Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2013/05/08

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Subject: [Leica] Warning: Tech Stuff and Questions
From: kanner at acm.org (Herbert Kanner)
Date: Wed, 8 May 2013 13:49:34 -0700
References: <E9886B64-65FB-4390-A1DB-5C1219D2C6A1@acm.org> <DF2FA96E-ABE9-4810-B66B-2B0631BA2742@gmail.com> <506FB522-0A93-4D32-A1C7-298892D442EC@frozenlight.eu>

So far, pictures pretty damn good. Not M9 high def, but I didn't expect 
that. A nice feature is the macro capability; I can get as close as one cm 
from the subject.

A minor thing worries me, but if it doesn't happen for a year or so, I'll 
have gotten my money's worth. I was curious about the specs of the latest 
model compared to the previous one, which is the one I have. In the course 
of this, I stumbled upon Amazon"s customer reviews and was surprised to see 
a pretty large number of the most negative category. I stopped after reading 
three cases of the camera stopping working completely within the warrantee 
period and Panasonic refusing to repair it under warrantee and requiring 
$300 for a repair. In two of the cases, they said the problem was water 
condensation inside and the customers both insisted that the camera had 
never ever gotten wet. In the third case, the customer alleged that repair 
under warrantee was refused because there was a scratch on the bottom!

So, be a little careful about buying Panasonic products.

Herbert Kanner
kanner at acm.org
650-326-8204

Question authority and the authorities will question you.




On May 7, 2013, at 9:30 PM, Nathan Wajsman <photo at frozenlight.eu> wrote:

> And how are the pictures?
> 
> Nathan Wajsman
> Alicante, Spain
> http://www.frozenlight.eu
> http://www.greatpix.eu
> PICTURE OF THE WEEK: http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws
> Blog: http://nathansmusings.wordpress.com/
> 
> YNWA
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On May 8, 2013, at 4:50 AM, Bob Adler wrote:
> 
>> Way beyond my pay grade!
>> 
>> Sent from my iPad
>> 
>> On May 7, 2013, at 4:46 PM, Herbert Kanner <kanner at acm.org> wrote:
>> 
>>> Wanting an inexpensive camera for places/activities that could be risky 
>>> for my M9, I jumped at the offer of a used Lumix DMC-LX5d on the LUG. 
>>> After a dozen hours of learning how to cope quickly with the complex 
>>> array of menus and doing some experemts with RAW, I come up with with 
>>> some puzzlements for the techies among you,
>>> 
>>> First, for comparison, here is how the M9 files are. Not using Leica's 
>>> compression, the DNG files right out of the camera are exactly 36,4 MB. 
>>> After going into Lightroom (LR4) the DMG files that LR stored from a set 
>>> of twenty or thirty shots ranged in size from 19.2 to 22.2 MB. Clearly 
>>> LR is doing some lossless compression--this started, I think, with LR3; 
>>> LR2 didn't do it. Interesting fact--note this later as you read--is that 
>>> a Mac application called "Just Looking" will display images from RAW 
>>> files and displays both the original and compressed versions equally.
>>> 
>>> Next, here is the story on the Lumix RAW files. The files right out of 
>>> the camera have ranged in size, again from a moderate set of shots, from 
>>> 11.8 to 11.9 MB. That they are not identical in size is puzzling. Are 
>>> they using some lossy compression from a sensor that puts out larger 
>>> files? Also, I'd like to make a comment on the file size of RAW from 
>>> this 10 megapixel camera. It would indicate that the data from each 
>>> pixel is one byte. Well that is exactly the data size from an M9 if one 
>>> uses Leica's lossy compression, which several LUGers have said is not 
>>> visually detectable. I'm sort of ready to go along with this 
>>> observation; human response to stimuli--all kinds--is logarithmic. That 
>>> is each time you multiply the intensity of a stimulus by a constant 
>>> factor, e.g., doubling it, the human thinks of that as uniform steps 
>>> (think decibel!). So, the Leica 36MB minus whatever the EXIF data 
>>> consumes is gross overkill!. 
>>> 
>>> Now a funny thing happens when LR turns those files into DNGs. The RAW 
>>> files right out of the camera can be displayed by "Just Looking". But 
>>> the DNG files produced from these by LR cannot. The files produced by LR 
>>> are a bit more varied in size than the originals, ranging from 10.3 to 
>>> 14.8 MB.
>>> 
>>> Can the techies among you shed any light?
>>> 
>>> Herb
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Herbert Kanner
>>> kanner at acm.org
>>> 650-326-8204
>>> 
>>> Question authority and the authorities will question you.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Leica Users Group.
>>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Leica Users Group.
>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information



In reply to: Message from kanner at acm.org (Herbert Kanner) ([Leica] Warning: Tech Stuff and Questions)
Message from rgacpa at gmail.com (Bob Adler) ([Leica] Warning: Tech Stuff and Questions)
Message from photo at frozenlight.eu (Nathan Wajsman) ([Leica] Warning: Tech Stuff and Questions)