M9 exposure compared with slide film question

[yst]

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Greetings!

 

I wonder how much difference, or how important will be for -0.5 / +0.5 stop in exposure with the M9? ( or for amount of bracketing)

 

In slide film photography, the -0.5 or +0.5 stop in exposure difference often means make or break in the image quality. How would that half stop difference in M9 digital photography?

 

Appreciated with your experience...

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[nggalai]

Mornin’,

 

Greetings!

 

I wonder how much difference, or how important will be for -0.5 / +0.5 stop in exposure with the M9? ( or for amount of bracketing)

 

In slide film photography, the -0.5 or +0.5 stop in exposure difference often means make or break in the image quality. How would that half stop difference in M9 digital photography?

 

Appreciated with your experience...

 

If you shoot JPEG, the better the exposure, the better your final image will be. There’s rather little leeway to correct exposure in post-production when using JPEG.

 

If you shoot RAW/DNG, mind, there’s a lot you can tweak and tune during post-pro, especially exposure. Which also means that a number of photographers don’t worry about exposure anymore as you often can correct +/- 1.5-2 EV depending on what you want to do with the image later on. DNG needs to be processed anyway; e.g. the M9 doesn’t use any noise reduction for its DNG files.

 

Personally, I try to expose as best as I can, simply because I constantly switch between film and digital cameras and don’t want to become sloppy. One exception though: If I had to crank up ISO beyond 1250 and there’s dim light / lots of shadow detail I want to capture I overexpose as much as is feasible. Even if this means blown highlights. Using DNG, you often can save those up to about +1 EV overexposure in post-pro. But you can’t put back lost shadow detail.

 

For reference: Expose Right

 

Reichmann’s observations about how digital sensor capture and process light are valid for the M9’s CCD, too.

[*j-w-m*]

If I were bracketing, I would probably use full stop increments rather than half stops, given the flexibility of raw to adjust exposure in post. Half increments would be useful if you were only shooting JPEGs, but I don't ever shoot that way.

[jaapv]

You can indeed shift exposure on raw files, but every shift loses dynamic range and is undesirable. The old rule still holds - get it right in the camera!