to use it. :D

the in camera thing just produces a dust ref photo, i watched the leica store use it on mine, they used a lightbox with the lens pressed up against it. It produces a photo that shows where the dirt is.

mine looked like a kitty litter, they cleaned it for me... (they have a dust free box type tool, and I THINK they said they use a combo of a wet clean and a gel pen)

i‘ve not checked it since.... bit scared too, I’ll wait until I notice stuff in the photos
 
Hi, which one to take?

(Leica M9 - Voigtländer Skopar 4/21 f 8):

L1001163_DxO-v21-tp.jpg



(Leica M9 - Elmarit 2,8/28 v4 f 8):

L1001292_DxO-L28-tp.jpg



The Skopar is half the price of the Elmarit, both used. It is slower, slightly flaring-prone, but more compact. Not a bad choice as an allround lens for city pics, I would say ... ---
 
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Hi, an adapter combo - Manchester/UK (SONY A7R2 - Voigtländer SUPER-WIDE HELIAR 4,5/15 screw mount f 8; 2 adapters: screw-mount -> Leica M, Leica M -> Sony E mount) :


DSC05217-a7r2-v151-c-tp.jpg



DSC05210-a7r2-2-v15-tp.jpg



Crop :

DSC05226-a7r2-3-v15-c-tp.jpg



I started adapting Leica M mount lenses to SONY KB (24x36mm) cameras in 2013, when the A7 was introduced. Results were extremely mixed then (colour shift, pink corners, sensor reflections).

Over the years, when the A7R2 with the Sony lens correction app came, results were somewhat better. But my lens portfolio changed, too. Having a few native Sony lenses,
I adapted Leica M mount lenses rarely, only if I needed a focal length I did not have natively, or for special reasons, such as the ZEISS Sonnar and Distagon.

Unfortunately, there is no adapter lens solution for m mount with equivalent results to Leica Ms. This applies to the L mount cameras, too. Even the Leica SL comes only close ... ---
 
Hi, adapter combo with sensor reflections.

SONY A7 - Leica Elmarit 2,8/28 asph :

DSC05338-L28a-tp.jpg



This does not make the camera or the lens bad. They are simply not made to be used together. In IT this is called an unsupported environment.

So, when adapting, one has to try out what works, and what not, and one must live with the consequences. Or one goes native. Then one can always blame the manufacturer ... ---
 
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Hi, ecniv's beautiful Budapest pics made me look in my files. In 2012 I was on business in Budapest, staying at a hotel on the hill in the historic part.

Budapest by night (Sony NEX5N - ZEISS Biogon 2/35 f 5,6) :


DSC07258-nex5-z35b-8-tp.jpg



DSC07263-nex5-z35b-8-tp.jpg



DSC07275-nex5-z35b-4-tp.jpg



With APS-C SONYs up to and including the NEX-6 I never had any problems when adapting Leica M mount lenses. Which means, one could use the 24x36mm SONYs
in APS-C mode, too. There is a trade-off between loss of resolution and losing the weak parts of the "full" frame ... ---
 
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Hi, playing, while self-isolating ... --- Pushing the sliders of DxO I use for my Leica RAWs (Leica M9 - Summicron 2/50 f 2) :


Max. contrast:

L1001612_DxO-L50-2-maxcontrast.jpg



Max. micro-contrast:

L1001617_DxO-L50c-2-maxmicro.jpg



Max. contrast + micro-contrast :

L1001621_DxO-L50c-2-maxmicroandcontrast.jpg
 
DxO play cont.:

Min. micro-contrast:

L1001624_DxO-L50c-2-minmicro.jpg



I find this quite interesting. This reminds me of SDF (software-defined functionality) in IT by which a server can operate like a disk storage system.

How far can SDF go in lenses? If it were possible, all manufacturers would take this route. But lenses are still complex and get even bigger and heavier.

So, there are limits to this approach. - I thought about reducing micro-contrast for lenses showing onion-rings. Something for a rainy day ... ---

But I am afraid, there are always limitations when trying to optimize inferior products.

This is nothing new, however. Artisans in the past knew this, saying You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear ... ( :LOL: )
 
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Hi, sunset, seen from my window ... (Leica M9 - Elmarit-M 2,8/90 ser#3824307 f 5,6, crops ) :


L1021622_DxO-L902-56-c-tp.jpg



L1021631_DxO-L902-56-c-tp.jpg



L1021644_DxO-L902-56-c-tp.jpg



Problem with Kodak 32GB SD card: After taking these pics, I wanted to scroll back from pic#540. At #525 the display froze, showing the pic, no reaction when pressing
any button. Taking out and reinserting the card allowed backwards scrolling to #525, or forward scrolling to #525, to the freeze.

I took out the card, inserted it into my ThinkPad, could see all pics in including #525, transferred all to my hard disk, and erased the "problem pic #525" on the SD card
using Windows 10 Explorer.

After inserting the card into my M9, backward and forward scrolling worked.

So, this was an easy solution to what looked like an SD card and/or camera problem.

This was the problem pic #525. - Maybe my dear Leica did not like it and wanted to let me know ... --- ( :LOL: ) :



L1021628_DxO-L902-28-c-tp.jpg
 
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I noticed that the rangefinder on the m240 didn't seem particularly well calibrated...

I noticed on the 90...

I thought it was user error, but it quickly became apparent that it was most likely a combination of both user error and RF calibration

I must have taken 500 test pics in the past 4 days!!

I think I've finally got it right (or a at least right enough so that user error could make the difference either way)


Capture.JPG

This is the 2.5 (really 2.4?) 90mm Summarit wide open and my attempt to focus on the lamp post some meters or so from my balcony. The picture on the right is after calibration!

Today I tried on my daughter with the 50mm summilux wide open (1.4)


Capture.2JPG.JPG

I think my work here is done :)

These are screen grabs btw, so they'll look softer than irl.

In other news... I discovered that when left to its own devices my 240 exposes slightly differently between live view mode and RF mode (even if you select classic centre weighted metering when using live view to account for the default metering being multi field when in live view)
 
Hi, @Adzman808 I checked the calibration on my Leica M9 - Elmarit-M 2,8/90 combo. Fortunately, no problem!

When checking the pics, the KODAK 32 GB SD-card stuck again, not allowing scrolling backwards. This is my second defective KODAK 32 GB SD-card.

So, I put in a Toshiba card. - I liked the KODAK cards partly for sentimental reasons, making me think of my film days using Ektachrome etc. ...
I still have a few, But when using them, I shall always take a spare with me from now on ...

Summarit 2,4 or 2,5 ? - 2,4 is mainly a marketing figure, to simulate product innovation... - In reality, the difference lies within product sample variation... ---
 
It wasn’t too bad, just a little scary..

seems that I only had to adjust the eccentric roller, adjusting the arm seems a lot more involved

the hardest part was finding something that’s truly infinity... people advise the moon, I can tell you that with middle aged eyes and through a viewfinder that’s less magnification than the human eye, the moon just looks like a glowing thing that’s a very long way away and ascertaining whether it’s perfectly aligned in the VF at infinity is a little subjective as it doesn’t have a hard edge..

it also is a big help that the 240 has live view and the file preview on the lcd is just about good enough to indicate focus

ultimately, i’m filing this as i do sensor dust, if i’m not noticing it irl photo taking then there’s no problem (maybe my m9 is out... but it seems to work ok, the 240 I noticed a problem)
 
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