@david-farkas
active 1 year, 4 months agoForum Replies Created
dalethorn;5534 wrote: I ordered one of those Giottos rocket air blower things. I hope it works. Leica says they “take no responsibility” for whatever happens. Not exactly a confidence builder.
Unfortunately, dust is par for the course on digital sensors, especially on CCD sensors like that used in the Monochrom. In most cases, the small dark spots get hidden in the image and are of no consequence. In cases where the spots are more visible, they are usually in open areas of sky. These are easily and quickly removed with the dust removal tool in LR. Single click on each spot and they are gone.
The rocket blower works pretty well, but you may not be able to get all spots off the sensor. If the spots ulitmately bother you, you can send the camera to Leica in NJ and they will clean the sensor for you at no charge.
David Farkas
Red Dot Forum
Leica Store Miamidalethorn;5127 wrote: I've had a lot of laptops since 1984, but all of them had lousy screens. Now I have a Macbook, but I see that some of the PC vendors like Dell are making stylish laptops that are slim with good screens, and I wonder if any of those have screens that are good enough to use for casual editing and viewing without the need for color calibration.
Dale,
I've been using the Dell Precision M6700, which has a 17″ IPS screen. It is a 10-bit/channel screen capable of displaying ~100% AdobeRGB gamut and calibrates a dead neutral D6500. It looks awesome out of the box, but does come with included PremierColor calibration software which toggles gamuts based on application. This way, you can look at web pages in sRGB and use LR in AdobeRGB. Makes a lot of sense, otherwise websites look nuclear with all the extra gamut. Also, I like that I have an actual screen real estate of 1920×1080. Retina scaling just didn't work for my needs – I much prefer 1:1 pixel scaling.
Besides the screen, I like that I have 32GB of RAM, three SSD drives with hardware RAID, a 4GB graphics card and ports galore. The drawback is that my machine weighs in at about 8 lbs. I don't view it as a laptop for casual editing. For me, this is a portable desktop which goes where I go and enables me to do color-critical editing anywhere I am.
Nothing against Mac. They are much more svelt and sexy, but I really need the power and flexibility of my system.
David Farkas
Red Dot Forum
Leica Store MiamiBy default, C1 doesn't have built-in profile support for the S-System. Remember, Phase One and Leica are competitors, so Phase isn't motivated to optimize their software for Leica files. S files come into C1 as generic DNG files and look pretty terrible as compared to LR.
That being said, Leica created an ICC camera profile for use in C1 if you are absolutely tied to a C1 workflow. It is available in the Leica Owners Area as a download.
I much prefer Lightroom for S files (or any Leica files). Leica has been working closely with Adobe since 2008 to optimize RAW conversions in LR and ACR.
David Farkas
Red Dot Forum
Leica Store Miamispoons;4813 wrote: I use the battery grip and it does help balance the camera, if making it quite large in the hand. Some posters have suggested that the camera is only as heavy as a ‘normal' DSLR. It is much heavier.
Also, contrary to some suggestions from other posters, the batteries are drained pretty much equally and if shooting tethered you will see both batteries drain each day. If out and about they last longer but you do have to remove the battery grip each time you need to get at the body battery and although not such a big deal, I find it annoying and can't understand why the body battery doesn't stay charged whilst the one in the grip is being drained first.
I am actually returning mine for investigation as there as is an issue with the grip attaching to the body successfully.It wobbles too much and is not much good really. …yes, it's been tightened up properly and all is aligned correctly.
Having said all this, I wouldn't be without it.
The battery in the grip should be drained first, then go to the one in the body once the grip battery is empty. This allows you to just swap the grip battery without having to remove the grip to access the main battery. This has been my personal experience and the experience of all the S/S2 users I've worked with.
David Farkas
Red Dot Forum
Leica Store Miamipeterv;4672 wrote: Thank you for pointing me to your article, David. I remember reading it at the time, but had completely forgotten about the ‘parallel' writing.
Anyway, I have a 32 Gb SD card which I will use in the S2 without the CF in the camera. This will make downloading the files on my MBP easier, since I won't need an extra card reader for the SD.
Thanks again,
Peter
Peter,
Obviously, using the built-in SD reader in the MBP will make downloading on the go simpler, but…. it will be a lot slower. The built-in reader is a USB 2.0 device, topping out at around 20 BM/s. If you use a USB 3.0 reader (I like the Lexar CF/SD combo reader), you can get up to 90 MB/s on a 600x (or faster) CF card.
Real world difference downloading 32GB of data:
20 MB/s – 27 minutes
90 MB/s – 6 minutesFor me, carrying a small external reader and USB 3.0 cord is totally worth it. It's nice to have the backup of a built-in SD reader in case the external gets lost or stops working.
David Farkas
Red Dot Forum
Leica Store Miamipeterv;4670 wrote: What a wonderful forum this is! I had the same issue, while using parallel on my S2 shooting DNG only, the SD card stayed empty …
A Google search pointed me to this thread, problem solved. That is to say I'm glad I found out it's not my S2 or me doing something wrong, but I find the DNG to CF and JPG to SD a bit odd. Calling this ‘parallel' writing is rather confusing.Any news wether this will be fixed in future firmware? I guess not since this thread was started two years ago.
