Leica A little Pixii Dust sprinkled on the Leica Forum

[Brian]

The "forum formerly known as the Leica forum" is now the "Leica and Leica M, LTM, L, and R" forum.

The intent is to give a place where threads for any Leica camera lens AND any Camera and Lens using M-Mount, LTM, L, and R mount can be posted.

OR- "We sprinkled a little Pixii Dust" into the forum, and acknowledge all of the other Manufacturers that make Cameras and Lenses in Leica mount.
Voigtlander Bessa, Canon Rangefinders, Nicca/Tower, Leotax, Minolta M-Mount and LTM mount, Fed, Zorki, Yashica, and so many that I do not even own all of them.

I hope those using these cameras new and old like the change.

 

[agentlossing]

Hah! Take that Leica snobs

Just kidding. I'll probably talk about my Bessa over there some.

 

[MountainMan79]

Hey all you Panasonic S1 users! Over here!

 

[boojum]

The good news is that the Pixii has moved in. The bad news is that I do not yet understand it. It works, it takes photos, the color in pics I can compare to past pics is good, solid, saturated and not glaring or sharp. I have so far used the 28 and 35mm Canons and the 2" Amotal. Sunshine has been in California so I have little to show. And I took some today after I had unwittingly selected GPR as a format. It is a compressed format like JPEG but from GoPro. I am sticking with DNG. GPR takes a lot of time to process. The Pixii compression routines must be written in some high-level code instead of the down and dirty Assembler which is ugly, scary, obscure and efficient as all get-out. Brian knows that some cute stuff can be done in Assembler. But you are walking by the third rail with it so be careful.

Anyway, tomorrow is open so I will drive over to Oysterville and shoot some interior shots of the Oysterville church. I have done some with an M9/J8 setup and am curious what the PIxii/Amotal or Canon 28 and 35 will do. My little hybrid car is doing just over 60MPG so the drive will be cheap. Overcast will make for soft shadows inside the church.

 

[Herman]

Morning @boojum , congrats, your pixii has arrived, at last. Is it weatherproof, what is size and weight?
Feels it like the M9?
Best, Herman

 

[boojum]

Morning @boojum , congrats, your pixii has arrived, at last. Is it weatherproof, what is size and weight?
Feels it like the M9?
Best, Herman

No, it does not appear to be weatherproof. There is no mention of it and if it were weatherproofed they would be trumpeting it. It is about the size of an M9. It feels like an M9 but seems a bit heavier and more solid. Specs: New Pixii Camera Specifications

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It is solidly built and obvious quality. An improvement I would like to see is to move the topside screen to the left and the control knob and shutter button along with it. Or put the screen on the other side of the shoe and adjust the buttons accordingly. The "M" series has that right. Pixii is not as ergonomically "correct" as the M series. I will adjust to the layout and in a week or so and probably stop whining.

That said it is a good camera and delivers good images. In comparing the few images I have so far to what I have already taken with the M9 the Pixii is good. The colors are solid, believable, saturated, the hues and shading are good and this is with an APS-C. So the 28mm and 35mm LTM Canons will be used a lot. The 2" Amotal works OK but is an effective 75mm. Pixii grid lines extend only to 50mm so if I slap the Jupiter 85mm on it I will be guessing what the effective ~130mm lens will capture. Small problem. And how often do I use a 130? Not often.

Disclaimer: I am an ardent and unabashed Francophile. I served out my military obligation on a tiny post an hour south of Paris and it changed me forever. I've been back a few times and just love being in France. And as English has become the lingua franca my atrocious French is no longer such an impediment although I still struggle to do my best as a politeness. And the French are so kind about it. So I am inclined to favor a French product. The Pixii makes it easy. Hopefully posted images from the camera will persuade you that I am not too far off the track.

Thank you all for your interest and support.

 

[boojum]

Out and about today. I either misread the actual camera shutter speed or Pixii lied. The result was the same: blurred photos inside the Oysterville church. I will try again. But here are two anyway which did come out.

The first is a Peterbilt parked in Ilwaco, shot with a Canon 35mm LTM f/2.0 "Black" and the second is some fading Rhodies shot with a Cooke Amotal 2" f/2.0.

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​

 

[boojum]

Being basically an egomaniac I had to post another Rhodie pic. Same Pixii, same Amotal, this time ISO 160 where Pixii likes to live.

Added later: NB, the beauty for me of this lens is that it is sharp as a razor but still has a glow, a luminescence. Cooke was pretty sharp to pull it off. They tout it as "The Cooke Look" in their film lenses which are justifiably famous and used often.

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[boojum]

Here it is, Whine and Snivel time. Well into the second week of grey and rain. Looks like pea soup outside and pea soup for dinner. It's pea soup dinner weather. Pixii + Amotal. Seen in the river behind the docked Oregon Responder is a channel marker, green for the port (left) side when returning. "Red right return." It is upright which indicates it is high or low tide, slack water. The current outflow and the tidal inflow are balanced. This time high tide. Shot as native JPEG in the camera.

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[WhidbeyLVR]

[...] the docked Oregon Explorer [...]

Oregon Responder?

 

[boojum]

Oregon Responder?

It is an oil spill mitigation ship. Thankfully it is docked except for an occasional cruise to check it out. L1002268 And, yes, the original post was incorrect naming it the "Oregon Explorer."

 

[Herman]

Hi @boojum , which is acc to you the better camera, M or P?

 

[boojum]

Hi @boojum , which is acc to you the better camera, M or P?

