I havn't been entirely happy with digital cameras irrespective of make or model, too many menu's, too many sub menu's and far too many buttons to push. I thought my salvation had come with the M8, so toddled off to my Leica dealer to have a test run. The first test shots were outside in late afternoon, bright but cloudy and the subject was the camera shop owner dressed in a black shirt and jeans. The results on the camera screen showed a pronounced magenta cast that a grape crusher would have been proud of. How on earth could Leica get this so wrong? did they know about the problem? of course they did,( the alternative theory is that their testing is flawed- unthinkable to devoted Leica owners I'm sure) to my mind it's a fundamental design flaw and they obviously couldn't fix it in time for Photokina release. If i'm spending £3000 on a camera body, the basics, ie colour repro need to be state of the art and the M8 in it's present form isn't.
OK, I probably would be able to tweak the files to an acceptable level, but lifes too short!
I won't be buying one yet and if canon sort out their mirror lock up menu problem maybe never.
What do other members think, fair comment or not?

Oh please, not again.

You may have missed the fact that this topic has been discussed ad-mausium on this board as well as every other net forum for the past two weeks. You might wish to look at these earlier discussions.

Every high tech product has its issues. Both Nikon and Canon have shipped numerous cameras with banding, back focus, and other anomolies. Sony today has shipped 750,000 Playstation IIIs that have major compatability problems. These things happen, and then get sorted out.

Leica has stated that they recognize the IR problem and that they will have a solution to announce in short order. In the meantime shipments to dealers have stopped temporarily.

Michael

Michael, interesting that you feel that this is just a product that has "its issues". I seem to recall on this site that you stated: " What I can say at the moment is that this camera is outstanding, producing some of the most remarkable image quality that I've ever seen from any camera, film or digital. " Granted that you added the qualifier "at the moment". However, as it turns out, this is more than a "tempest in teapot".
I don't own a Leica so you can write off my comment if you like, but I think many (not necessarily on this site) would agree that it is a major major issue for Leica's first foray into digital and where such a long legacy of brand equity is at stake. Let's be honest Michael, this cameras is a big disappointment at the very least, and until they find a seamless and cost-less fix (unlikely I would guess), a $5,000 investment in it is hardly justifiable.

Too bad, but maybe I'm jsut not very sentimental....

I should think that his use of the sentence "What I can say at the moment is that this camera is outstanding, producing some of the most remarkable image quality that I've ever seen from any camera, film or digital." would rather indicate that it is a "tempest in a teapot." (That is if the sub one percent bad image rate didn't already convince.)

Where have you been? The Leica DMR has been around for quite a while, and iirc to nothing but stellar reviews and devoted owners.

- DL

Look – the M8 is a somewhat flawed product at the moment. I didn't know it then. I do know it now.

But, the flaws do not detract from the fact that it does indeed produce stunning image quality and is a joy to use. Sorry if you don't get it, but if you visit the Leica Digital Forum you'll see that there are quite a few current and potential owners that do.

No excuses. Leica screwed up. I missed some obvious defects in my review. But, as I've writen before, no regrets that I got one. If the camera were discontinued today I would still be happy that i bought mine. In fact i just ordered two new lenses for it this week.

I'm now over a thousand frames with it and have only seen serious megenta casts and green blobs in less than 5 frames. The use of the P30 profile even dealt with the worst magenta that I've seen, and if there were no further fix I could live with it as the sole solution.

I have seen no banding. I have seen poor low light auto-white balance which I expect to be fixed in the first firmware rev. I have seen resolution that appears to come from medium format. I've seen a lot of things, and will continue to report what I see, the good and the bad.

Michael

Michael, sorry to trigger your " Oh no not again" it just so happens that this is the very first forum I have joined so hence the reason I havn't seen any other posts or discussions, also the site showed no searches on the topic M8 for me before I posted. One thing I forgot to applaud on my brief use was the user interface on the camera, very slick and much easier than my canons. It seems from the replies that you and other devoted Leica owners are prepared to accept the shortcomings much more than potential owners. That's fine, we all make our choices and write the cheque.

Jeff.

Micheal,

Just got back from Alain's and Uwe's Digital Summit and had a chance to review the Leica M8 and Hasselblad H2/CFH39 images. The M8 images are stunning, i am seeing a very strong yellow cast every once in a while on bright sunlight scenes (no changes in exposure), any ideas? Magenta cast images are rare, shooting fellow photographer's camera bags is amusing. I am also seeing what to me is a increased ability of the camera to attract dust, have you noticed this?