Anyway, thanks!
Peter,
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that this will ever be changed due to a technical limitation on the S2. You can read the exact reason if you scroll about halfway down in this Q&A I did with the S Product Mangers:
Photo Plus Expo 2011: A Discussion with Leica S2 Product Managers Stephan Schulz and Toni Felsner
David Farkas
Red Dot Forum
Leica Store MiamiDoug;4649 wrote: I did some work in the LR5 beta. The release version converted my LR4 catalog into a LR5 catalog. I'd like to merge the 5beta catalog into this main LR5 catalog, but I don't see how to do that. Thanks for any helpful suggestions. :confused:
Under File menu, try Import from Another Catalog…
This should work. If not, you'll have to export the containing folder as a catalog and import that way.
David Farkas
Red Dot Forum
Leica Store MiamiNice result, Jack. Gotta love those “automagic” type buttons!
David Farkas
Red Dot Forum
Leica Store MiamiA few more fun images from the trip…
David Farkas
Red Dot Forum
Leica Store MiamiThanks for the info on LR5b. Looks like this will be a nice upgrade.
Personally, I'm not one to transition to a Beta version. I'll wait for the RC to start playing.
David Farkas
Red Dot Forum
Leica Store Miamipeterv;4510 wrote: Very nice images, David, thanks for sharing. I particularly like the colors in the long exposure after sunset on Smather's Beach. The blue sky is fantastic.
How many shots did you use for the focus-stacking?
Thanks.
The horizontal archway shot was 7 images, the vertical was 6 shots. I basically manually focused on each column starting at the front and working my way back. Stacking was done just with Photoshop CS6 using Auto-Align Layers and Auto-Blend Layers (in stack mode).
David Farkas
Red Dot Forum
Leica Store MiamiJack MacD;4479 wrote: RVB,
Yes .8 times 24 is indeed 19.2 not 18.6.
This was a test for Josh and David and either:
1. neither saw my error in reporting or
2. were too nice to think they should correct the error, or
3. starting to worry that I would want to return the lens to Solms to have them make it a 23.25 mm.
4. Too busy preparing for the Everglades trip to notice.
5. Told me the number is 18.6 until after the price increase and then it goes to 19.2.The answer is #4.
Jack,
#4 is the correct answer.
We just finished our workshop tonight. What a great time! We lucked out with the weather and the clouds for just about every shoot.
David Farkas
Red Dot Forum
Leica Store Miamierlingmm;4480 wrote: Just tried a CS lens for the first time on my S2. Is it possible to see from metadata whether I have used the CS or the normal shutter?
– ErlingMI just tried shooting the 70 CS both ways on an S (Type 006) with latest firmware. I looked at the files with Opanda iEXIF viewer and in PS CS 6. There is no field for shutter type used. So, no, it's not possible.
David Farkas
Red Dot Forum
Leica Store Miamiaboudd;4410 wrote: Well, that's a nice bit of news. I have been setting the mirror lock-up and self-timer together since I got my S2. Did I miss this in the manual somewhere or is this an Easter egg?
I actually don't know if it is in the manual or not, but here is an excerpt from my S2 review (published November 2009):
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=Trebuchet MS]
[/FONT][/COLOR][INDENT][COLOR=#333333][FONT=Trebuchet MS] Discovering the excellent self-timer[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=Trebuchet MS][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=Trebuchet MS] Wanting to do some longer exposures on the tripod, I discovered that the mirror would automatically pre-lock when using the self-timer mode. So, when you put the camera in either 2 second or 10 second self-timer and depress the shutter release, the mirror immediately moves to a lock-up position, the LCD displays the countdown “Releasing in (x) seconds”, then fires. The actual shutter sound is quieter than that of the M9. It sounds more like an electronic shutter from a point and shoot than a large medium format (or even 35mm DSLR). I was amazed at how well the mirror was damped and how silent the shutter was, all resulting in very low vibration. And better yet, if you are working off a tripod for long periods of time, you will appreciate that you don't have to manually lock up the mirror before each shot. As long as you stay in self-timer mode, the mirror will lock up before each shot. This is a really nice touch for landscape shooters. I've received questions about this feature and whether the mirror can stay locked up while you shoot multiple shots. Unfortunately, the mirror return is part of the re-cock sequence, so this is not possible.[/FONT][/COLOR][/INDENT]And if you saw our Leica S2 instructional videos, we highlight this feature at 1:15 in this clip about the camera menu: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgBvxlumUAA
David Farkas
Red Dot Forum
Leica Store MiamiAnother thing to check is that in order for the camer to remember sticky settings like custom function assignments and focus mode, you should turn the camera off via the switch then turn back on. The memory card light should illuminate for a few seconds then turn off. If you change settings, but let the camera go to sleep before you manually power it off, the settings are often lost.
As Josh already pointed out though, drive mode and mirror lockup are always reset to defaults on power cycle or resume from sleep.
One more thing to make your life a little simpler: the S2 will automatically perform a mirror pre-lockup when in self timer mode. There is really no need to set mirror lockup when using self timer. Press the shutter release once, the mirror flips up, the. The camera counts down. Easy. And one less setting to change.
David Farkas
Red Dot Forum
Leica Store Miami
