M9 constantly underexposes

[diogenis]

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Well, he can also test histograms directly from his camera and correlate them with Lightroom's to make sure it's not a simple LR adjustment

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[adan]

Yes it had. Are you saying the Lightroom M9 profile may be at fault?

 

Well, just to clarify - the Lightroom M9 profile would be something a bit different. The "profile" has to do with color calibration specifically, under the Camera Calibration tab. With sliders for red, green, and blue hues and saturation individually. (And BTW, yes, the default camera profiles from Adobe (IMHO) are not especially accurate and I have always used the calibration pane to add permanent tweaks to Adobe's base color calibration for every camera I have ever used (including the M9) - but that's another story.....)

 

In your case, I'm thinking of the default settings for exposure, brightness, shadows, fill light, saturation, etc. I guess that tab is called "Basic" in Lightroom. (For the record, I used Adobe Camera Raw, which is more or less the "Developing" module of Lightroom with a slightly different graphic interface but the same tools and sliders).

 

If you open up a factory-fresh copy of LightRoom, all those settings have been preset by the software engineers at Adobe to certain values - but that does not mean they are the right values for all cameras (since Lightroom is used with perhaps 100 different kinds of raw files). They are just "pretty good" average settings.

 

If you never change those "Basic" settings - or change them for one picture without saving them as "new defaults" - then they continue to control how your other pictures are "developed."

 

In the case of the M9, I changed (permanently) the "brightness" setting to +60 from whatever Adobe's factory setting was ("0" or "+25" or something - I forget). I used "brightness" because it lightens the midtones without pushing the highlights off the edge of the histogram, unlike "Exposure" - and unlike adding "+" exposure compensation in the camera.

 

(I also set Exposure to 0, Fill Light to +5, Recovery to 0, Shadows to 0, and contrast to +25 - and my own default white balance of 5600K, tint +12. Again, those are defaults, and I feel free to change them individually for individual pictures as appropriate).

 

I don't know that I would say Adobe's factory defaults are "at fault" - just that they are "one size fits all", and if they don't fit my camera, I alter them to something that does fit, and save those settings as my own default.

 

(BTW - if you do save your own defaults, they are camera-model-specific. E.G. I have different defaults saved for my Canon 5D, M9 and GH-1 (and for legacy M8 and Sony R1 images), and the Adobe software will recognize which camera a file comes from (EXIF data), and apply the default for the right camera automatically.)

[Maximus]

Make sure Lightroom is set to defaults as shown here (outlined in red) for testing purposes. You can change the default any time, but the original default is good as a reference point. If you have it set this way and still have nearly all of your photos underexposed, then you should really compare your camera with another meter or camera that you trust. Any discrepancy between the two should be small.

Yes, my defaults are exactly as per your screenshot.

[Maximus]

In the case of the M9, I changed (permanently) the "brightness" setting to +60 from whatever Adobe's factory setting was ("0" or "+25" or something - I forget). I used "brightness" because it lightens the midtones without pushing the highlights off the edge of the histogram, unlike "Exposure" - and unlike adding "+" exposure compensation in the camera.

 

(I also set Exposure to 0, Fill Light to +5, Recovery to 0, Shadows to 0, and contrast to +25 - and my own default white balance of 5600K, tint +12. Again, those are defaults, and I feel free to change them individually for individual pictures as appropriate).

Thank you for this advice adan. I'm no Lightroom expert so I'd appreciate knowing how you make these changes apply automatically to all images downloaded from the M9.

[nickmk]

LFI Issue 2/2010 has an excellent article on digital sensor response and suggests deliberate underexposure (-1/3 or more) for avoiding burned highlights.

This leads me to believe that the factory may intentionally calibrate the meter for a slight underexposure to protect most newcomers from constantly blowing out the highlights.

 

My two cents

 

Nicolas

[jaapv]

Jaap, you might be referring to the article that appeared two issues ago (last month focused on color...colour...I think).

 

I thought that the point made in the prior issue was that you could trust using a mid-tone value (18%) in film to yield a proper overall exposure given the film curve. But, in digital, one can no longer trust this 18%...or midtone exposure...theory, i.e., one has to understand the sensor tendency to sharply cut off highlights, so that manual compensation is required (shifting the histogram appropriately) in order to maintain full dynamic range.

 

Perhaps my words aren't perfect, but this was the gist of the discussion as I recall. If so, then the point wasn't that sensors (or meters) are designed at something different than 18%; but rather, the very nature of digital requires us as photographers to understand sensor characteristics and adjust our practices accordingly.

 

Or, I might not know what I'm talking about.

 

Jeff

Yes - the conclusion was that if one treated sensor like film and put zone V in the middle, i.e. measured off 18% grey, the full dynamic range would not be utilized. In other words: expose for the lights and pull up the shadows in post.