And if i may ask a really dumb question, where is the Leica Digital Forum?

Finally what lenses have you picked for what reasons? I sold all of my Leica M6 gear in 1990 so I have to start over ;-)

Thank you,

Glenn

Leica digital forum:

http://www.leica-camera-user.com/

unless michael was refering to one at Luminous Landscape, in whick case it does not show up in any searches.

Sunyata

Michael, I'm a bit confused, in your review of the Canon G7 you ended by saying that the prints from this camera were mixed with shots from the M8 and that it took close examination to tell them apart. So I guess this places the image quality from the G7 right along side the M8. It would be very, very interesting for you to do an online post of new images, ( say for one week) shot with both cameras for people to say which picture they think came from which camera. What's the point? well i'd love to see if most people could actually tell the difference between what this should all be about, the final image. Carrying on with the ( oh no not again) M8 Magenta problem and 'Solution' by tweaking the blacks in the image via profiles, Iv'e looked at the images on the thread at the leica-users.com site and yes the magenta cast is much reduced, but to my eyes it's nowhere near a good black and for my line of work, where I photograph a lot of social and commercial 'people' having to do this would be annoying to say the least. I would love to have a 'fixed' M8 to use, and hope Leica can provide a proper answer. Does anyone know if the DMR has experienced any of these issues and if not, will the DMR provide the clues or answer to the M8 fix?

I own one.

If you shoot oudoors daytime nature or landscape you'll never see an issue.
If you do black and white the daytime, the camera is beautiful.
If you shoot people daytime, there will be some, minor IR problems in which black clothes turn plum-colored.
If you shoot in artificial light and/or night and evening, then you can expect every second shot to get messed up.

This explains why some people never see the problems and others get so upset.

Edmund

Edmund, are you referring to DMR or M8?

- DL

I refer to the defective M8; the DMR has no such issues. Which makes the whole story of how this design got past the in-house testers even more puzzling.

And let me be clear: I own a M8. The conversion of Leica mechanical to Leica digital is very good, but the sensor lets the product down. With a sensor re-engineered to deal with the IR and banding this would be an unbeatable product. As it stands I can unreservedly recommend it to landscape and urban daytime shooters, in particular to those who like black and white. Anyone who needs a color-accurate camera for use in artifical light should either use filters or wait for the sensor to be fixed.

Edmund

The images we see on the web page are resized to so small a size that you'd have a hard time telling the difference between a successful shot from a Canon PowerShot S30, an OM-2 with 200 ASA Superia and a Contax 645 with the P45 back.

You can use almost anything for a successful web image.

Such a test would therefore be completely uninteresting to me, and I suspect that most others feel the same way.

Jani, I have to disagree, otherwise michael is wasting his time posting pictures on the LL website.
I'm obviously not referring to thumbnails ( where you would be correct) but to the enlarged image on a new page, created when clicking on a picture, I for one can certainly see the increased quality created by a Medium format digital back on a good quality high res monitor screen.

Jeff

The enlarged current homepage image is a 792x500 jpeg. At that size, I can't imagine how you could tell what camera or sensor size took it. Surely the web isn't the ultimate destination for Michael's best work; if it were, why does he spend so much time and money on printers? IMHO, any picture on the web (even with a good monitor) is effectively a thumbnail.

I have to agree with Jan.

Eric

Look around. There are thousands of people that daily make decisions on which new camera to lust after or lens to purchase based on web-sized images. You can't be suggesting that all these people are totally misguided? :-)

If that's all they base their judgement on, the imo they are misguided. Certainly web sized images are adequate for a general impression of IQ but I've always sought out full size examples, preferably raw, for critical evaluation.

- DL

Ditto!

I can't imagine spending more than a hundred bucks based only on web images.

Eric

Another point is that much of Michael's work still makes for good web "thumbnails" simply because they're usually well-composed, interesting and/or captivating images.

That doesn't change much with the medium, and it is far more important than whether he took the picture with an S30, an X-Pan, something with a P45 attached, or cropped it out of an old drum scan from his Pentax 67.

I originally prepared to post a bunch of sample links from Michael's work to see if Jeff could tell the P45 images from the P&S images, or the film from the digital, but I thought it was a silly idea. Now I'm not so sure. But perhaps Jeff is better served by browsing through the old images himself and see how difficult it is to tell the camera without having the article text as an aid.

Comparing 1:1 pixel crops is an entirely different matter, of course; that's pixel-peeping.

