Leica On High

My friend Jack took this view of Green Bay's Lambeau Field yesterday from the roof deck of the brand new South End Zone, which adds 7,000 new seats to the old stadium. Last year, he would have needed a hot air balloon to get this view.

Here's a larger version, and here's the story. Note the crops showing the ball in the air, as a demonstration of the Leica S2's resolution. And that's with a 24mm (19mm equivalent angle of view*) lens!

The Packers beat the Washington Generals 128-3, and Aaron Rodgers' QB rating was 286. He threw for 680 yards**, tying a Packers record.

Mike

*The S2 has a 45x30mm sensor, so the crop factor is ~.8x.

**These numbers might not be 100% accurate. As I've mentioned before, I have a poor memory for numbers.

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Jason Sewell: "Great shot. But there appears to be slight up/down motion blur. Or is this a lens issue?"

Mike replies: As always with the Web, you have to keep in mind that you're not seeing the actual picture--you're seeing a small JPEG of it through several generations of web software. I'm sure what you're seeing is some kind of digital artifact, given how sharp the extreme crop is:

And even that is several generations away from the original!

Ctein comments: Normally pixel-peeping is an inappropriate way to look at a photograph, but you can't say Mike didn't invite it in this case! Hell, made it well-nigh irresistible. [Grin]

Anyways…there's definitely an asymmetry in the sharpness. It could be partly a depth of field issue as semilog suggests, as the picture is sharpest at the bottom (closest) and gradually loses definition towards the top (further away). You wouldn't think depth of field would be an issue at this distance with an ultra-wide-angle lens, but when you're pixel peeping at this level (at 100% size, it's almost a 3.5x5' photograph on my screen) DoF can be astonishingly shallow.

I'm thinking that's not it entirely. There's a peculiar doubling of the fine detail in the big screen at the top of the stadium. Quite evident in the lettering. It looks just a little bit like camera shake. Does the Leica S2 have a vertical-traveling focal plane shutter? If so, it's entirely possible to have a photograph where a bit of camera shake affects the top of the photograph but not the bottom (or vice versa).

But…I'm thinking that's not it entirely, either. Because if you look at the trees  near to the screen, behind it, they are pretty blurry, but look a little further to the left or the right and they become quite sharp. (And towards the extreme edges get a little smeary, but that's normal in ultrawide angle lens, especially with this degree of pixel peeping.  Remember—3.5x5' print! That's feet, not inches.)

So, my vote?  What semilog says: toss in turbulence/thermals in the atmosphere. It can produce effects just like this, that vary from spot to spot in the picture. Normally you only see them with telephoto lenses, which magnify the effect. But normally you're not pixel-peeping on such a high-resolution image.

I'm pretty certain what you're seeing is not a lens quality issue. Decentering in a lens can produce an asymmetric image in pretty complex patterns, but the superb quality at the bottom of the photograph—tack-sharp along the lower edge and no noticeable smearing until you get to the extreme corners and there it's quite symmetric—argue against that. Decentered lenses can look good on one side of a photograph and bad on the other, but not this good.

My two cents' worth.

Andy Kowalczyk: "Yes, the color balance is atrocious. The entire stadium is overwrought with Green and Yellow. A superb football picture demands a color palette rich in Navy Blue and Orange! —Andy Kowalczyk, Chicago."

Comments

[Hans van Driest]

there is something strange with this image. part is sharp, but especially the yellow part seem smeared, as if only the yellow is moved. makes me dizzy when looking at 100%.

[Jason Sewell]

Great shot. But there appears to be slight up/down motion blur. Or is this a lens issue?

[Hernan Zenteno]

Nice view but too yellow. Is crazy how expensive this machine is but sometimes don't deliver accurate colors.

[Jim]

Washington Generals???

[James Sinks]

I thought there was motion blur too...but look at the bottom of the image--nice n sharp. Then the far part--simultaneously blurry and busy. My conclusion? It's just ugly bokeh.

[Semilog]

Hans von Driest comments that the image is not uniformly sharp. That is clearly and obviously a depth of field (and possibly, atmospheric clarity and thermal convection) issue. Things in the foreground are bitingly sharp while more distant objects are blurred.

Hernan Zenteno worries about color fidelity. He needs to consider that this photograph was taken under mixed lighting: stadium lights and ambient light from mostly overcast sky. No camera on earth could achieve a consistent white balance across that entire scene without some post-processing.

[David Teo]

When I just post a photo without any explanation of the equipment used, I get nice comments about how the picture looks. When I specifically mention I shot it with my Leica M9, I get comments like how noisy the picture is at the iso used, or how a Nikon or canon would have produced a file of even superior quality, or how expensive the camera is given the poor technical quality of the file produced.

True story :D

[John Winder]

Mike, Mike, you don't have to rub it in.
.//john (a Washington fan)

[Jack]

Herman,
Color accuracy is in the mind of the football fan, or the adjusted monitor. First be aware that the color for the Packers is Green and Gold, not yellow. Blame my monitor, or LR raw conversions but not the sensor.

Regarding sharpness, there definitely were atmospheric issues at work.Those fans are hot and worked up. The players are more distinct. The fans in the stands with the heat rising are a bit smeared I agree. Not an issue of depth of field as the shot was at f11. Perhaps approaching diffraction issues?
But the 24mm lens is extremely good, Perhaps it's just that Mike usually doesn't allow visitors to view a huge photo at such detail. I attached a link to a blow-up of a tiny bit of the right side of the image where I checked if generations of jpeg were creating problems, and it doesn't seem to be. This crop would normally be viewed as a 2"x2,5" crop out of a 30"x20" enlargement of the whole image. Yet I offered it up as a roughly 5"x6" web crop to show the level of detail.

http://www.reddotforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=2386&d=1379386621

[Mark]

Sharp enough to notice that with all the jerseys being worn, not a single Packers 4 jersey can be seen :)

[JTW]

Let him take that same shot in January ..... if the Badgers get that far.

[Ken]

I like the image. It brought back memories of a Gator bowl game I went to. I was sitting in the end zone and had a similar view. I find that when people buy an image it is very often associated with a memory they have. They are not looking for technical perfection, they are looking for the memories. Just don't mess up the memories and you can find an audience.

[ctein]

Dear Hernan,

The color is entirely fine on my calibrated system.

This is an important thing to remember in general–– if a photograph you look at online appears to have color or tonal placement problems, don't assume the problem lies in the photograph. There are many possible causes for this: your monitor isn't calibrated, your browser is interpreting the file incorrectly, the color profiles aren't being properly recognized and honored, the web publishing software may be wonky. None of those reflect upon the original photograph.

pax \ Ctein
[ Please excuse any word-salad. MacSpeech in training! ]
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-- Ctein's Online Gallery http://ctein.com 
-- Digital Restorations http://photo-repair.com 
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[ctein]

P.S. With the datum provided by Jack (namely, f/11) I can pretty confidently say it's not about depth of field. Even taken down to the pixel-peep level, the DoF for this lens at f/11 would be, ummm (...one moment... mental arithmetic)... a good 10 meters to infinity, if not wider. The nearest folks are a lot further than 10 meters away.

pax / Ctein

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Unrelated to photography, it's hard for me to imagine paying money to see any event from this point of view.

[Jim Mooney]

I have nothing to add other than:

GO PACK GO!

Jim
A Packer's fan in PA