Leica Leica M8- set to ISO Ludicrous Speed...

[Brian]

The images look really good to me!

I've been doing a lot of software for the M8 recently. For a number of reasons, it's the most fun of my cameras to work with. It's taken 8 years for this camera to reach it's potential.

Using the RAW on higher ISO settings: the camera's firmware "bit shifts" the pixels 1 bit for every step up in the ISO. You lose dynamic range from the high-end of the histogram. I end up using the camera on manual and just correct the image in post.

 

[Peter Klein]

Earlier I mentioned the problem of running out of buffer space when shooting quickly. My initial comments were too pessimistic. I ran a couple of tests, and found that I can have 10-12 "JGP Fine + RAW" shots in the buffer at once. Because JPG is involved, the write times are affected by how much detail the JPG algorithm in the camera has to crunch. This probably includes noise/grain, so 2500 will likely have longer write times and bigger files than 1250. At effective 1250, each single shot appears to clear the buffer in about 9-12 seconds. This is with a 4 GB Sandisk Extreme card rated 30 MB/Sec.

When I shot a single frame every 2-3 seconds, the buffer filled up and refused to take any more shots after the 12th ("Attention: Data Transfer!" message on LCD). On another run, shooting in continuous mode (faster), the buffer was full after 10 shots. In each case it took the buffer 1:42 to completely empty (starting from the first shot). But once one shot had cleared the buffer, the Data Transfer message disappeared and I could take another shot.

So a good rule of thumb is that each shot will take an average of 10 seconds to clear the buffer, and you can have 10 of the 20 MB RAW+JPG fine frames in the buffer at any one time. Shooting quickly in single-shot mode, you'll fill the buffer in about one dozen shots, after which you can only take one shot every 10 seconds until the buffer empties further.

So, if you need machine-gun shooting speeds, you'll run into trouble with the M8 uncompressed RAW. If shoot for decisive moments, you probably will be fine most of the time.

--Peter

 

[Raid]

Is there any advantage to using 16 bit with ISO 160 without any pushing? Can we see benefits for sunshine photos? Is there more detail?

 

[Brian]

There is more detail with the Raw mode. More fine detail in the image, and depth in the bits.

When not using it- I feel the camera is being crippled from delivering it's best. Using DNG-8 is about like using JPEG.

 

[Raid]

What is currently the easiest converter to use?

 

[Brian]

The only converter available is M8RAW2DNG- on Arvid Bla's website. I copy it to the SD card and run the "CMD" line to batch process all the files at once. I copy the generated DNG files from the card to the computer.

-

 

[Raid]

The only converter available is M8RAW2DNG- on Arvid Bla's website. I copy it to the SD card and run the "CMD" line to batch process all the files at once. I copy the generated DNG files from the card to the computer.

-

Could you expand on how you "run the "CMD" line to batch process all the files at once"?

 

[Brian]

I use Windows- Use explorer to copy m8raw2dng.exe to the SD cards with all of your RAW files,

In windows with the "search programs and files" box to run a program, type in

cmd

That brings of a command line box.
Then I do the "DOS thing" to get to that subdirectory, lets say it's f:\DCIM\101LEICA

at the prompt type in,

f:
cd dcim\101leica
m8raw2dng


I have more detailed instructions, will EMail them.

 

[Raid]

Thank you Brian, I need the extra help.

 

[Brian]

As I write this, I have not used DOS in minutes...

 

[Raid]

I have not used DOS in ages!

 

[asiafish]

I have not used DOS in ages!

Three decades for me.

 

[Brian]

I'm home from work now. up to 3 Hours. I use DOS for embedded systems. It is Fast. I love DOS, it gets out of the way and lets you take control. Kind of like a Rangefinder camera- no arguing with the AF and Program mode.

But no fear- I use a Panasonic CF-50 running DOS to process my M Monochrom files. I use Phar Lap DOS extenders- so my code runs in 32-bit protected mode. On a 2GHz Pentium-4, it is very, very fast- faster than Lightroom 6.1 on the Core I7 machine running Win7...

Of course, I did all the I/O in assembly for my code...

 

[Raid]

show-off!

 

[dalethorn]

I'm home from work now. up to 3 Hours. I use DOS for embedded systems. It is Fast. I love DOS, it gets out of the way and lets you take control. Kind of like a Rangefinder camera- no arguing with the AF and Program mode.

But no fear- I use a Panasonic CF-50 running DOS to process my M Monochrom files. I use Phar Lap DOS extenders- so my code runs in 32-bit protected mode. On a 2GHz Pentium-4, it is very, very fast- faster than Lightroom 6.1 on the Core I7 machine running Win7...

Of course, I did all the I/O in assembly for my code...

Oh yeah. Working in the software shop myself, I create an icon for the desktop titled Windows Automation, which calls Cmd.exe and sets the screen params and path. That always gets interesting comments.