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Using Exposure Compensation


bellaluca

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Hello-  I am using M10 now, been shooting only with M9 over the past 5 years and always raw.   Still only shoot raw, and mostly black and white but Curious feedback on setting exposure compensation in camera.   With M9, did not use any menu buttons, just expose for main subject and shoot,  curious on other M10 user thoughts who use these settings and feedback you have to share. 

 

Thank you!

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Hello-  I am using M10 now, been shooting only with M9 over the past 5 years and always raw.   Still only shoot raw, and mostly black and white but Curious feedback on setting exposure compensation in camera.   With M9, did not use any menu buttons, just expose for main subject and shoot,  curious on other M10 user thoughts who use these settings and feedback you have to share. 

 

Thank you!

So you just dive into the first thread you find and start typing regardless of the subject of the discussion? Feedback, I use all means available to get the best possible exposure.
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You can customize the wheel on the backside to work for exposure compensation (Menu > Customize Wheel). I guess this is the fastest way to use it. But I never need exposure compensation myself, because I always shoot in manual mode. 

Edited by evikne
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Shooting with the M10 or any digital would you say that it Seems that generally setting to a bit underexposed for optimal performance? 

 

With the files from my nine year old Canon 5D Mark II I could recover about 2.0 EV from the highlights. From the M10 I can recover only 1.3 EV before the highlights are blown out. In return it has much more to dig out from the shadows. So for the M10 I think it usually is better that the files are slightly underexposed than overexposed. 

Edited by evikne
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So you just dive into the first thread you find and start typing regardless of the subject of the discussion? Feedback, I use all means available to get the best possible exposure.

 

I think that this is a little harsh treatment of a new forum member and also someone who is trying to find their way into our Leica community.
Edited by marcg
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currently setting menu at EV -0.3    - for  slightly underexposed

My experience with the M10's light meter is that it usually makes the images slightly underexposed with the standard settings. So I don't think it is necessary to set the exposure compensation to a lower level unless in situations where you really need it.

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With the files from my nine year old Canon 5D Mark II I could recover about 2.0 EV from the highlights. From the M10 I can recover only 1.3 EV before the highlights are blown out. In return it has much more to dig out from the shadows. So for the M10 I think it usually is better that the files are slightly underexposed than overexposed. 

 

I believe that this is not quite correct like that. Is it not rather the case that the sensor has a dynamic range that we do not know yet (until DxO Mark hast tested it). Within that dynamic range you are fine. I wonder now if the dynamic range of the so called "new" sensor is 12,5 or 13 or even 14 or more EVs. That is the whole point. And then it depends at what ISO settings we measure the dynamics. The higher the ISO the lower the dynamic range. Further when you look at the information that is in a RAW, there are much more details resp. data in the hights (right side of the histogram) than in the dark areas (left side of histogram). Therefor it is advisable to exposure as light as possible (move the histogram as far to the right as possible without toughing to the right); just not to blow the hights. This is called as well "exposure to the right" ETTR. 

 

Still the experience of evikne probably matches the experience of many users. The highlights are very delicate. Blown clouds can not be fixed any more. In landscape I started to do the following (manual settings): I measure first the sky and try to have the red bullet just red without any arrow. Then I give it an additional 1 ½ EV and with that setting I shoot then the landscape. As a result the sky will not be blown and still the histogram is very much to the right without (or slightly) touching the right side. As the histogram shows a JPG and not the RAW in Lightroom I have enough possibilities to set the exposure right as a RAW has a reserve of about 2 EV over the JPG.

 

When you say that you generally you set your exposure at -⅓ EV then I would not advise to do that. It depends a lot on the situation.

 

Does that make sense?

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When you say that you generally you set your exposure at -⅓ EV then I would not advise to do that. It depends a lot on the situation.

 

Does that make sense?

 

 

Maybe I expressed a bit unclear. What I meant was that I think the M10's light meter is perfectly calibrated against the sensor, so that the highlights not are blown out. So any compensation is usually not necessary. 

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Maybe I expressed a bit unclear. What I meant was that I think the M10's light meter is perfectly calibrated against the sensor, so that the highlights not are blown out. So any compensation is usually not necessary. 

 

This is my experience, too. We are normally on the safe side.

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I would add it depends on which metering method you using. If not in Live View, as I suspect is generally the case for most M shooters, you have a classical center-weighted metering system and need to deal with the characters of that first and foremost. I find that matters more than a routine 1/3 EV bias one way or another.

 

If in Live View with multizone metering, things are completely different. But I don’t have enough experience in that mode to offer specific comments.

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