Chromatic-Aberrations ...

is something even the Carl Zeiss lenses seem to suffer from.

CA With Zeiss C-Sonar T* 1.5/50 ZMGood thing that CA doesn't show up after you convert the image to black and white.

Same image, but in black and white

More photos can be found on my SmugMug page.

iPhone 4S versus Leica M9

Today I enjoyed a small walk in (foggy) Heidestein (Zeist) with my M9. During this short break I took a couple of photos with my (new) iPhone 4S and the M9. Standing in the same position with comparable focal lengths (35mm). The (Adobe Photoshop Lightroom screenshot) results are shown below.

Mind you that the M9 delivered RAW DNG files, while the iPhone coughs up JPEG files.

The one thing that really shows is the noise in the iPhone versions of the photos.

On a lighter matter, I also snapped two photos using Instagram on the iPhone 4S. Again, results below.

This app rocks on the iPhone 4S

Leica M9 Firmware Update

In September I reported that there were some issues with the Leica M9(-P) and certain SD memory cards (SanDisk in particular). They released an update for this problem in the beginning of November.

Last week they released another update for the SD card problem. Something to do with the initialization (formating) of some cards. The update (v1.176) for the Leica M9 (and M9-P) can be downloaded from the Leica Service pages.

Bug fixes:

• Fix of a seldom-occurring error when initializing the SD-card.
  With that firmware update, we revoke the constrictions made with respect to the compatible cards. Generally speaking, the Leica M9/M9-P is compatible with any SD card that is in accordance with the respective standards. Unfortunately, it is impossible to test the compatibility of every single card of every single supplier. All cards available from SanDisk have been compatibility-tested and the firmware version 1.1.76 ensures their proper function.

I must mention that I didn't have any problems after the v1.174 firmware update, and I haven't run into problems with this one as well.

Leica Summilux-M 50mm Sharpness

Last week, I headed out for an early morning walk. Playing a bit with my new Leica Summilux-M 50mm Asph, I was amazed by the sharpness of this lens at f/1.4. The following image was taken at the minimum focussing distance (~0.7m);

Frozen Heath @ 50mm f/1.4Viewing a part @ 100% shows a small hair 'caught' by the heath branch;

100% magnificationI must admit that it took 'some' luck to capture this, but it shows the quality of this lens @ f/1.4

Carl Zeiss and Leica 50mm Lens Comparisson

When I got the Leica M9, the Leica Summilux 50mm was nowhere to found. So, at the time, I 'settled' for the Carl Zeiss (CZ) C Sonnar 1.5/50mm ZM lens instead, and entered the world of the Leica waiting-list.

A couple of weeks back I got the call that the latest version of the Summilux was available, and so I bought it. Up till now, I have both the Leica and the CZ 50mm version. The CZ version hasn't been used since (and has been put up for sale this weekend).

Two weeks ago, I decided to put the CZ and Leica lens next to each other in a small (non scientific) comparison. The settings were the following:

• ISO 160
• Auto white balance
• Aperture priority
• All photos taken with a cable release

The following samples first show the entire (smaller) image. You can click the image to see the full size JPEG (clean export from Adobe Lightroom with default settings). After that, there's a 100% (left-top-ccorner) crop and a 100% center crop.

Samples are given for the following apertures: 1.4/1.5, 2, 2.8, and 4 (the ZIP files at the end contain all the files till f/16). The Carl Zeiss lens first, followed by the Leica lens, and so on.....

Click to read more ...