Leica Monochrom - Correct exposure

[mjqfoto]

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Dave, John,  Thanks for the comments.  A lot of good advice that I will start to use. If anything looks worth sharing, I will post it.  Matt

[convexferret]

I assume that you know most of what I'm going to say but I want this reply to be complete.

 

In most digital cameras, the presence of a bayer filter in front of the sensor means that the RAW file contains information for red. green and blue. If any of those channels are blown out then the postprocessing software can use the remaining two to give a fairly accurate result, which explains why you can often pull back quite a bit of highlight information in overexposed shots.

 

The monochrom, not having a bayer filter, only has one channel: grey. If it blows out then there is no remaining information with which to reconstruct the missing details. The result is that any overexposure is deadly and must be avoided at all costs. Thankfully the monochrom cameras have plenty of extra detail hiding in the shadows and so some tactical underexposure is often not a problem at all.

 

Of course having to be this careful could mean that you have to slow down a a lot and have to take multiple shots to get that perfect exposure with the brightest part of the scene almost but not quite clipping. I use my Monochrom for everything and so I do some preparation to ensure that I spend very little time worrying.

 

I live in a sunny country, so a very large % of my shots are taken in perfectly predictable light. I took a bright-but-not-reflective item (a very white t-shirt) and took multiple photos to work out the Monochrom equivalent of the sunny sixteen setting. I did the same with my customary yellow filter on. When the light is different I'll find some similarly white-but-not-reflective item and take a couple of shots to get my exposure in the ballpark. i learned to work from there and when I had any doubts, to underexpose a little. So I really just use the Monochrom meter to get me in the ballpark and the blinkies to get things perfect. I know ahead of time the settings for most common lighting conditions and will work out new settings when the light changes even if I'm not yet thinking of taking a photo.

Edited August 13, 2018 by convexferret