Hi,

I think that Sean Reid may have explained the issue pretty well. DSLRs have by necessity wide angle lenses of retrofocus design. In a retrofucus design the rays exciting the lens are close to perpendicular to the sensor. In a rangefinder design the rear of the lens can be very close to the sensor, so rays can hit the sensor from very large angles. It may be the case that dichroic infrared filters are not working very well at large angles, which has also has been discussed/demonstrated in Mr. Sean Reids article.

Leica could of course build lenses which are optimized for digital sensors, that is more SLR-like lenses. These lenses would probably get bigger, heavier, more expensive. Off axis performance would probably also suffer.

Sean Reid actually indicated that the Epson RD1 also shares the same problem,although possibly to a lesser extent.

In my view the issue is that Leica has made a technical decision which benefits their optics from the performance aspect. I think that Leica should have warned their customers that front mounted IR-cut off filters would be needed in certain cases.

For most Leica customers the Leica design may be just fine. Image quality is supposed to be very good. I also presume that many Leica customers already have lenses that can be used on the new M8. For some applications, like wedding photography, the implications of the weak IR cutoff filter may be catastrophic. Leica should have informed their customers about the issue.

Should Michael Reichmann refrain from issuing a review? No, I don't think so! Michaels review are much about user experience and not about deep technical analysis. Michael felt that there was something funny with color reproduction "Leicachrome", but he felt that this was more like a profile/raw conversion issue. It's quite obvious now that some of the problems can be corrected using better color profiles.

I was eagerly waiting for the M8 review and I'm glad that Michael has published it. There may be some customers who bought this camera and got problems with IR-related coloring artifacts. I feel sorry for those customers, but I think that their problems will be solved, even if it with additional cost and inconvenience.

It is also quite obvious that most Leica customers are are users who already have an investment in Leica equipment. For those users I think that the M8 is great news.

Best regards

Erik

I'm curious if the fact Leica have temporarily stopped shipment to dealers signals a hardware fix, not some firmware or software fix. New IR filter, perhaps?

Quentin

The latest information is that the hardware changes are to deal with the 'streaking' issue, not the IR sensitivity. That will be dealt with by a combination of firmware updates, colour profile updates, and IR filters on the lenses.

This could all be completely wrong, but that is the latest.

That does see the direction, since the IR sensitivity increases detail andsharpness and IR capability that some want.

Unlike other filters, this one seems also not to degrade th Visiblelight image.

Hi
Here is a press release.
www.pdnonline.com/pdn/prodtech/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003438498
The IR filter was too thin, how much is this camera??? They are going to fix it.
Thanks Denis

The IR filter was kept thin as a deliberate design decision. Discussions of this issue elsewhere have noted that an increase in thickness of just 0.25mm would result in reduced image quality, in the corners especially. Doubtless if Leica had opted for that from the outset the self-appointed experts would be criticising the M8 for its poor corner sharpness.

These are matters that affect all digital cameras. The various Canon full-frame models have been criticised for poor corner sharpness when using wide-angle lenses. The Epson R-D1, as has been noted earlier in this thread, also suffers from a milder form of the IR magenta effect (and a pretty hefty dose of vignetting with certain wide-angle lenses). Nikon's D2H shows the magenta effect similarly to the R-D1, as do some at least of the earlier Nikon bodies; the D100, D1X being ones I'm aware of.

Surely the point here is that colour casts - although undoubtedly an annoyance, in particular fo those users who shoot regularly in conditions likely to induce the problem - can be corrected by use of filters, or colour profiling, or a combination of the two. Inferior image quality can not be retrieved. Make your choice.

My guts feeling is that many a Leica M8 users are pretty new to digital. I could be wrong.

From this standpoint, when you come from a film background, and are told that digital is better, you might not be prepared to compromise, even if the negative impact ends up being pretty small.

The whole issue is IMHO pretty much a matter of poor expectations mgt. Leica is by the way probably only partially responsible for this.

Photographers as a group are somehow placing unreasonnable hopes in digital technology. Like a small scale instantiation of the belief that technology - seen as a black box - will save the World. Things are always more complex when you try to look inside the box, but why would a Leica M6 film photographer be interested in looking inside the digital box?

Cheers,
Bernard

Many of the M8 issues have nothing to do with digital. I don't think I can be called a newcomer to digital

I just used the M8 as a tourist camera for a few days. Here are my experiences:

The camera is small enough to be dropped in a small pack. However, I couldn't take the charger (too large for my single backpack).

