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M9, High ISO, Lightroom 3


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I was covering a reading by Michael Horowitz - poet and publisher, contemporary of Ginsberg and Corso + currently candidate Professor of Poetry at Oxford... I was asked by the organisers not to work with a tripod and not to use a "noisy" camera - and also not to work from the front...

 

I used the M9 + 135 3.4 Apo Telyt for most of the shots (50 lux asph for a couple) - shooting fully open at ISO 2000 (psychologically blocked going to 2500?). As a proof of fitness for purpose I was very very pleased. Processing in LR3 leaves me feeling that 2000+ is now fully useable for reportage + confirms how useful it is to have the 135 in the bag...

 

There's a set from the shoot on my Flickr (Michael Horowitz / 2010 Kathleen Raine Memorial Lecture - a set on Flickr) and for interest I give an example below + 100% crop. IMHO, if you're using LR3, the M9 can now deliver high ISO work to professional standards. For reportage, documentary / wedding work we don't have to be afraid of the dark...

 

I'd find it interesting to see how others are experiencing this - and also to get a sense of most successful post-processing approaches.

 

(MODERATOR - grateful if we could leave this in the M9 area as it's actually specific to this specific sensor).

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Where you can't move youself a tele is the one option. The 135 seems to be quite easy for you to focus!

Is the Lightroom 3 so different working with high ISO? I'm using capture one ,which I like very much the colors. May be I'm going to try L3.

Your pictures are superb and IMHO totally usable. The light was easy and uniform. But may be with more difficult light the result won't be so nice. :confused:

Very interesting!

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I share with the extreme satisfaction of the combination M9-LR3

 

Your photos do project the real ambiance of such unique places and audience. Can't think of another way to make such shoots without adding harsh artificial effects to what must have been a very special event.

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Chris,

since the M9 came out I did limit myself just to 2500 ISO ;) , actually LR3 is pushing hard the boundaries of the camera's ISO to a higher level, and I think that 2500 ISO is fully useable now.

I experienced, FYI, much more effectiveness of LR3 noise reduction with the M9 than the D700, probably because of the Nikon in-camera already good noise reduction? Or maybe the grain difference between CMOS and CCD? (my feeling is the latter).

 

I've shot a couple of wedding just by using 2000-2500 ISO in the dancing moments, and the results combined with LR3 (it was still the Beta version) where absolutely great.

 

With the Nikon I (actually my assistant) had to use anyway the flash, as to compensate the diaphragm differences (2.8 zoom vs 1.4 prime), so I can call myself satisfied.

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Thanks for kind comments :-)

 

Is the Lightroom 3 so different working with high ISO? I'm using capture one ,which I like very much the colors. May be I'm going to try L3.

 

Miguel - I've discussed the LR2 / LR3 difference here:

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/digital-post-processing-forum/128687-high-iso-horrible-light-m9-lr3.html#post1355504

I don't know C1 these days so I'd be really interested to see what results you are getting with high ISO images. I've put a copy of the RAW from the image that I showed on this thread on my DropBox FTP site: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/862415/001_L1006282.dng - if anyone feels like having a go with C1 I'd be interested to see the difference in noise handling.

 

BTW - in terms of "The light was easy and uniform. But may be with more difficult light the result won't be so nice." ... it wasn't that brilliant - but I've got a couple of things coming up where light is likely to be more difficult. I'll use 2500 and see what it does!

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To get the benefit of LR3's new noise reduction, you must go the the Develop module and scroll down to the Camera Calibration section, and make sure that Process is set to "2010 (Current)" — not to "2003". The 2003 setting is not nearly as good.

 

Then go to Develop on the top menu and click on "Set Default Settings" and click on "Update to Current Settings". This way, when new M9 files are imported, they will get the new defaults. Files that were previously imported will, I believe, still be set to 2003 and have to be reset or synced to the new 2010 process.

 

For high ISO files, you may want to start with about 20 for luminance and 50 for color and adjust to taste.

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Chris, can you please tell us how far you needed to adjust the luminance and chroma noise adjustments in LR3 to achieve results that satisfied you for most of the ISO 2000 shots? Thanks!

 

Tim - the first image has NO N.R. The second had the settings Luminance > 15 / Detail > 50 / Contrast > 0 / Color > 40 / Detail > 50. I'm still working out the impact of the Contrast and Detail sliders... The luminance sliders could have gone way higher - but it would have started to go very plasticky. As it is - the noise levels in the final version would be absolutely fine for print. For me, this is a complete revelation - LR3 + the M9 is really really good. Maybe the next firmware request is 3200? Quite nice to have that extra stop....

 

Hope this helps.

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Just started to play around with this as well. Shot a series in 800 ISO last night (which is my usual top limit for color photos) and in LED stage light (which is always a lot of pain when you adjust the most tiny things)

 

This is the full image, and below a crop the size of a 60" screen (a crop from the full 114 centimeters wide image).

 

This is VERY good colors and even better noise level. So I'm definitely going to experiment with higher ISO in the coming days and weeks to find my new maximum working ISO.

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Thanks for kind comments :-)

 

 

 

Miguel - I've discussed the LR2 / LR3 difference here:

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/digital-post-processing-forum/128687-high-iso-horrible-light-m9-lr3.html#post1355504

I don't know C1 these days so I'd be really interested to see what results you are getting with high ISO images. I've put a copy of the RAW from the image that I showed on this thread on my DropBox FTP site: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/862415/001_L1006282.dng - if anyone feels like having a go with C1 I'd be interested to see the difference in noise handling.

 

BTW - in terms of "The light was easy and uniform. But may be with more difficult light the result won't be so nice." ... it wasn't that brilliant - but I've got a couple of things coming up where light is likely to be more difficult. I'll use 2500 and see what it does!

Thank you, Chris

Really interesting. I think that I'm going to try L3. It seems to be much better dealing with noise.

About my comment about the light, I thought that It was easy to set the perfect exposure then you get less noise. And some kind of lights are more likely to produce more noise than others. But as I can see in the post 12 the NR of L3 works very good.

Thank you again.

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ISO 3200/36° would be 1/3 of an extra stop.

 

Woops - true!

 

Thorsten - great image... Can you confirm if this is LR or C1 processed - I can't remember what your default software is... Also - interesting to know which lens. Nocti standing up close - or was it a longer lens?

 

Best

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Woops - true!

 

Thorsten - great image... Can you confirm if this is LR or C1 processed - I can't remember what your default software is... Also - interesting to know which lens. Nocti standing up close - or was it a longer lens?

 

Best

 

LR 3 upgrade since Friday. Used 2.6.x till then.

 

C1 is too plastic to my taste (the sharpness) so haven't used since September 09.

 

The lens is the 50/2 fully open.

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This shot I took by mistake at 6400ISO (E-P1).

Just for comparison of noise, as I rate this NG for other reasons.

Old 2003 LR process and NIK Define.

All EXIF data there.

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