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M9 constantly underexposes


Maximus

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Why dont you check with the various light levels and see by yourself, before trying a Leica rep to see if your camera is off.

Exposure value - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

There is a chance your meter is off... use the tables, they are accurate enough...

 

Back to the roots. Very good. Thank you for the Wiki-reference!

Jan

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Seems I am unable to replicate the flashing dot next to the shutter speed display in the VF. Can anyone explain what this flashing indicates ? "Warning of values beyond the metering range" ? does not make sense in light of the above situation where every shot was under...

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A very small flashing dot will indicate that exposure compensation has been set.

The whole display flashing means that the exposure measured is outside the setting range of the camera

A large flshing red dot or triangle means the camera has reverted to standard mode in the user settings - an extremely annoying quirk- and is operating outside the parameters of that setting. The standard mode is the most useless piece of program in the camera. It is suppose to turn it into an idiot-proof point and shoot but in reality is just an annoying program that the camera reverts to sometimes without discernable reason.

Edit: a flashing dot or triangle in manual means you are outside the measuring range, but often the flashing setting will be correct.

In general, I find the camera is best used on manual exposure, especially for experienced photographers. The two triangles and red dot will give you all you need for very precise exposing.

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I'm afraid I only got as far as page 4, so ignore if these points have been raised already.

 

Firstly, you may need to do a custom WB before the white paper test. If your balance is way off you'll get 3 peaks merged into one, a red green and blue trace. These need to overlay perfectly (correct WB) to see the actual spike accurately.

 

Secondly, you also want to choose an aperture on the lens that doesn't exhibit significant vignette. Like f/4 or f/5.6. At f/2 the meter will read correctly the centre lobe but the histo will represent all the dark edges and bias towards the left.

 

I would say a photo of the in camera histo might be more useful to us, once white balanced, as it reduces the complexity of profiles, settings etc. Shoot DNG uncompressed.

 

Just my thoughts.

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I also haven't read all the pages but the first thing I thought was, if you use auto mode perhaps you've accidently set EC. To see this, half press the shutter button and then turn the thumb wheel until the display in the Viewfinder reads 0.

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Aperture Priority can be handy in a pinch but having become accustomed to metering with a hand meter back in the Blad days, I kept that habit up even with DSLR's. Sophisticated guesswork is no substitute for nailing the exposure with a good meter.

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Studio 58,

 

Going to weird settings all by itself and odd lock ups were common in the early days of the M8. I used to carry round a copy of the latest firmware and reload it every time after a lock up and that seemed to prevent the odd behaviour that could occur, if you just popped the battery to reset.

 

My suggestion is that you reload the latest firmware to eliminate the possibility of a scrambled line of code. It would certainly do no harm.

 

Wilson

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Seems I am unable to replicate the flashing dot next to the shutter speed display in the VF. Can anyone explain what this flashing indicates ? "Warning of values beyond the metering range" ? does not make sense in light of the above situation where every shot was under...

 

 

 

The blinking lights below indicate that exposure compensation is being used.

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well all is well that ends well. It can only have been a malfunction in the processor which resulted in a permanent under exposure bias being set in the camera. Reset to factory standards (in the menu) restored the exposure meter to normal. Images are now PERFECT. This is the best camera ever !!!!

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