giordano Posted January 28, 2010 Share #81 Posted January 28, 2010 Advertisement (gone after registration) A metering system which accurately nails exposure from the starting point of highlight protection Old hands call this incident-light metering. Leica exposure meters haven't been designed for it since the 1950s. Alternatively a TTL matrix meter could perhaps be programmed to identify the (non-specular) highlights and set the exposure to peg these comfortably short of clipping. You'd need a lot of zones in the matrix, maybe a thousand would be enough. ISTM these are the only alternatives to intelligent use of a reflected-light (preferably spot or semi-spot) meter. I've never felt that TTL on M cameras makes much sense. I wish they'd instead built in a non-TTL meter with spot and incident-light sensors. If that had been the M5 I'd have lusted after it, not shunned it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted January 28, 2010 Posted January 28, 2010 Hi giordano, Take a look here Metering and Exposure. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
diogenis Posted January 29, 2010 Share #82 Posted January 29, 2010 As I understand now the expose to the right concept leads to the lowest signal to noise ratio but requires change of the exposure in pp to give the image the photographer endeavours. In contrasty szenes do you apply this rule to the hole frame or do you limit it to the main subject which could very well lead to clipping of highlights? What is your approach? Regards Steve Steve, Personally, I forgot about this rule the second I read it. Stick to the manual, how Leica wanted you to use the camera (as much post processing as possible) and forget about S/N ratios and mambo jumbo. Simple things as always: expose as much closer to clipping highlights, trying to use the least EV offset, in Auto or manual -your choice We can use better light meters, sure, but these do complicate things. Leica gives us all the tools we need, so we focus on shooting and not playing with electronics Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
diogenis Posted January 29, 2010 Share #83 Posted January 29, 2010 Steve,Personally, I forgot about this rule the second I read it. Stick to the manual, how Leica wanted you to use the camera (as much post processing as possible) and forget about S/N ratios and mambo jumbo. Simple things as always: expose as much closer to clipping highlights, trying to use the least EV offset, in Auto or manual -your choice We can use better light meters, sure, but these do complicate things. Leica gives us all the tools we need, so we focus on shooting and not playing with electronics sorry, I meant: as less post as possible... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Ash Posted January 29, 2010 Share #84 Posted January 29, 2010 Diongenes, I agree with you. Rule #1 can easily lead to failures. Best is to learn your camera and adopt to the szene. Regards Steve Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
diogenis Posted January 29, 2010 Share #85 Posted January 29, 2010 Maybe a good light meter could be of assistance here... Can someone explain to me, how come a good light meter, accurately find the luminosity of the particular frame one is shooting? Obviously, the light meter inside the Ms can take advantage of the lens that you use and be accurate within the frame you want to shoot. How can a separate light meter perform the same task accurately? I mean, are they really that much accurate? Or are they totally obsolete by todays cameras meters? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
viooh Posted January 29, 2010 Share #86 Posted January 29, 2010 "Expose to the right" is certainly not the right subject for holy wars. It seems plausible to me and it works fine for me, but everyone has to decide on his personal style and techniques - experimenting helps a lot. So, will you please simply go out, take your M9 with you and try what works for you instead of flaming everyone who suggests an approach? You won't learn how the M9 actually works and what works for you by just reading forum opinions! Cheers Peter Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stunsworth Posted January 29, 2010 Share #87 Posted January 29, 2010 Advertisement (gone after registration) Remember that if you are shooting compressed DNGs on the M9 (or using an M8) the DNG is _not_ linear, more values are assigned to the shadow areas than the highlights, so shooting to the right may exaggerate any "issues" that this mode causes in highlight detail - assuming they exist in the first place. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Ash Posted January 29, 2010 Share #88 Posted January 29, 2010 Peter, cool down. I have found the discussion to be quite interesting so far. Nobody was flaming. If the subject is settled for you be happy. Kind regards Steve Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SJP Posted January 31, 2010 Share #89 Posted January 31, 2010 I am still struggling with this exposure thing, this is my current approach: For the M8 but I guess also for other digital M's the main problem I have is that if there is anything in the image that is "fully blown" then there is no means of recovering the blown highlights. Reducing the brightness in C1 reduces everything except the blown highlight & you end up with white blotches in an otherwise OK image. For me this is much uglier than anything film gave in the past on overexposure (presumably because film has a wider & more nonlinear curve?). If you expose for the highlights, i.e. make sure that the highlight are inside the sensor range, then most of a high contrast image is underexposed but at least you keep the subtle highlight tones when you adjust brightness in postprocessing. For me this usually works fine at ISO 160 and 320 as the sensor has enough dynamic range to keep detail in the dark parts of the image. If you go to ISO 1250 (or 2500) then you want to avoid underexposure and then you should expose normally and let the highlighs fall where the may. At least that is what I thought, untill I ended up with totally blown parts of of an image that I could do nothing with. So since then I am tending to preserve the highlights as much as possible also with high ISO and then using manual, fixed ISO and the histogram is quite convenient. Comments are welcome. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