I find that I nearly always give my images a little bit of S-curve. Now I understand why: my eyes are used to film and find the straight digital line boring.

[mby]

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LFI Issue 2/2010 has an excellent article on digital sensor response and suggests deliberate underexposure (-1/3 or more) for avoiding burned highlights.

This leads me to believe that the factory may intentionally calibrate the meter for a slight underexposure to protect most newcomers from constantly blowing out the highlights. (...)

 

From the M9's EXIF:

Baseline Exposure               : -0.5

 

Best regards,

Michael

[nickmk]

From the M9's EXIF:

Baseline Exposure               : -0.5

Best regards,

Michael

 

My suspicions confirmed! Thanks Michael.

 

Nicolas

[diogenis]

LFI Issue 2/2010 has an excellent article on digital sensor response and suggests deliberate underexposure (-1/3 or more) for avoiding burned highlights.

This leads me to believe that the factory may intentionally calibrate the meter for a slight underexposure to protect most newcomers from constantly blowing out the highlights.

 

My two cents

 

Nicolas

 

It is one thing to calibrate the meter for a bit of underexposure, and another to compensate. Calibration is permanent, while compensation may or may not be applied. If Leica chose to permanent calibrate the meter towards the dark side, then what will you do if you have to take night shots? or dark scenes in general?

Leica calibrates the meter using the neutral setting and it is up to the user to chose to offset this or not. We must have a starting point to begin with.

[Jamie Roberts]

From the M9's EXIF:

Baseline Exposure               : -0.5

Best regards,

Michael

 

Huh? From your M9's EXIF or from any M9's EXIF? Are you saying Leica deliberately messed the meter up then left a trace of that mess?

[adan]

I'm not LR expert either, since I use its cousin, Camera Raw - but this link tells how for LR 2.0 and I assume is a good guide for later versions as well:

 

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 * Save default settings for cameras

 

It looks like you can not only save defaults for a camera model, but also a specific camera by serial number and ISO, if you want.

 

Basically you take any image from that camera, get the settings where you want them to be for most other images from that camera, and then save those settings.

[jaapv]

My EXIF shows a baseline exposure of -0.5 as well. That is clearly the factory setting. I don't think they messed it up. That is presumably what they feel is the correct bias for a digital capture with an M9. PhotoMe explains the procedure.

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[SJP]

I am wondering whether the baseline correction is different for compressed and non-compressed M9 files. That would make sense from a scientific point of view as you have linear versus logarithmic correction and so you need to shift the average exposure to keep the same highlight headroom.

 

However the case may be, general slight underexposure on the M8 is sensible and this should be similar for the M9: you have no headroom at all and plenty of latitude on the low side of the scale.

[mby]

Huh? From your M9's EXIF or from any M9's EXIF? Are you saying Leica deliberately messed the meter up then left a trace of that mess?

 

Dear Jamie,

 

Mine and any I've seen; there ain't no mess, see further read and links at the Adobe Forums: What is the purpose of the DNG baseline...

 

Best,

Michael

[ho_co]

In film days, Leica adjusted built-in meters to underexpose slightly when compared to other cameras' built-in meters. Then the explanation was that "Leica bases its exposure parameters on color transparency film."

 

It's interesting that the same direction has been uncovered in the M9.

 

Would someone check baseline exposure bias for M8? Or point me to a Mac-compatible EXIF reader?

 

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this go along with the M8 compression algorithm, as mentioned on this forum and implied by Michael Hußmann's LFI article at the time, to wit: With M8, expose to the left, not to the right.

[diogenis]

So, Leica has already hardwired a permanent -.5 EV step, and some of us are used to add on top of it another 1/3 to 2/3 stops....

[57andrew]

So, Leica has already hardwired a permanent -.5 EV step, and some of us are used to add on top of it another 1/3 to 2/3 stops....

 

But presumably you have been happy with the output so if it works.........

 

Andrew

[250swb]

So, Leica has already hardwired a permanent -.5 EV step, and some of us are used to add on top of it another 1/3 to 2/3 stops....

 

Hmmm, so my guess that my camera was under exposing by two thirds of a stop wasn't so far out was it?

 

Steve

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[nickmk]

It's relatively clear that Leica believes that it's best to underexpose and correct in post-processing. Like it or not, they've biased the baseline exposure to force this.

This may be a result of discussions with Kodak - that we are not privy to - and may possibly have to do with the sensor's capacity to control noise under those circumstances due to the relatively large pixel size of the M9 sensor.

The correct exposure is always preferable but the nature of the camera's meter makes it more prone to (user) errors than, say, an matrix/evaluative meter in an SLR.

Leica is making sure that, more often than not, the average user obtains usable pictures.

 

Nicolas

[Maximus]

That being the case it would have been nice for Leica to share this information with users!