The battery lasted as long as the 2GB card. I don't think a more capacious battery or a smaller charger would be that hard to make. I would have bought a spare battery except I can't get one.

People like the M8, it is not as attention grabbing as an SLR.

Color and color balance are completely random. Auto color balance mostly doesn't work.

Manual focusing a 75 is tiring. After a while you really don't want to do it.

The finder is horrible to use. More light please. There is no way to predict framing for the 75mm.

When I came back, I had a lot of misframed pcitures, a lot of slightly unsharp images, a lot of magenta colors. And a couple of black and white keepers whose quality was basically the same as that of an old 35mm shot.

Frankly, if Canon could put a Rebel sensor and electronics and some AF in the Leica box with an optical viewfinder, I would prefer it. For now the M8 is the only game in town in that form factor.

Edmund

Edmund,
A negative review from someone who owns the camera tends to have a lot of credibility. Many of us tend to be biased in favour of the equipment we own and sometimes too forgiving of its faults.

It all sounds like a big mess to me.

It's the only way to do it, pixel-peeping or not. 100% crops of 240 ppi images viewed on a monitor at 96 dpi (or slightly more) are generally representative of a huge print. It would be difficult for any differences to remain hidden.

I've heard claims that two 100% crops that look identical on screen (at minimum jpeg compression) can look different when printed, but I'm skeptical.

And with good reason. If it's the same on-screen (assuming a good quality, properly profiled monitor), the prints will be the same, as long as the same printer, paper, and settings are used for both. If there conditions are not met, meaningful comparisons are not possible.

As I'm sure you know, there's no way the Rebel sensor would work in the box because of the angle of incidence. I'm amazed that Leica was able to create this camera at all - a few years ago they (and others) said it would never be possible. But I think I'll wait for the M9

- DL

Not new to digital, but probably new to Leica aren't you?

Regards,
Bernard

Bernard -

How did you guess ? I have indeed very little experience with Leica as I only owned 2 of them before the M8, and only 5 lenses. The lens I used most then was an 85 mm Canon 1.8, and the lens I use now is a 75 Summilux 1.4. I haven't used a Leica for 15 years, thankfully, as I sold my M4P in exchange for a Hassy (best photo decision I ever made).

A friend has remarked that the M8 monochrome images look like old Tri-X. The texture is wonderful.

I'd say that the M8 is suitable mostly as a moderate Wide Angle camera, and will supply 35mm equivalent imagery, whereas the Canon 1Ds and 1DsII I own and use for publication and gallery prints will supply Medium-format equivalent images. Note that with some retouching I obtain decent 13x18 prints from my Nokia N93 3 Megapixel camera phone with its Zeiss lens.

The M8 needs a better auto white balance so images come up looking good out of the box, an updated finder which sucks in more light, accurate frame lines (where is the 75 ?), a more capacious battery, a small charger, ISO that can go up to clean 3200 ISO, and maybe -please, please- a full-frame sensor.

The M8 is a good expensive camera that could be much better, which competes with much cheaper ones that are very good (Rebel, D200) and expensive ones that are quite extraordinary (5D, 1Ds).

And yes, the images do have the "Leica texture" and the camera can indeed go anywhere.

Edmund

Leica had to deal with a problem that DSLR makers don't have. RF wide angle lens rear elements sitting so close to the sensor. The extreme angle that light rays are hitting the sensor evidently causes more then just vignetting problems, it complicates dealing with the IR issue.

Even with the IR cut filter in front of the lens instead of in front of the filter, users are encountering color shifts to cyan at the edge of the image with wide angle lenses as a result of the IR filters. Read Reviews has an eye opening set of images from a wide range of 28mm lens in his latest review showing varying degrees of cyan shift. Putting a stronger IR filter in front of the sensor would make this color shift problem even worse. It is a very difficult problem, which is why Leica has had to settle on the solution that they have. It remains to be seen if there is some more elegant technological solution to the problem possible in the near future.

So for those who think nothing short of a full frame sensor that functions like a Canon DSLR will do for a Digital Leica M, don't hold your breadth.

Hank Graber
www.hankgraber.com

I can understand that Leica had a difficult problem - but why if they were aware of the magenta cast problem didn't they supply the filter solution at launch ?

Judging from the fact that the camera was released with defective performance, I would conjecture that the "difficult problem" was known to engineering in the same way as the O-ring issue was known to the Discovery launch team.

Are the days when cameras just worked permanently behind us ?

Edmund

Cameras like cars are now as much computing devices as mechanical devices. Like computers and the software that they depend on cameras are now subject to impossibly short product cycles and sorting out problems and bugs with early adopters.

