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Low light suggestions


Deliberate1

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Friends, the one scenario where I seem to struggle most to get good results is in low light. Whether with the 50mm Summilux or 35mm Zeiss, I have yet to find settings that give me a adequate control over DOF and movement at the lowest possible iso, while preserving acceptable image quality, particularly in the shadows. I am not so much referring to static subjects but in dynamic people settings.

Last evening I was shooting at a family party. The room full of people was lightly illuminated with overhead lighting with fading natural light as evening progressed. Shots of subjects illuminated from the side were splendid, as expected. But as the light faded I was stuck with lousy incandescent from overhead. I pushed the iso to 500 and tried to shoot at as fast a shutter speed as possible, so as to avoid unacceptable blurring. Even so, the images were often underexposed, a phenomenon that, in my experience creates ugly shadow noise, something quite unacceptable when trying to do faces some measure of justice.

Tonight I get another crack at it and would appreciate any suggestions. I will try shooting at a higher iso than 500 with the hope that I will avoid the nastiness that I get with underexposed high iso shadows. I will also try shooting as much as possible wide open and just deal with shallow dof by shooting at groups from a distance. I have never used the auto iso function. If that might help increase keepers, what parameters are suggested. Perhaps I should just give up on color and convert everything to b&w. Or should I just lay down my credit card down and buy a 240...or an ar7ii...

Much obliged.

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Depending on your tolerance for high ISO noise you can go much higher than ISO 500.  I am comfortable with 1200-1600 with mine.  It is important to not underexpose as you have learned.  In fact some overexposure (brought back in post) can reduce the shadow noise levels.  To get a sense of how much noise is in an image I will view it at 50%, which is more representative of how it will look in print or a web gallery than a 100% view.

 

I've come to understand that using ISO to compensate for poor light is not always the answer.  I also shoot with a DSLR that is relatively noise free at astronomical ISO levels. With it I found I was getting properly exposed and noise free images that were unsatisfying.  I believe the quality of an image is very much affected by the quality of light at the time it was captured.  So now I take a different approach.  In poor lighting I will often resort to indirect flash.  An on camera flash set to bounce the light from ceiling or wall can produce very soft and natural light that, properly done, produces an image that looks as if it was taken in good light without flash.

 

With my M9 I use either a Leica SF-58 or one of my Nikon flashes in auto-thyrister mode.  At base ISO I get really good images from my M9.

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Using flash is one approach of course. But when you prefer available light only there is a better way than cranking up ISO.

This only works if you are prepared to shoot DNG and do some PP.

 

My approach is to put the camera on base ISO (160) and lowest acceptable shutter speed. 1/15 or so for most static objects, 1/30 maybe for moving people.

Then open up your lens as much as your DOF concerns allow.

Your images will now be underexposed, but shooting DNG this way will allow pulling up exposure and/or shadows up to 4 stops in PP on my M9. So as long your subject is not underexposed by more than 4 stops you are fine. The M240 should be even better then the M9 at this.

Works best for +1 or +2 stops of course. 

I started doing this with my M8 and got much better results than using ISO 640 or even ISO 320 on the same camera.

 

In low light it is very common to have meter readings that will actually over expose the shot. IMO low light shots should never look like daylight.

At least you avoid overexposing images at high ISO this way, which will be extra grainy and could have been shot at lower ISO.

And you have the full dynamic range of your sensor to deal with the highlights.

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I beg forgiveness, but I have a question, rather than constructive comment:

 

In these low light conditions, where you feel forced to contemplate going beyond your preferred ISO limits, do you find that your images are less than ideal because of the challenges presented by using the rangefinder in low light? IOW, does sharpness of focus become an insurmountable issue, now matter how well the camera and lens handle the low light condition?

 

I am fairly new to rangefinder use, and encounter the conditions about which my question pertains. I am curious to know if I will likely get better at focus in low light, or if hit-and-miss focus in low light is just a hard fact of rangefinder use.

 

Best regards,

 

Wayne

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Wayne, that is a fair question to pose. A wide open lens gives you the most shallow depth of field. Accurate focusing becomes more critical. The challenge is enhanced when using longer lenses with more compressed dof. Certainly the absence of hard edges to use as focusing aids can also be an issue, particularly at distance. Insurmountable, no. A fact of rangefinder life, yes. But when it all comes together, it can be a thing of beauty. I try to pre-focus in those situations by setting estimated distance on the lens with fine tuning once up to the eye. Sometimes it is very difficult to even get to the focus range in low light situations if you are so far off to begin with. Hold this helps.

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In low light f/1.4 is often not enough light for the M9, and even that speed at 50mm is hard to handle.

 

There is a simple, effective solution, which will take the M9 into any light, without a flash for about 700USD.

