Up until Tuesday’s white Christmas there were still some leaves left on the trees. The change from summer to fall to winter in Texas can be subtle, but there are some sprinkles of autumn-like colors. With the added colors and mild temperatures, autumn is my favorite time of year to take pictures in Texas. The Leica M9-P still has some “new toy” sparkle left, so it is the only camera I am using at the moment. And that is hardly a bad thing - after five or six years of using the digital Leica M’s, I still marvel at Leica’s craftsmanship, build quality and smallness of the system. I have tried the smaller mirror-less cameras, but the picture taking experience feels more like a cell phone than a camera. While the Leica M9-P’s tactile experience is great, I still wish the Leica M9-P DNGs were better.

Since updating to Capture One v7, the processed Leica M9 DNGs are doing better in Photoshop. The resulting TIFFs are not as robust as a processed file from the Phase One P65+ or Canon 1Ds Mark III, but to be fair, the M9 files are doing much better than a year or two ago via Capture One v6. Since the TIFFs hold together better in Photoshop, I am able to push them further, netting deeper, richer colors compared Capture One v6. I will concede that Adobe Lightroom (version 4.3) may do a better job in the rendering of clipped highlights, but I do not like Adobe’s overall look. The Capture One files have more pop and the level of detail is greater. I also prefer Capture One’s approach to lens corrections and perspective editing.

The outputted TIFF file from Capture One is then opened in Photoshop, and subjected to many curves and levels layers, most blended as luminosity to reshape the overall S curve without skewing the colors. Color balancing and saturation are blended as color layers; this way they do not alter luminosity levels. The majority of the edits are selectively applied to varying parts of the image. The net effect is just another way of dodging and burning, and effectively reshaping the S-Curve- albeit at a very localized level. Since the edits are in specific areas and different for every image, building automated in actions in Photoshop is not feasible. The average edit time per image is ~30 minutes. I do not mind the editing time, as it is relaxing if just doing a couple images per seating. Marathon editing sessions are draining and my eyes go numb after an hour or two.

Sometimes the M9 DNGs (actually the resulting TIFFs) fall apart during the editing process. My typical knee-jerk reaction is, “I should have used XYZ camera because its files would been better.” But therein lies a catch-22. Would I have taken the same picture with the Canon or Phase gear? Carrying a full-frame Canon dSLR with a Zeiss 35/1.4 ZE, 50/2 ZE and 100/2 ZE is at least 2X heavier than a comparable M kit. And if I take a kit like that into field, I curse myself for bringing such a heavy kit. Hauling medium format into the field is even more work. It is easy to compare pro’s and con’s on a technical level, but it is the imperfect analysis of ‘preference’ that undermines the best reasoned logic. Trying to reconcile what is fun to shoot in the field versus what is fun to edit on the computer is often at odds, at least for me.

As I look at the pictures from this past autumn in Texas and the trip to Maui, the Leica M9-P did well. The colors are a bit surreal, but I do prefer vibrant colors. Scaling back the Leica M9’s blues is difficult, so for me it easier to amplify everything else and try to make all the colors equally “loud”. That is my style for now, but that could change just as fast as the seasons in Texas. I hesitate in saying I am happy with the Leica M9-P files. The satisfaction level is in the 70-80% range. Thinking ahead to the Leica M Type 240 and being able to use 200mm & 300mm lenses and easily compose wide angle shot via live view - the 240 could really change things. I expect the Type 240 will score even higher on ‘preference’ ranking, even if the files are somehow less than the Leica M9-P. Utility may trump quality.