The Price of Performance: Do You Really Get What You Pay For?
WARNING: EXTREMELY LONG POST AHEAD. SKIP IF YOU DON'T HAVE ABOUT EIGHTEEN HOURS TO READ IT.
:)
For those of you who shoot Fuji or Nikon in addition to your Leicas, you may find this very unscientific or unfair and very practical (some say amateurish) rendering comparison to be of interest.
It just so happens that I ...umm, just happened...to find my old Nikon D80, with a Nikon 35/1.8 G lens. With a crop sensor and a CCD chip, it's a pretty interesting camera. I bought it new in 2008 and used it solidly for 5 years before getting my first digital M (rarely shot my M3s those days, and I regret it now that I can't get film easily).
I had been planning to compare the Fuji X-E2 output with the Fujinon 35/1.4 vs. my Leica TL2 with Summilux-M 35/1.4. When I found the Nikon, I figured I'd add it to the list for giggles. I mean, what could a decade-old camera possibly do better than a current one?To make it all more confusing, I decided to try the Leica Summilux lens on the X-E2 (Fotodiox adapter) as a way to get some clue into the sensor and software differences between a (when new) $700 camera and a $3,250 camera.
The results may or may not speak for themselves, depending on your aesthetic senses or ocular abilities.
The full-res image files (or at least the maximum Facebook allows) are attached, with corresponding watermarks describing the lens manufacturer and body (Fuji Fuji = Fuji lens and Fuj body, Fuji 35 Lux = Leica M lens used with an adapter for X-to-M). The Nikon was used only with the Nikkor lens because I didn't have an adapter for that camera.
Now this is by no means a scientific comparison. But I promise I tried. I kept the environment the same, and the shots were taken within a span of about 10 minutes, so lighting is roughly the same.ISO ranged from 320 at the lowests (on the Leica) to 1600 at the highest (I set that as the max for all 3 cameras, set it at ISO Auto, and limited shutter speed to a max of 1/60th). Funnily, the Nikon's highest setting IS 1600 - the CCD sensor, I'm guessing.I'm sure others would have used tripods, and perfected focus, and flash (I have no idea how, or why, to use those things) but I was shooting manual lenses on the Fuji and Leica.
At my age, I probably missed tack-focus a few times, but it doesn't really matter - something, somewhere in each image is in focus. I was most interested in the color rendering, bokeh, clipping, and flaring.
ALL PICTURES were shot in their RAW equivalents, and converted to JPG via Exposure 3.5 with NO ADJUSTMENTS made to any of the sliders other than White Balance because the Fuji was rendering very dark blue. The Leica was perfect, and the Nikon a tad too warm. I left everything else, including exposure and contrast, alone, as I really wanted to see what out-of-camera RAW looks like.
My thoughts:
The CCD sensor, as dated as it is (2007ish) has spectacular color rendering and pop. To me, it's arguably better than the CMOS sensors on the Leica or the Fuji, but the Leica does come pretty close. I saw similar differences in the M9 vs M 240, but some post production sorts it all out.
The dynamic range of the Leica is significantly better than the Nikon (14 stops vs 10 stops), and somewhat better than the Fuji (12 stops). This is clearly seen when you examine the images in Lightroom or Exposure. The TL2 uses almost the entire Histogram range, whereas the Nikon skews to the right-side highlights and the Fuji skews to the left (heavily)
The Fujinon glass is spectacular, and is noticeably sharper than the Leica but nowhere near as creamy. Lovely bokeh, but not Leica boke. I prefer the Leica by a large margin, because for street photography sharpness is meaningless (at least to me) and "attitude" is more important.
The Leica Summilux still holds its own against the Fuji and Nikon in terms of light gathering and overall rendering/color. The lens I use is 47 years old (!) and is neither aspherical nor apochromatically corrected. It has some haze and scratches, and its coating is probably deteriorated. The Nikon lens is 11 years old, and the Fuji lens is 4 years old. And yet the Summilux kills it every time. It was also once the smallest fast lens made by anyone.
The X-E2 is a damn good clicker, even though mine is 5 years old and there's newer tech. I'm pleasantly surprised by that. This is a camera I bought as a stop gap whilst waiting for my M-P 240 to arrive, and I've rarely shot it since. Given its light weight, good autofocus, and great X Trans sensor, I may start taking it out again.
The combination of the Fuji sensor and Fujinon lens is more pleasing to me than the Fuji with the adapted Leica lens. The Nikon with Nikon lens is similarly great. But the Leica with Leica lens is certainly more interesting and more "3D" than the others. Seems like the OEM lenses work best on the respective bodies. That makes sense, given that the sensors/software are optimized to OEM lenses rather than 3rd party ones.
Conclusions? Very few, actually. As I said, OEM Bodies with OEM Lenses seem to work best and/or make the best out-of-camera images. I'm guessing this has something to do with tweaking sensors and software to maximize the strengths and minimize the weaknesses of the related glass. The TL2 is spectacularly good. High ISO performance is better than my M. The Fuji is a great buy for the money. The X-E3 and 35/1.4 Fujinon lens will set you back about 1400 bucks. The TL2 with the equivalent Leica lens would be about 7500.
The Nikon D80 has no skin in this game. Firstly, it's out of production, as is pretty much anything with a CCD sensor. That's a shame, because studio work with decent lighting where you don't need to go above 1000 or so ISO is a great place to take advantage of a CCD's incredible depth and vibrance of color. Secondly, I used it simply because I was curious about how it looked next to [the CMOS] Fuji and Leica images. I am so pleasantly surprised that I think i may start carrying it around (in the daytime, of course) once in a while.
And so the chapter ends. Next time I want to throw my M-P into the mix to see how the APS-C and Full Frame compete.
Hope this will be of interest to a few folks. As I said, not a scientific comparison by any means, but rather, a real-world side-by-side that the pixel-peeper types will probably hate. In which case, please keep scrolling
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