It's likely Leica's engineers were aware of the IR problem but were not aware of the real world implications of the solution they chose. Many photographers who initially tested the cameras were enthralled by the M-like nature and image quality of the camera but missed spotting the IR problem. So it's no suprise that engineers may have not properly gauged the effectiveness of the compromise they chose. I have plenty of experience working with programmers and engineers who are brilliant at what they do but clueless about the application side implications of what they produce.

Had they been able to start with a clean sheet of paper they could have avoided the problem by going with an R mount rangefinder using retrofocal wide angle lenses -but the whole point was to provide a solution for existing M lenses so they were faced with a much tougher technical hurdle. It's unfortunate the release played out the way it did. Had they announced a year ago that they had solved the quality problems associated with RF digital but it would require a IR cut filter many who are pissed off now may have been lining up to buy one. Managing expectations is more important in sales then the actual products final specs.

Hank Graber
www.hankgraber.com

I give Leica a plus point for actually getting a product out the door.
They get a minus by selling me a camera that needs to be sent back to base for a fix.

My suggestion is they find themselves a better bunch of testers next time round, and not use the reviewers or final clients as testers - the first are too indulgent, and the second too valuable to lose.

Also, it would appear that some M8 cameras do not have the banding problem - which leads one to wonder whether the "repair" will not be a band aid put in place on the faulty units. Basically I'm seriously worried whether my "repaired" M8 will not be a permanently unsaleable "first batch" albatros.

Edmund

Yup, it was called "film".

- DL

I think you're right about a lot of M8 users being new to digital -- this has been an on-going issue at the rangefinder forum. Lots of film users don't consciously consider film development as "post processing." It's simply a necessity. When they get to a digital camera, they expect the digital photograph to be at the same place as a negative after processing: immediately printable. It never occurs to many that there is a "negative development" process in digital, and they are unhappy (or just surprised) when they find out about it, and about the learning curve in post-processing. They are amazed to find that while digital has many advantages over film, it's not necessarily easier.

You're absolutely right about expectations management. German firms tend to be engineering-intensive and PR-challenged.

Edmund's comments are essentially (not to be impolite) beside the point. He had the camera only for a short time. The general assessment emerging on most of the boards (from both testers like Sean Reid and professional users) is that the M8 image quality is about the equivalent of the 5D, better in some areas and not quite as good in others; in other words, generally equivalent to a 1DsII (the 5D is apparently somewhat better than the 1DsII in high ISO noise quality.)

One or two people have said that the monochrome looks like Tri-X, but most disagree. It's too smooth. But it certainly can be made to look like Tri-X, especially with plug-in filters.

The M8's auto white balance, in mixed lighting, is not good at the moment, possibly because of the high IR sensitivity. That should be fixed with the new firmware, which is now being delivered in new cameras, which also fix an electronic fault that led to streaking and ghost images in some unusual conditions. The finder and frame lines are as accurate as on any M; the finder is certainly brighter than any SLR, the frame lines you either live with or you get an SLR. The battery is good for ~400 shots after its been conditioned, which takes three full cycles. The charger could be smaller, but then, it's also delivered with a car-charging cord and a built-in 12-volt adapter, so that may account for some of its size. Some people think that's great; others would prefer a smaller charger. The 5D, which is considered the state-of-the art for ISO noise, delivers plainly cleaner images at 1600 and 3200 (not at 800; at 800 it's a pick-your-poison.) But how many 5Ds are routinely used with lenses as fast as a Leica's? Is it better to shoot an f4 zoom at 3200 on a 5D (which is how a 5D is typically used) or a prime Leica f1.2 at 400 or 800?

I shoot a D2x in addition to the M8, an M7 and a G7. The D2x is a great camera for most uses and I will always own its equivalent; but I would hesitate to take it into a club at night, simply because of its size and the size of its lenses (probably the most-used modern Nikon zoom is, all by itself, larger than the Leica.) And the 1DsII is larger than the Nikon. The Leica is simply a different kind of a camera, and comparing it to a Canon or a Nikon is like comparing an SLR to an Arca.

In my view, the Leica has had some regrettable glitches, like any radical new product, including the Canons (frame deletion) the D2x (focus problems) the D200 (banding) etc. But that's life in the big city. A month after it first came out, the fixes are underway, and IMHO, it's going to be a classic.

JC

Ah yes, the good old days of film.

When.....