diogenis Posted January 31, 2010 Share #90 Posted January 31, 2010 Stephen, even if I am a bit confused with how you describe your problem, I will try as much as I can and help you with that thing, in the mean time if someone else wants... 1. Histograms, you cannot manipulate, they are what they are: ie they depict current scene/frame the way you see it. However, try to avoid burned highlights, the ones shown in flashing red. you can do this in two ways: a. either use A mode and play with EV offset b. use full manual mode and underexpose (left arrow) some stops The less stops you gonna use or the smallest the offset, to the point where you only see no or very few burns, is the best setting. It is where you get the brightest shadows, with less or 0 burns. In any case whenever you get any amount of burn, you can't do anything with it in post. 2. If you meant about that rule about exposing to the right, I would forget it. 3. Why do you bring ISO into this? ISO has nothing to do with exposure settings. 4. And last: what you do when you press that cool shutter button to take the camera, cannot be undone. Some claim that you can do everything in post production manipulating RAW files. You can't. You can do wonders within the limitations YOU have set for this particular scene, choosing the F and speed.Hope I helped? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest roey Posted January 31, 2010 Share #91 Posted January 31, 2010 If you go to ISO 1250 (or 2500) then you want to avoid underexposure and then you should expose normally and let the highlighs fall where the may. At least that is what I thought, untill I ended up with totally blown parts of of an image that I could do nothing with. So since then I am tending to preserve the highlights as much as possible also with high ISO and then using manual, fixed ISO and the histogram is quite convenient. The problem with low light (high ISO) is that you usually have strong lights and dark shadows and, on top of that, a severely reduced dynamic range of the sensor -- in many cases you simply can't find an exposure that preserves the highlights and renders details in the shadow. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest roey Posted January 31, 2010 Share #92 Posted January 31, 2010 To those of you who mainly use manual: My problem with that is that I lose track of the shutter speed, since it isn't displayed in the viewfinder. Do you peek at the shutter dial or do you mentally keep record of it by counting the clicks? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
diogenis Posted January 31, 2010 Share #93 Posted January 31, 2010 I am just a new manual user. What I do is this: When I decide what to frame, I decide on aperture, then a small guess on the speed, and then I turn the dial using the arrow until the ok dot. Usually I find it within +-2 stops, Then I underexpose according to how unbalanced the scene is, and maybe do some chimping Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SJP Posted January 31, 2010 Share #94 Posted January 31, 2010 The problem with low light (high ISO) is that you usually have strong lights and dark shadows and, on top of that, a severely reduced dynamic range of the sensor -- in many cases you simply can't find an exposure that preserves the highlights and renders details in the shadow. Thanks I thought I needed to go back to the drawing board after reading diogenis response to my post concerning point 3 3. Why do you bring ISO into this? ISO has nothing to do with exposure settings. So it is not a figment of my imagination that getting high ISO shots right in terms of exposure is much more difficult than at ISO 160. This is a relief, although it does not solve the problem other than practice even more. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
diogenis Posted February 1, 2010 Share #95 Posted February 1, 2010 ISO should be your last shelter if shutter speed is not enough for your shot. With it comes noise. Stay low in ISO or close to 160, play with shutter speed, raise it to stay in your sound speed and some black is not bad... its night after all. We were talking about clipping highlights in daylight pics, not in the night. In the night, I haven't seen anything to worry about except that AWB doesn't work indoors (yellow faces). I believe ISO shifts dynamic range, not reducing it... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
barcoder Posted February 12, 2010 Share #96 Posted February 12, 2010 I saw this website a while back I think posted on this forum, though I cannot find where. Ultimate Exposure Computer It talks about how to use your eyes to pick exposure and provides a handy list of values. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
diogenis Posted February 12, 2010 Share #97 Posted February 12, 2010 Nice article man! Thanks! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Andersen Posted May 25, 2010 Share #98 Posted May 25, 2010 Just left the Nikon D3 for the M9. Having a hard time getting the hang of obtaining the right exposure. Everything seems to be too dark, light or a combination of both. Any tips on the best approach. I am using the summicron 35mm at 2.0 with auto shutterspeed. Hi. The area of the metering is 50% of frame with and 75% of frame high. It is not depending of the lens. Of course, if a tele is used it mostly like s spot measuring. By using a wide angel lens outdoors, be careful not to get to much influence from the sky. Point the camera a little bit down, lock and recompose. I am experienced user with the M9 and Nikon D3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted May 25, 2010 Share #99 Posted May 25, 2010 The metering diagram is in the manual: page 115. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Andersen Posted May 25, 2010 Share #100 Posted May 25, 2010 Hi. The area of the metering is 50% of frame with and 75% of frame high. It is not depending of the lens. Of course, if a tele is used it mostly like s spot measuring. By using a wide angel lens outdoors, be careful not to get to much influence from the sky. Point the camera a little bit down, lock and recompose. I am experienced user with the M9 and Nikon D3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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