 

It's called the Voigtlander 35/1.2 and I use it all the time in the dim. You have enough DOF because it's 35mm.

 

It's so fast this shot is base ISO:

 

15988097602_1216cd1319_b.jpg

Mike by unoh7, on Flickr

 

Here I'm up to ISO400, but that's at 1/90 :)

 

15721738095_f2ee639931_b.jpg

Milagros by unoh7, on Flickr

Edited by uhoh7
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I thought the critical ISO point on the M9 was 640  - i.e. above that there is no advantage only increased process noise.

 

Like the previous poster, I find a fast 35mm more forgiving than the same speed of 50mm ; i.e. improved DOF/ likely-hood of catching focus on a live target and ability to hand hold to slower speeds.

 

I would not buy a M.240 to replace my M9  - the Q shows what's possible with newer sensors ; so hold on as long as possible ( end of year for next M model ? )

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An aside on dpitt's technique. This is exactly what the camera is doing anyway, whenever you use an ISO above the base setting.

 

A image sensor is a pretty simple device - it takes in photons of light and spits out electrons in proportion. The electrons are counted to determine how bright the picture should be. That proportion is fixed. When you crank up the ISO, the sensor does not spit out more electrons. It does not change its sensitivity.

 

Shoot at ISO 640, and you feed the sensor 1/4 as many photons as at ISO 160, and the flow of electrons is also 1/4 what it would be at ISO 160. The camera's other electronics simply count the electrons and multiply by 4 to produce an ISO 640 picture (or by 8 to get an ISO 1250 picture).

 

If there are spurious electrons spit out by the sensor due to cosmic rays, heat in the electronics, or random quantum events, that spurious data is the "noise" and gets multiplied along with the real data. 1x, 4x, 8x.

 

But it doesn't matter whether the camera does the multiplying, or you do it on the computer afterwards. I used the same idea with the Digilux 2 - which insisted on "smoothing" the noise at any ISO set above 100 (in jpegs) and smeared a lot of detail. If I needed 400 for given light, I underexposed 2 stops at ISO 100 and brought the picture brightness up in the computer.

 

http://www.xstonepictures.com/images/100_400_wall.jpg

 

Anyway - back to low-light shooting in general, and incandescent light in particular.

 

Under yellow incandescent light, an RGB color sensor is "blind" in the blue pixels - 1/4 of your picture.

 

This picture shows what your camera "sees" under warm light (in this case, candles - M9, 35 f/1.4, ISO 2000) Full-color at top left, with what is recorded by each color channel.

 

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The blue channel is nearly all black (bottom right). With that much data missing, there's not much you can do. If you try to white-balance it (increase the presence of blue) you are essentially pushing the blue pixels 4-5 times as much as the picture overall (so ISO 500 exposure gets you effectively ISO 25,000 noise in the blue channel) to dig anything out of all that blackness.

 

You could use a bluish color-balancing filter, as was used in the film days. But that just blocks red and green light, to give the blue pixels an equal chance - so you have to crank up the overall exposure by 2 stops (ISO 500 goes to ISO 2000).

 

You could just leave the color balance alone and live with the "natural" yellow color of the light.

 

You can get a Monochrom - which eliminates the light loss of the colored sensor filters (but also the color).

 

Or you can use flash, which is daylight/sunlight-balanced, and thus produces blue light in roughly equal proportions to red and green. Not only brighter and faster (electronic flash pulse is 1/1000 - 1/10,000 second) - but all the channels get light.

 

As W. Eugene Smith once said - "Available light means any light that's available - including what's in my camera bag."

 

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What raw processor are you using? The later versions of Lightroom have much improved noise reduction algorithms.

 

I've read that the M9 and M Monochrom have a two-stage analog pre-amp. Some have suggested that ISO640 with EV-2, then pushed in Lightroom is cleaner than shooting ISO2500. You should experiment. You should also experiment with different SD cards. I use 4x 8GByte Sandisk cards and PNY cards over the faster cards as they induce less noise in the image. You can look up issues of various "extreme" Sd cards producing noise in the recorded image.

 

15897051739_45238f94ef_o.jpgCanon 100/2, wide-open. ISO5000 eqv by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

 

This shot is "pushing it". ISO2500 at EV-1, then pushed using Lightroom 4.4 for an ISO5000 equivalent. 

Canon 100/2, wide-open at 1/60second. It was very dark, lighting only by disco lights.

 

15552147314_0cedd3df44_o.jpgSkate and Fun by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

 

ISO2500 with the M9, Nikkot 8.5cm f2 wide-open, 1/125th second. Minimal NR applied.

 

It is also worth having a 50/1.1 Nokton in the arsenal, in addition to the 35/1.2 Nokton. I have and use both.