– an errant piece of dust on the felt light trap put a giant scratch across all 36 exposures.

– when the processing machine at the lab broke down in the middle of a run and ruined an entire day's shoot.

– when you accidently put the fixer in the tank before the developer

– when you thought you had Tri-X in the camera but instead were shooting with Kodachrome 25

Michael

What are we going to be told next ? That the M8 is as good as an H3D ? This is like comparing a Ferrari to a 10 ton truck. I own both cameras. The 1DsII has detail, detail and detail, the M8 runs out of detail quite fast, although that may be due to the difficulty of ensuring accurate focus in practice, my lens (a 75mm Summi) or the diffusion effect of the IR.

I don't think that admitting that a Ferrari is faster and a truck can haul more goods is disrepectful to either vehicle.

As for Hi-ISO, the camera sample of the M8 which I have is simply not so good. My impression is that others who have published pictures on the net are getting much better hi-ISO results. I frankly don't think that anything over 640 is regularly usable, but shooting a rangefinder tele wide open is a recipe for disaster. The 1DsII does ok in hi-ISO, with very smooth results at 800. I usually shoot my Canons with an 85/1.2 and rarely run out of available light as the excellent focus lets me use the lens wide open.

Please let me summarize: The Leica M8 is a worthy successor of the old M series. When and if Leica fixes my M8, and I manage to get some spare batteries, the M8 will go on all my trips, while my old 1Ds will continue to focus on the skin texture of overpaid anorexic females. The 1DsII remains the standard as far as resolution is concerned - I don't know any currently marketed 35mm product that beats it for detail, although skin texture is not so good.

Oh, and by the way, even though I'm a contrarian I think that Michael has hit the nail on the head: Film ? Just say no !

Edmund

Nobody has so far said anything about an H3D. As to detail, that is precisely the area in which most posters are saying the M8 is matching the Canons. Check the extensive posts on the Leica forum (which has been bitterly critical of Leica in many cases.)

ISO 640 on the Leica, according to Sean Reid, is actually 800 (though to be fair, he says that 3200 on the 5D is actually around 4000.) As a matter of fact, though, I wouldn't be happy going through life trying to get ISO 1600 and 3200 photos published, given any other choice. I consider those ISOs are "emergency" speeds.

I agree on film. I hang on to an F5 mostly out of sentiment, and the belief that it might have been the best 35mm film camera ever made; but I haven't run any film through it in a couple of years. Since 2001, I've been 90% digital in daily stuff. Still, there are some areas in which film excels. Ever try to project digital? It's further back than 19th century magic lantern slides, and I'm not exaggerating in the slightest.

JC

The 1Ds I own can go up to 1250 if perfectly exposed, although colors change a bit I find. However my 1Ds sensor has been replaced and the original was *clearly unusable* at 1250.

My 1DsII can do high ISO well, I'd say that 1250 is a regularly usable ISO for my purposes (catwalk fashion shooting) and a client printed a poster of an interior architecture shot with it at that setting, as well as some stuff in their catalog.

The opinion I have of the Leica M8 is really not the same as you relate. It's nowhere in the class of the 1DsII for noise. A batch of twilight shots that looked lovely on the rear screen and that I'd love to print are unusable due to noise.

One explanation for all of this is that maybe mine is a lemon (like my original 1Ds sensor). I think that when it is sent in to Solms I shall request them to verify that the sensor is in spec.

As for detail, I guess I can do a tripod setup test some time. Some of my percieved differences can be attributed to focus error and camera shake, both of which the huge heavy Canon SLRs have less than the wonderfully light rangefinder.

By the way, my 1Ds improved incredibly on ISO after the sensor swap, but the 1DsII was even more fun. The first one was sharp but it erased all the pictures, and finally died completely, which I thought was incompatible with my desire for a working camera. Luckily it died within 2 days out of the box so I got another. With the second I was a bit unhappy with the images and kept sending it back to Canon for focus checks. The original 1Ds was always focusing spot on and never needed adjustment. One day, I removed the filter protecting the huge valuable front element of the 85mm lens I was using, and bingo ! images on the 1DsII suddenly became markedly crisper. I put this down to some subtle interaction of the filter with the AF.

Edmund


Addendum: My sharpness ladder.

Leaf 22 MP
Leaf 65
Phase P30
Nikon D1x
Canon 1Ds
Leica M8
Canon 1DsII

Of note, that sharpness has little to do with resolution - the 1DsII clearly outresolves the 1Ds while using an equal-area sensor and showing more detail but less immediate sharpness.