@peterv
active 4 years, 7 months agoForum Replies Created
Very nice example, Jack. Thanks for sharing!
Maybe you could post a 100% crop to show what the spots look like for future reference?
I've never heard about this on an S sensor before, but knowing the M9 sensor is from the same period and manufacturer, maybe this could be expected. Anyway, I hope you'll get your camera back ASAP!
Interesting take on the video features of the new S:
Leica S cinema rig pictures:
Thanks David, I’ve waited a few days before responding, because I was hoping that others might chime in, but somehow there doesn’t seem to be much interest in this topic. In any case, it’s still early days and a lot might happen between now and second quarter 2015.
I like your matching argument and that can be an important consideration, though we’ll have to wait and see how this can be accomplished. Video post-production will probably be done in different software that will render contrast and color different than Lightroom. Lr 5 can take some video and maybe that will work with the new S files, but Lr is not serious video editing software, of course.
4:2:2 doesn’t necessarily mean good IQ, it sure helps but there are so many factors to reckon with. Bitrate of 50 Mb/s as you mentioned isn’t a specification that tells a whole lot about IQ; an older, inefficient codec may need a high bitrate, but a newer codec may be less lossy at a lower bitrate. In fact, there are so many choices to be made, each with their own trade offs; 8 bit, 10 bit, color space, frame rate, codec, etc, etc.
I think the fact that Leica chose motion jpeg could be quite telling. It is less processing power-hungry and has less memory requirements. The already on board processor/jpeg engine can do the job quite easily, I guess. AFAIK motion jpeg is mostly a consumer codec aimed at web use. Looking at the new video section over at the S-League website, this is probably what Leica has in mind for S video, which is fine, of course. But the indy crowd and more serious filmmakers will be probably look elsewhere.
http://s-league.net/ceemes/en/videos.html
Of course, some will be attracted to the large sensor-look, though that is only in 1080, and I don’t doubt that some will make very nice imagery with the S, but they will find out very soon that focus pulling while shooting documentary or fiction with such a large sensor, is almost impossible to do without professional aid.
One last thought: on paper, the video specs of the new S are not particularly promising or anything special, compared to other DSLR’s and/or MILC’s. Dedicated $5.000 video cameras will most likely outperform the S video, let alone serious digital cinema cameras. But knowing Leica, paper specs aren’t going to tell the whole story. In photography they’ve always shown that image quality is king and I would not at all be surprised if the video from the new S will somehow look quite good. In any case, I look forward to seeing what the new S can do and I will surely consider upgrading from my S2. I hope others will contribute to this thread and we can all learn from each other.
Great question, Giorgio. I use Lr for my processing and during import I apply my personal S2 preset with the following:
White balance As Shot
Clarity +7
Vibrance +4
Everything else at zeroSharpening: 40, 1,0, 30, 10 and Noise Reduction: 7, 50, 0, 25, 50, 50
I have Enable Profile Corrections checked, and that's it. These settings are just a starting point, of course. That's why they are quite conservative. But than again, I don't find the S2 files to need lots of PP, as they already look quite good right out of the box, so to speak. Furthermore, after setting the WB, I always apply Auto Corrections, just to see what Adobe thinks the photo should look like. Most often this makes the photo look over exposed to my eyes. So than I set Exposure back to zero again. From there I play with the sliders until I'm happy.
There's not much choice in PP software for the S System, but since Leica and Adobe work closely together, Lr/ACR is probably the best option anyway. Though as it happens, just this week I filed a request for camera support over at DXO Optics Pro. I'd really like to see what that software could do with the S DNG's. And than of course there's Iridient an RPP which are interesting to try.
Hope this helps!
Peter
I cross-posted this on a few Leica S related forums hoping to read how other Leica S users now feel about the new camera.
Now that Photokina-storm is behind us and we’ve all had a little more time to let everything sink in, here are some of my thoughts and questions (to Leica) on the new S. The more I think about it, the more I like the new camera, but I have some questions/suggestions. The final version is still at least 6 months away, so I guess there’s enough time for the design team to sit down and evaluate some of the feedback from potential customers.
This write up by David Farkas is quite interesting:
Photokina 2014: Day 2 – Everything you need to know about the Leica S (Typ 007)
The pictures on this website (in Dutch) made me think about the video implementation as it was presented at PK’14.
Leica introduceert Leica S-E en Leica S met 4K video #photokina2014.
Video/motion:
– Why not CinemaDNG instead of Motion JPEG? This should give considerably more headroom in post. Of course there’s a lot of data to be chewed on, but Motion JPEG seems too limited.
