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M8 On the Line


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After several months of sending M8s going back to Solms and not being able to get one to work for more than a week, my latest is going strong. I've slowly been working up to a point where I could trust it on a paying shoot and today I decided to put it on the line. I had a session with the Dalai Lama (rather important shoot) and decided to go into it light, so I took one M8 body, a 35/2 ASPH, 50/1.4 ASPH and the SF20. Initially, I did a bunch of strobed shots until I was comfortable I had usable images. Then I decided to experiment and see how the camera would hold up when pushed to the limit. The room was extremely dark, and the Dalai Lama is dark skinned--which makes for a serious available light challenge. There were a couple of windows behind him, but they were shuttered and the Secret Service wouldn't allow them to be opened. The shot below, which I consider quite usable, was done at ISO 2500 with the 35/2 wide open.

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After several months of sending M8s going back to Solms and not being able to get one to work for more than a week, my latest is going strong. I've slowly been working up to a point where I could trust it on a paying shoot and today I decided to put it on the line. I had a session with the Dalai Lama (rather important shoot) and decided to go into it light, so I took one M8 body, a 35/2 ASPH, 50/1.4 ASPH and the SF20. Initially, I did a bunch of strobed shots until I was comfortable I had usable images. Then I decided to experiment and see how the camera would hold up when pushed to the limit. The room was extremely dark, and the Dalai Lama is dark skinned--which makes for a serious available light challenge. There were a couple of windows behind him, but they were shuttered and the Secret Service wouldn't allow them to be opened. The shot below, which I consider quite usable, was done at ISO 2500 with the 35/2 wide open.

 

 

Respec', as they say in some quarters. Adore and worship the M8 as I do, it's an extraordinarily brave man that goes into a shoot as important as that with one M8 and a 35 cron. However, the 50 lux is the Lama of lenses and its Karma must have saved the day!

 

Me jealous.

 

Tim

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Glad that it worked well for you. A little color noise filtering and it should be good to go. What did you think of him?

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

 

He's actually a very interesting and grounded person--completely the opposite of George Bush.

 

I forgot to mention in my post that I hadn't used any noise filtering, but I guess that was obvious.

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I'm surprised to find myself saying this, but I actually LIKE the color noise in this photo. It gives a very grain-like feel.

 

Bob--I really don't mind it either. I think a magazine editor would want it cleaned up, but for myself, I'd leave it.

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Brent,

 

Nice shot and I'm glad that you finally have a reliable working M8. I was beginning to think that you were cursed with some strange camera-disabling electromagnetic aura. ;-)

 

Larry

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Brent,

 

Nice shot and I'm glad that you finally have a reliable working M8. I was beginning to think that you were cursed with some strange camera-disabling electromagnetic aura. ;-)

 

Larry

 

Thanks, Larry. You and me both. I was starting to feel like that character from the Lil Abner comic strip who always had a black cloud over his head.

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Great shot, the 35/2 is my favourite on the M8.

 

The question I have, after playing with iso/processing, I find I can shoot at 160 and open up +2 or +3 and it looks great, better than the equivalent of setting a higher iso to begin with. This is in either Lr or C1. The thing is, I really don't know what the exposure sliders really correspond to in terms of EV, but in this setting, would it have been better to shoot at iso 640, get a too dark image, and pull it up in processing-this in terms of total noise.

 

were you at the white house, (ie w/secret service)? I have a gig there sunday.

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Very cool Brent. Way to test your cosmic fate. I read about the Dalai Lama's scheduled appearance in Madison in the Journal/Sentinel this morning. It had to be a fascinating experience.

 

Kurt

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Great shot, the 35/2 is my favourite on the M8.

 

The question I have, after playing with iso/processing, I find I can shoot at 160 and open up +2 or +3 and it looks great, better than the equivalent of setting a higher iso to begin with. This is in either Lr or C1. The thing is, I really don't know what the exposure sliders really correspond to in terms of EV, but in this setting, would it have been better to shoot at iso 640, get a too dark image, and pull it up in processing-this in terms of total noise.

 

were you at the white house, (ie w/secret service)? I have a gig there sunday.

 

Rob--I'll have to try your suggestion. It would be interesting to do a comparison. This was in Madison, WI--but he is still accompanied by SS, although they are a bit less severe than the ones with presidential folks.

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Very cool Brent. Way to test your cosmic fate. I read about the Dalai Lama's scheduled appearance in Madison in the Journal/Sentinel this morning. It had to be a fascinating experience.

 

Kurt

 

Thanks, Kurt. I figured I still had some good karma left over from my hippie days. Guess I was right.

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Guest guy_mancuso

Brent glad to see you are finally out there working it with the M8 , if anyone needed good karma you certainly do. been a rough M8 rode for you and this makes me happy to see a important shoot like this that you threw your trust in the M8 , been doing it for months myself and i am really getting very comfortable. Maybe try for yourself in B&W might look nice

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Thanks, Guy. You are right about the b&w. (Look, Ma! No noise!)

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Thanks, Guy. You are right about the b&w. (Look, Ma! No noise!)

 

What's interesting about that (and of course we're only looking at a small JPEG) is that it really does look a lot like pictures once used to when they were shot on high-speed film. It's the kind of coarseness that I keep thinking might work well for Mitch Alland.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

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Guest guy_mancuso

i wonder if you kick up the color noise filter than convert to B&W this way maybe some of the blotchy stuff may go down a little. i don't get much call for B&W so really have not played around thert but this would be a interesting image to try some fun stuff on.

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I just did a ring-round, natural light, not too rigorous, C1 defaults, which have an increasing amount of noise reduction applied as the iso goes up. Also the C1 exposure slider does increment in in EV stops that are very similar if not identical to actual exposure increments.

 

160+1,2,3,4

640+1,2,3,4

1250+1,2,3

and 2500+1,2

 

my assumption is that the M8 is really a "two speed" bike, 160 and 640.

 

The best "effective" 2500 I think might be 640 +2 in C1, and even 160+4 (+2.5 ex, 1.5midtone, and slide the wp to the left) is very competitive.

 

1250+1 was not as good as 640+2.

 

Best "effective" 1250 is 640+1, although it was very close, 160+3 is very good also, but trends towards cyan in the shadows, and starting to show some nr artifacts. Actual 1250 imo is not as good as 640+1

 

Best "effective 5000 is 1250+2. 2500+1 is not as good.

 

I think a lot of this is how C1 handles noise reduction, I could try processing another set with noise reduction set the same across the board.

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