The next step in the characterization is to plot the way that the noise floor varies with the ISO setting. I let the camera cool down for five minutes between collecting the 16 samples at each ISO. Here are the results: The standard deviations are pretty low compared to the averages, so it doesn’t make… [Read More]

In the next few posts, I’m going to characterize the Leica M (Typ 240), hereafter called the Leica M240, or just the  M240. The first thing I do when I characterize a camera is see if there are self-heating effects that I need to watch out for. If there are, it makes the testing process… [Read More]

For the last two or three months, when I haven’t been working on a comprehensive upgrade of my voice/data network, I’ve been developing a new photographic series. The photography is a lot more fun. The series – no surprise to those of you who’ve been following my work – is based on motion. It’s different… [Read More]

There’s been an interesting thread on the L-Camera Forum that was started by someone who’d read this post about getting better results with the M9 by treating the camera as if the ISO dial didn’t go past 640. In the ensuing discussion, there was some healthy skepticism about my findings and about the applicability of… [Read More]

This is the kind of tech-heavy post that I’d normally put in The Bleeding Edge. I’m posting it here because I think the topic is so important to digital photographers. It starts out with a history lesson, but you can ignore that if you’re impatient. Over the next few posts I’ll be dealing with the… [Read More]