 

19589835165_78f7a94ab0_o.jpgSkyline Caverns by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

 

ISO2500 on the M Monochrom, 50/1.1 Nokton wide-open.

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I am fairly new to rangefinder use, and encounter the conditions about which my question pertains. I am curious to know if I will likely get better at focus in low light, or if hit-and-miss focus in low light is just a hard fact of rangefinder use.

 

Wayne

 

I suspect you will get better at focusing with practice.   I also shoot with a Nikon Df (manual focus only) and In low light levels I find I can manually focus a bit more accurately with my Leica rangefinder. Also, I find accurate focus takes a bit longer with the Df than with my M. So in my hands the rangefinder is the best choice for manual focus in low light.

 

I find that one's vision is a major factor in accurate manual focusing.  I focus much more accurately now that my astigmatism has been corrected and the proper diopter is mounted to correct my near vision.  

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I beg forgiveness, but I have a question, rather than constructive comment:

 

In these low light conditions, where you feel forced to contemplate going beyond your preferred ISO limits, do you find that your images are less than ideal because of the challenges presented by using the rangefinder in low light? IOW, does sharpness of focus become an insurmountable issue, now matter how well the camera and lens handle the low light condition?

 

I am fairly new to rangefinder use, and encounter the conditions about which my question pertains. I am curious to know if I will likely get better at focus in low light, or if hit-and-miss focus in low light is just a hard fact of rangefinder use.

 

Best regards,

 

Wayne

In actual fact the rangefinder is the best manual system to focus in low light, and it does not need the "laserbeam" used by AF as an aid. To begin with, just focus on a specular highlight.

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Total agreement with Luke. I also have the Nikon Df, and have used it with a Nikkor 85/1.8 manual focus in situations where the AF assist gives up. I have ~40% success rate with nailing the focus with skaters in low light. I do much better with the M9 and M Monochrom with the 85/2, 100/2, and 105/2.5  in the same situations. It is also easier to pan with the skaters during the exposure as there is no black-out. I use a 1.25x magnifier on the Leicas for the fast lenses and telephotos.

Edited by fiftyonepointsix
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Make the flash look natural.   Ceiling bounce,  color it with amber gel to match indoor light,  use a little card to throw some light forward.   I use SB910 Nikons on a flash bracket connected to a Wein Safe Sync on the camera.

 

Fighting with indoor light is a waste of time.  It is always from the wrong direction and has nasty shadows.   Do not believe Leica advertising.

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I just checked out some of my low-light factory shots. I think low light is actually an area in which the Leica rangefinder excels.  Focusing is demanding, more so close up. I found I used ISO400 mostly but occasionally ISO800. Color balance varies considerably so you might like to vary white balance. I used manual exposure but you might like to experiment with Auto exposure and set your lens wide open. You could also try using a separate exposure meter such as the Sekonic 308.

 

 

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Here are some photos I took during a night festival in my city.  This is with the M8.2.  I would've loved to have an M9, I could probably do a lot more with it in very low light photography.

 

My M8.2 was paired with a Voigtlander Nokton 50mm f/1.1, all photos were taken at f/1.1.  No flash.

 

ISO around 320-640.  Shutter speed mostly 1/60 but occassionally down to 1/45. 

 

8501126622_ddabcffd88_z.jpg

 

 

 

 

8501124784_f2a8e16869_z.jpg

 

 

 

 

8501104600_fc46ee6b5f_z.jpg

 

 

 

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8499987171_d7c3a2d63c_z.jpg

 

 

8500061687_669a899235_z.jpg

 

This photo of a couple dancing was taken at f/1.1, shutter 1/45, ISO 320:

 

8501188242_0417e53c59_z.jpg

Edited by Lax Jought
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The above post reminded me that some people use compressed DNG-8 on the M9... I've used uncompressed DNG since the second month that I bought the M9.

 

With the M8: I shoot Base ISO 160 using Raw mode, and dial in -3ev and push in post for ISO1250 shots:

These two are with the M8; the M9 would be slightly better. I've shot them side-by-side under this lighting.

 

15975688193_1846264090_o.jpgSkate and Fun Zone by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

 

For ISO2500 and ISO5000, I go to manual exposure and correct in post-processing.

 

16418163058_fa4941ea47_o.jpgSkate and Fun ISO2500 by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

 

Having uncompressed DNG is much more important for High-ISO/Low-Light with the M9 and M8.

 

Use Uncompressed DNG for the M9, and use the "Button dance" and M8RAW2DNG for the M8. The DNG-8 compression scheme does not do well at High-ISO and low-light.

Edited by fiftyonepointsix
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M-E with 75 Cron @ f2.0, 1/90s, 1600 ISO

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Edited by Duane Pandorf
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M-E with 35 Lux ASPH. (pre-FLE) @ f1.4, 1/45s, 640 ISO

 

 

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