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huwge

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I continue to be amazed at the detail the M8 seems to retain in apparent darkness. Have been playing around with manual exposure as I am still not comfortable with the A mode. As a consequence I seek out images where I know exposure will be tricky. So, these are not meant as examples of artistic photography bur rather tool familiaration shots.

 

The first shot was exposed by guess work on the lit area at the end of the tunnel. The revised image was first edited in C1 and then I masked the lit area and extracted shadow detail. On the one hand I think this is great, but it does seem to remove some of the need to expose correctly in the first place. I need to get out and about with the film Ms so that I don't get too lazy.

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Wow, you mean you got the second image out of first image? That is amazing.

 

Yup. As I said, the pictures aren't really about anything other than showing the amazing detail retained in the files. In many respects, I have taken the edited image too far but was quite surprised by the level of detail extracted from apparent darkness.

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I have found much the same with the M8 and the detail recorded. In my DSLR work I would often use an ND grad to gain extra range, but tend to find that I can tweak the image only as little to bring back the highlight and shadow detail without adding lots of noise. I find the key is to expose for the highlights (e.g. sky) and then adjust shadow detail. Most of the time this works well, but where there is a big difference the "recovered" shadows can look somewhat artificial. Everything in moderation!

 

I'm not sure if the sensor in the M8 is actually capable of a broader range than a typical DSLR (I use a Canon 5D which is reputedly one of the better examples) but it works for me and means that I can use my M8 for most of my landscape work rather than having to cart around the rather bulky Canon system.

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I have found much the same with the M8 and the detail recorded. In my DSLR work I would often use an ND grad to gain extra range, but tend to find that I can tweak the image only as little to bring back the highlight and shadow detail without adding lots of noise. I find the key is to expose for the highlights (e.g. sky) and then adjust shadow detail. Most of the time this works well, but where there is a big difference the "recovered" shadows can look somewhat artificial. Everything in moderation!

 

I'm not sure if the sensor in the M8 is actually capable of a broader range than a typical DSLR (I use a Canon 5D which is reputedly one of the better examples) but it works for me and means that I can use my M8 for most of my landscape work rather than having to cart around the rather bulky Canon system.

 

I tried a few tests with the 5D and found that both cameras retained similar amounts of shadow detail. But when I dragged the shadows of the 5D files up into the midtones I got a bit more noise than on the M8. However on the canon I can overexpose more and recover, whereas on the M8 it does not look as good imo. so each camera has its own strategy.

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each camera has its own strategy.

 

I think that's right. The M8 does not allow much retrieval from over exposed areas of an image, but does an amazing job of delivering low (no) noise detail from under-exposed (in shadow) areas. It explains, perhaps, my sense that in A mode the tendency is for an under-exposed image that is easier to rescue / manage in post processing. Using an external exposure meter and keying in the shutter speed manually delivers a much more consistent straight from the camera result. This is the only area where I feel my M7 is "better." I find that in A mode, I chimp more and need to check the histogram whereas with the M7 I have always felt comfortable to shoot in A even if I prefer to set exposure manually.

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