– Why not HDMI 1.4(a) out for external 4K recording? HDMI v1.3 cannot carry 4K signals and will be quite out of date in 2015 and beyond. Lots of consumer electronics come with the new HDMI standard already.
– 4K recording from the whole sensor would make the camera much more interesting, even if this means pixel binning/line skipping. The look from the complete 30x45mm sensor would make it quite unique and wide angle lenses would stay wide angle.
– Looking at the picture of the video camera rig I can’t understand why they’d have designed it like this; looking through the optical viewfinder makes no sense since the mirror has to be up for video-shooting. Why not make the flash-shoe take an EVF so that is an option for more ergonomically handling in video-mode?
– As for sound, I don’t think the use of 3.5 mm jack connections is going to be enough for professional sound. Balanced XLR is what will be necessary if sound is recorded directly on the camera.
– I think Leica still has a lot of work to do concerning video in the new S. I suggest they take a long, hard look at the video specs of for example the €1500 Samsung NX1. Again, to really be of interest to the motion/video crowd in 2015-2019 (2-4 years for the next completely new S to arrive) the video specs need to be much better implemented and certainly be more modern than the newly announced S.
I’ll leave it at that for now, with one more minor remark about the hyperfocal distance read-out on the top-display, I think the order should be reversed so that it reads back/focus/front instead of front/focus/back. To me, this seems much more logical from the POV of the camera operator. Maybe Leica can make the order of appearance a menu option.
Sorry to hear this …
Couldn't you try to install the firmware update once again?
Thanks David K, I got my lens back, did my tests and everything (AF and exposure) works fine now. Fingers crossed it will not show any more defects, ever. Especially not after the warranty will expire …
Hi William, this is ‘interesting'. I really couldn't tell why my 120 mm underexposed so much when it came back the first time. I'm sure I would have noticed such behaviour before I sent it in. I've gone over my photos from this spring when I just got the lens and back then, exposure was fine.
Yesterday, I came across this post:http://www.getdpi.com/forum/599067-post11.html
These things really make you wonder …
Hi David, thanks for asking. After it had been to Wetzlar for about 4 weeks I got my lens back, only to find that the AF was working all right, but now all my images with the 120 mm were underexposed by 1 to 1,5 stops. I made a comparison test with my 70 mm and with that lens the exposure was fine. Somehow the camera chose a shutter speed 1 to 1,5 stops faster with the 120 mm, so I had to send it back to the factory once again.
I mailed customer service and the S product manager and explained the problem, with sample images and all. After about 2 weeks I got a telephone call they could not find anything wrong with the lens … When I asked how they explained the under exposure they had no idea what I was talking about …
So I sent the comparison test again, with more examples. One week later I got another call that they found the under exposure problem and re-installed the lens firmware, which solved the problem. Or so they say.
I'm supposed to get my lens back – again – next week. Needless to say that I'm going to have to do another boring and time-consuming test when it finally arrives. Keeping my fingers crossed everything finally works as advertised.
I can't say I'm happy about this lens going up and down through the mail now twice. And I certainly don't like having payed € 6.400 ,- for a lens that has been away now for almost half the time since I bought it in late march this year. Especially during the summer months where I had planned to do most of my shooting with it.
http://s-league.net/ceemes/en/news/firmware-updates-fuer-s-system-758.html
Sounds like the goodies will only be there for the S. I wonder why? Is the processor in the S2 slower, perhaps?
Today, somehow everything works fine again, thanks!
Impressive test results, Rob! I would not have expected the difference between these two lenses to be that obvious.
Hi everyone, I think it's a really good that David started this thread about video in the new S.
First, there is a lot of technical aspects to video/motion and some may benefit from watching this video here:
http://nofilmschool.com/2014/09/everything-you-need-know-about-codecs
It's 40 minutes, but quiet helpful to anyone who is new to this.
As for the new S video specs, I'm not at all impressed. Some will say, wait and see, numbers don't tell the whole story, the IQ will be good. Perhaps they will be right but I don't keep my hopes up high.
I'm afraid with these specs the S will not be competitive as far as video is concerned. Not today, and certainly not in 2015-2018, because that is when the camera is going to be bought and used and by then there will be much, much cheaper video options with much better specs and most likely better IQ. With the gap already today so wide looking at the Samsung NX1, which was also announced at PK '14 and which is less than 10% of the price of the new S, it's going to be difficult to decide for the new S if video is important to your shooting.
I would have loved to see HDMI v1.4 to carry 4K as well, but it was not possible when the MAESTRO II chip was designed for the camera.
Than Leica should perhaps go back to the drawing board because this camera is in the coming years going to need the most powerful processor it can get.