Sophie's choice. I like the M9 for its color and heft. I like the Pixii for its color and heft. They are both great cameras. The M9 has a factory upgraded sensor and circuit board. And it is familiar. The Pixii is new and I am still learning it. There have been a few software glitches but they have been addressed except for one: WiFi which is being chased by the crew at Pixii. Because the M9 is old I would opt for the Pixii. OTOH the Pixii kind of cuts off at 50mm lenses. I tried a Jupiter 85 and 130 and got odd results with verticals and will have to retest that. It would help if we had some sunshine here, oh, please, some sunshine. ;o)

For the future it will be Pixii. It is nascent and will only get better. The M9 will only decline. And I do have a bias for the French. But objectively the Pixii is revealing itself to be a very good, capable camera. With the Amotal it gets lovely color, luminescence and definition. It does alright with the Canon 28 and 35. Other than the still sometimes shaky software this camera is pleasing me. I think it would please the rest of you but will not go out on that limb. I would suggest that you try it if you can. Considering the sensor is APS-C the images are quite good and enlarge well.

My biggest Pixii complaints are the nosebleed around getting it to me and the WiFi. The delivery is not Pixii's fault and the WiFi is at the top of Pixii's priority list. Brian and the other programmers here know it is first get the thing to work and then tune it. The software nearly works 100%. When it works 100%, i. e., the logic is all right, then subroutines can be tweaked.* That is kind of how it happens. Some subroutines will be tweaked in Pixii to speed up write times. With WiFi turned on in the camera battery life is shortened. Perhaps WiFi can be detected for "in use" and put into an idle or sleep mode if not in use. These are the things that are done once it is all running and stable.

In short, as much as I love the M9 I suspect I will be using the Pixii. I am taking some trips this summer and it will be Pixii + 28, 35 Canons and 50mm Cooke Amotal and the Sony A7M III with the Sony/Zeiss 55mm f/1.8 and that wonderful 24 - 240 zoom. I have an M42 > Sony lens mount adapter. Laptop, of course, to post any lucky shots and keep up with email, WD USB 4TB HD and my much needed Lt. Cmdr. Ace Barksalot, the Schipperke, who acts as copilot and navigator. Dogs love going for rides. This one thinks I work for him and am obliged to drive him around. Its the breed. ;o)

* Wizard level coders can get logic and efficiency done first shot. They are a weird and non-descript bunch who work heinous hours or hang around and act silly. They are scary smart.

 

[boojum]

My fevered brain was wondering about 50mm+ lenses. No grid lines but can the camera handle them? I got wiggly vertical lines last night so I retested today in a moment of ephemeral sunshine, or what passes for sunshine here. The lenses are all set to f/5.6 and a distance of infinity. They are in succession a Cooke Amotal 2", a Jupiter 9 85mm and a Jupiter 11 135mm, effectively 75mm, ~130mm and ~200mm. Note the Jupiter 11 shows the phone pole slightly out of focus (too close) while the distant dock is in focus. Note that all three pictures report as 50mm as that is as high as the Pixii software can be set. Again, they were 50, 85 and 135mm.

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[Brian]

* Wizard level coders can get logic and efficiency done first shot. They are a weird and non-descript bunch who work heinous hours or hang around and act silly. They are scary smart.

Do you know why Jedi Masters use FORTRAN and not Java or C++?

In FORTRAN there is no "try" there is only DO.

That pretty much descripts me.

 

[boojum]

Do you know why Jedi Masters use FORTRAN and not Java or C++?

In FORTRAN there is no "try" there is only DO.

That pretty much descripts me.

Writing hot shot clean code was always a point of pride. The C family lends itself to obscure hot shot code. COBOL can be elegant but is often wordy. Assembler concise. You could put all I know about FORTRAN on the head of a pin and still have room for the Lord's Prayer. I have heard it is good. ;o)

 

[agentlossing]

You coders still talk like William Gobson's Neuromancer. Love it.

 

[Brian]

I've used FORTRAN for 45 years. Assembly for almost as long, C when I have to- since 1996 and C++- recent. Java, C, C++: just do not handle multi-dimensional arrays as well as FORTRAN. Image processing is very easy and straight-forward in FORTRAN. Take a couple of hours to write code to read in and process DNG files from the M9 and M Monochrom.
With FORTRAN- I'm at the level of disassembling the compiler to correct mistakes in it and then use it to write my code. But not necessary too often. Once I get a compiler in good working condition, I use it for a very long time.

 

[boojum]

You coders still talk like William Gobson's Neuromancer. Love it.

As an example of the genius of some folks, I was working for a large insurance company back at the dawn of time. Large amounts of data are shifted for data accumulation. One major program had a sub-routine in an efficient language, Assembler, which called up the command: MVC. This moves a small amount of data but can move large amounts if it is caused to "loop" or repeat for a finite number of predetermined times. Some real propeller head substituted MVCL for MVC. MVCL causes a huge amount of data to be moved in one shot eliminating the need for the loop and the time it took to run it. Time = money. This propeller head got a very fat bonus at the end of the year. He had already gotten a fat promotion. Yes, he did wear a pointed cap with stars and crescent moons. He also read a lot of manuals.

 

[boojum]

I've used FORTRAN for 45 years. Assembly for almost as long, C when I have to- since 1996 and C++- recent. Java, C, C++: just do not handle multi-dimensional arrays as well as FORTRAN. Image processing is very easy and straight-forward in FORTRAN. Take a couple of hours to write code to read in and process DNG files from the M9 and M Monochrom.
With FORTRAN- I'm at the level of disassembling the compiler to correct mistakes in it and then use it to write my code. But not necessary too often. Once I get a compiler in good working condition, I use it for a very long time.

Compiler tinkering??!! Next necromancy and djinns.