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4 min exposure with M9P?


Migs

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Friends:

 

How would you go about doing 4 minute night time exposures with the M9P? I have lots of info on night photography, and have done it with my D3s, so I would like to try it with the Leica. How would you keep the shutter open so long without a finger on the camera?

 

Thanks amigos,

 

Migs

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M9 Instructions, page 140, Quote:

 

"B setting / T function Notes:

 

The B setting keeps the shutter open for as long as the shutter release button remains pressed (up to a maximum of 240s).

In conjunction with the self timer, a T function is also available: If you set B and activate the self timer by tapping the shutter release button (see also p. 157), the shutter opens automatically after the selected delay time. It then remains open until you press the shutter release button a second time – you do not need to hold the button down. This enables you to largely prevent any blurring caused by pressing the shutter release button, even with long exposures.

In both cases, the exposure meter is disabled; after the shutter is released however, the digital display in the viewfinder shows the expired time in seconds for guidance.

 

• Long exposures can be associated with very heavy picture noise.

• To reduce this annoying phenomenon, following pic- tures with longer exposures (from around 1/30 s, dif- fering depending on the other menu settings), the LEICA M9 automatically takes a second “black pic- ture” (taken with the shutter closed). The noise measured in this parallel picture is then digitally “subtracted” from the data set for the real picture.

• This doubling of the “exposure” time must be allowed for with long exposures. The camera should not be switched off during this time.

• For shutter speeds above 2s, the message Noise reduction in progress 12s1 appears in the monitor."

 

Good luck, K-H.

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After reading K-H's response, I tried the method he explained and then removed my post.

I should have said that you are limited to about 30seconds on the AUTO setting (followed by the same length black exposure for noise reduction).

 

Perhaps I could add that it would be sensible to start with a good battery level?

 

Most interesting. Do please share some results after trying this out.

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Thank you hawinkler and hoppyman:

 

This is just what I needed. I know how to deal with the noise. In my migs.smugmug.com page I have the nocturnal pics which are a lot of fun to take. Most take up to 4 minutes at ISO 200 so no problem.

 

By the way if you are interested (or anybody reading this thread) I have lots of information to share on night time photography.

 

Thanks a million!

 

Migs

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I have not been successful in obtaining a long exposure on the M9. Each image is contaminated with ghosting and bright streaks (despite using the in camera noise reduction process). Other participants on this forum have had similar experiences. They have contacted Leica and to my knowledge, the problem persists. One explanation is that the capacity of the sensor has been exceeded!

Any input would be appreciated.:)

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It is unfortunate that the metadata does not include the sensor temperature. Was the weather hot? I'm wondering if it thermal noise.

 

Oh, but it does. This is from an M9 raw file:

 

0x3402 Camera Temperature : 19 C

 

Regards

Per

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Cool. How did you extract that information?

 

Thank, K-H.

 

The M9 has a lot in common with the M8. See here:

 

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m8-forum/94531-detect-lens-type-exif-iptc-data.html#post990952

 

In this case I simply dumped the whole metadata with exiftool:

 

# exiftool -a -u -g1 -H somefile.dng

 

A search for "exiftool" should give you plenty to read ;)

 

Regards

Per

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last year I did a series of night time shots with very long exposures- I used the B setting combined with the self timer (= T setting) which works very well- no need for a cable release. Some of the resulting images were printed very large- over 1 meter long- and looked superb.

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I think that one was around 120 seconds... I did shots up to 180 seconds. The image does not look as clean here as on my monitor- I am going to have to fugure how to correctly prepare the images. I was using a CV 15mm for soem shots and they show the red edge- but other than that I found not artifacts or weirdness... very, very sharp images.

 

The noise reduction was quite a pain- waiting up to 3 minutes between shots on a muddy riverbank at 3am with wet feet is nt exactly fun... but it does seem to work!

 

here is a 100% crop:

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Edited by jaques
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remove any filters to avoid internal reflections or ghosting, perhaps?

can you post a pic showing the kind of streaking you are getting? it's not caused by moving cars or otherwise lights in the frame, is it? a very bright light source just outside the frame may cause streaking on an m8 but i'm not sure about the m9/m9-P. i think the 240s maximum bulb exposure is an indication that long exposures are still possible with decent results but not extreme long exposures such as those for star trails, or with nd filters or very very dark night scenes. remember it is a ccd based camera so there are some limitations with long exposure. a c-mos based camera is another option. maybe experiment a bit with different iso's when taking 240s exposures..

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brill 64:

My problems occurred when using ND filters. Could the filters cause a unique problem? I believe that you had a similar problem in 2010 and were working through the issues. Have you resolved them? Did the problem disappear with removal of ND filters?

 

The image from jaques is excellent and would satisfy my needs

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I am working on the night thing. Most night pictures seem to be done in urban situations where there is a fairly strong source of artificial light. Here is one done in my back yard, where essentially one is peering into the dark. M9 35 V 4 Cron, 32 secs, F4, ISO 160. Obviously the in camera NR adds noise. I may try upping the ISO and opening the aperture to see if this helps. The actual print has pleasing tones -- just a hint of what is there. It will probably look like crap in the JPEG. Cheers.

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Edited by gjames9142
better jpeg and typo
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back in 2010, with my early m9, i found uneven streaking on files from my m9 after using a 10x nd filter. after sending the camera in to leica, i was told that the sensor and sensor controlling electronics were faulty and had been replaced. since that repair i have been a little sensitised to this issue. it has repeated a couple of times, although as banding and certainly no way as bad as the first time. when it does occur, it is inconsistent in that one dng and jpg set will suddenly appear with banding (rather than streaking) visible in post when upping the exposure and fill light 0.5-1 stop. frames either side were unaffected and completely fine. there seemed to be no particular condition when this occurred - once at high altitude in heavy snow, during a period of solar flares, once in 32C heat and direct sunlight, iso160 - leica techs were not able to recreate the faulty files but again replaced the sensor and electronics and thus far i've thankfully not had any further issues. thank you leica.

 

with very long exposures you are going to get noise and especially in daylight, if you have an nd filter on you will get internal reflections or shadowing (from the throat of the shutter box), even with a hood in direct sunlight. i've used 2 10x nd's for 3mins without issue. i would suggest that the ccd sensor is very carefully tailored to the m9's intended use and 10x, 20x or 30x nd's probably don't fall within that category of use. i think but i don't really know, to be honest. i've no idea what's happening with your files as you have only hinted and not posted a faulty image online but if you are experiencing streaking, which is not mirrored on either side of the image, i suggest that you send your camera body packaged with the original dng/jpg's on a cd and some prints annotated with exif data and the particular fault circled for clarity.

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